Chances of travelling to Mars by 2030

I absolutely love astronomy, but one thing has been bugging me. We were capable of travelling to the moon after quite the effort, but now, after this has been accomplished, it's as if space knowledge has been disregarded by the public. One of my hopes was future exploration on mars, but I truly cannot see that coming true, since Nasa is being threatened to lay off jobs, and astronomy is no longer a profitable career.

Opinions on our chances of landing on Mars in 20 years?

I'm of the generation who actually was alive when we sent our first person into Space ( Alan Shepard ) and got up very early the morning the last Shuttle came back to Earth. I am optimistic that we will some day send people to Mars and "return them safely" ( John Kennedy ). However, I am also a realist and as stated, politics rules what we get to do. Think about it - Look at what Congress has 'done for for us this year'!! Does ZERO top the headlines of your newspaper???

Twenty one 30 might be a more realistic time frame for a Mars mission. And yes, if I could - I'd go.

I agree that we lost some very special people trying our hand at going into space, however the rewards to mankind and the world made up for that and we learned from the experience. We stretched those Shuttles to the limit. What we did NOT do was build a replacement for them. Which shoves us right back into the hands of the Russians. The politicos of that era must be just laughing their asses off. and we deserve it.

I love astronomy also and cosmology, but to be honest keep in mind that the only reason we went to the moon was because of the space race with Russia, this was all political and had very little to do with the exploration of space and more about a political agenda. I highly doubt that they will ever travel to mars because its cheaper, easier and less dangerous to just send probes, the idea of a human manned mission to mars is just more poetic than it is scientific, But i really hope i'm wrong but sadly i think i'm not. It does not matter if nasa lays off jobs because nasa is not the leader of science and there will always be scientist and private companies that can do just as well as nasa if not even better.