We cannot even talk about Mars until we have the technology to establish a colony on the Moon, we got there and then went nuts on the shuttle program, which is good for close stuff, but we just quit the Moon program. Un manned probes have learned a lot but we have not even sent one of them to the moon. I think it will take 20 to 50 years if we have the money to do it. But if all we are going to do is go and then spend 40 years saying "we made it" it is not worth the effort.

lets get the economy under control before we go to frolic on mars