Life on Mars

Some pieces of information about current and future missions to the planet Mars have hit the media lately. It has been for a few years now, but today it was made public an unsuccessful mission developed by ESA (European Spatial Agency). Basically, the plan was to put a robot on Mars and use it to collect and transmit information to the Earth to help the researchers to decide if there is life on Mars or not. It sounds amazing and challenging. However, to set up all these kind of projects it is necessary a lot of funds.
On the one hand, it is well-known the fact that investing in research and development for this kind of projects has a huge impact in our lives because of the future use of the technologies and scientific breakthroughs obtained during the path to achieving the goal. In fact, a lot of the commodities we enjoy nowadays are due to advances in science and technology achieved during the project Manhattan to build the atomic bomb, or during the Cold War in order to put a man on the Moon.
On the other hand, it is easy to consider that a lot of funds still can be destined to research and development projects aiming to improve the quality of life on Earth, taking into account all of the people living here, and our environment. This way, money would not be wasted and better investments would be made, providing benefits to a larger amount of people saving a considerable amount of capital in the process.
Following with the idea of not funding projects to travel to Mars or other planets that cannot give us shelter, it is fair to ask what the point of putting a human being on Mars is. Considering the climate conditions not suitable for human life, the scarcity of water in the liquid state, the lack of other raw materials needed to survive, the distance to Earth, etc. it is understandable to find this project a way to throw away a lot of money and resources that could help millions of people to survive, and have a better life here on our planet.
In conclusion, governments should be more concerned about citizen's needs and less about trying to achieve a place in history. It should be necessary to vote to decide on this kind of megaprojects.