While the technical achievement of a mission to Mars would be phenomenal, the danger involved in such a mission would be huge in comparison to those that didn't require descent into a deep and unforgiving gravity well.
Mars is also known to be arid and has a poisonous atmosphere so there would be a need to take every ounce of air and water required for the whole trip even if recycling was good..
Furthermore, the explorers of old didn't launch themselves on a journey into the unknown with a high probability of no return without first trying things out in more familiar and friendly local waters.
It's relatively easy to get a spacecraft down onto a planet. You can fall mos of the way. You just have to be travelling slowly enough that the last few feet are not a problem. Getting up off the planet later is however an enormous challenge.
A mission to Ceres in the asteroid belt would pose far fewer problems however. Ceres has water in the form of ice and so air, fuel and drinking water would be far less of an issue. Even rocket fuel can be manufactured by electrolysis using sunlight so a mission to Ceres would require far less material to be taken with the mission and the duration of stay could be longer and simpler.
We may not discover quite so much on such a mission but it would be far more useful from the point of view of learning how to do an interplanetary voyage.
Finally, getting off Ceres at the end of the mission would be a walk in the park in comparison to trying to loft a spacecraft from the surface of Mars back to orbit safely.
I strongly recommend manned asteroid missions before manned missions to Mars or anywhere with a significantly steep climb out.
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