So earlier this week NASA, who have a pretty good idea about these things, announced that they will be authorising the launch of the first of a series of rockets to prepare for a manned mission to Mars. If computers were better and more capable they would have been sent. Firing a living thing millions of miles into space is awkward and expensive. Therefore, there has to be an advantage in doing so. I'll suggest that people are being sent because they have a greater chance of dealing with what cannot be foreseen. It's certainly not for the ride as the service levels will be worse than that endured by LoCo SLF - except for the fact they won't be bothered by cabin crew flogging scratch cards. Unless if course NASA will try to offset some of the mission costs...