Maxwell Render

I really like looking at some cool new pics from mars. And I totally admire the engineering effort of making this mission work, BUT: what is it really, apart from those pics and some rock samples? What can be gained apart from some interesting facts about Mars and it's past?

It's not like the early days any more when space technology could advance technology on earth. Because of all the reliability and necessary testing involved, the on-board instruments actually lag pro consumer products by a couple of years. The next big super computer isn't some specialized monster of engineering, just a couple of PS3 linked together.

Say, we find some valuable minerals up there, we'd still have no way to put them to use. Meanwhile we switch from one way to waste resources to another, totally ignoring that rare minerals sunk unrecoverably into PV-cells will probably not last as long, as the reserves of fossil fuels will.

The next step, sending a few people over there, will not solve earths population problem. Instead we find some large sweet water reservoir in africa and are happy to be able to sustain half of africa for 400years on yet another fossil source... then what?

I mean, there's so many, many unsolved problems down here on little earth. Why not break those frontiers first?

Scientific exploration for the sole purpose of expanding knowledge and understanding of our universe without profit as motivation... it's a freaking miracle in this day and age of money worship. This is what it means to advance the human race as opposed to only maintaining it.