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Prophetic and true! We could do it right now, if we wanted too, the point is, we don't have the will. Something significate will need to happen in order to push us away from Earth, and I suspect that when that happens, things will be so bad that no one will go anyway.
It is not just the lack of will to go to Mars, it is also the lack of technology. We don't have solved all technical problems yet. And we won't have them solved by just saying "Now we fly to mars". They are always waiting for us.
When the USA decided to fly to the moon, nobody really knew if this was possible at all. The goal was catchy it was selected. But nobody then came and said: We should cancel Mercury and Gemini and go directly to the moon.
It was understood that each Mercury and Gemini mission following the decision to go to the moon, was one important step forward towards the goal. NASA could not have done without them.
You also had only very few people really suggesting "We don't need Rendezvous & docking, we can do Direct Ascent." Most engineers quickly realized that LOR was the only way to go, and that mastering rendezvous and docking are important, critical steps towards the moon.
And so, you have to think for going to Mars. You can't just make one big jump and hope you can solve all occurring problems on the fly. Sci-fi authors have never had any clue on how many problems astronauts will really face.