Yes, but that's not the same as going there FIRST. As costs for Apollo were quite astronomical just for sending three guys to the moon for five days, going to mars would be a wholly different ballpark. Mars is what, a two-monthish journey, each way? Plus you only get two shots a year at that length of travel time, which means staying months at a time at a semi-permanent base on the surface.
So it would take enormous resources to bring such a project together, far more I should think than SpaceX can amass.
The soil is strongly corrosive to organic (human) tissue from what I read in an online article, which means some fairly advanced decontamination procedures for space suits and whatnot will be needed, or else mars dust could get into astronauts' eyes and whatnot and cause injury... Sounds pretty hellish, yeah.
Bah, what a trite perspective on discovery and progress. Clearly the result of a limited mind. The thing is, we're wrecking this place. If we don't get off this mudball while we still can, we never will.
