Well this is depressing. A report by the National Research Council has declared that in its current form NASA simply can't get people to Mars.
Commissioned by Congress, this $3.2 million investigation concluded that at present, NASA won't be able to land a person on Mars in a safe and sustainable way.
Discovered by The Washington Post, the report highlights the fact that NASA should be focusing all its efforts on getting astronauts to the red planet.
With commercial companies like Space X beginning to take over the role of transportation to orbit the report suggests NASA should then start focusing more on expanding past the moon.
That's not to say the moon hasn't been ruled out, in fact NASA had started looking into putting humans back onto the moon despite President Obama's pretty blunt view which is:
“I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before,”
Thankfully the current view of NASA is less positive towards the moon with the Washington Post reporting that NASA sees it as of little help when it comes to landing on the red planet.