OT a bit - fly to the moon or Mars?

Jose wrote:
Well, a different different. That pioneer spirit remains, but
roadside repairs or finding an island with fresh water will be a
little more difficult now..

An unimportant difference. And btw "roadside repairs" are made all
the time to spacecraft, in the form of new computer instructions
beamed up from Earth. The tools have changed, but concept remains
true.

Apollo 13 would have disagreed, and had they been half way to Mars it most
likely wouldn't have ended as happily.
Computer script can't repair/replace big holes in the spacecraft, or a
multitude of other significant mechanical, electromechanical, electronic
failures that demand a physical replacement. Pre-space explorers usually
had the option of attempting a repair on the spot, even if it took days,
weeks, months "out of the box", and if push came to shove, get out and walk
or float, in later times fire off an SOS, enable the locator beacon, light a
fire, etc., and wait for help. Of course there were/are/will be exceptions,
but generally speaking, if the situation wasn't a cataclysmic event (broken
wheel, leaky boat, ate your last sled dog, etc.), they had other ways out.
If you're ten or twenty million miles from the garage and break down in the
most hostile, unforgiving enviornment ever imagined, you're pretty much SOL,
and that does make it very different in that regard, at least to me -
however, the indubitable spirit to go where no man has gone before, risk
taking, etc., lives on, and that'll never change.
Later our technology may catch up with our dreams, but can't see it
happening for a long time. Not counting all the fascinating information
coming from our robotic missions, I'm much more concerned about what's
happening in the space around the earth, than beyond the moon.