"Useless" and "counter-productive" are value judgements, not objective conclusions.
My opinion is that landing humans on Mars could be the start of a new age of exploration, which would massively benefit humanity. And the risk of contamination is worth the potential reward.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it happens to be NASA's opinion as well.
Of course, not only they depend on it, but also they love doing that. And as an engineer of course I find it cool. That's not a reason to say it's useful though.
> landing humans on Mars could be the start of a new age of exploration, which would massively benefit humanity. And the risk of contamination is worth the potential reward.
How informed is that? Let me say two things:
1. There may have been life on Mars. That we could discover an analyse with robots. Now the day a human lands on Mars, this ruins it. If we ever find a trace of life on Mars after that, we will never know if we brought it there or not. In terms of science, that is a massive loss.
2. Are you aware that if we ever reach Mars, it's the final stop? The next solar system is more than 4 light-years away. At the speeds we can reach, it would take tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of years for a ship to get there. See the problem? And that's the closest one.
Going to Mars is not helping us go further: there is nothing further, just empty space. Unless we revolutionise fundamental physics (but sending humans to Mars does nothing in that direction, you need physicists to discover new theories for that).
So why go to Mars? You think we can bring an atmosphere there and make it like the Earth? We demonstrably cannot survive on Earth, and somehow you think that we can take an empty planet like Mars and build an Earth from scratch there? Really?
You prefer keeping Mars pristine, in case it has life. I prefer colonizing Mars, even if it risks contamination.
This is not an argument over facts. This is a difference in preferences. I'm not going to convince you to prefer what I prefer. And the reverse is also true.
NASA is currently following my preferences, so I understand your frustration. The only consolation I can offer is that landing humans on Mars does not guarantee contamination (and robots on Mars are a risk too). If there is extant life on Mars, it will be different enough to tell it apart from Earth microbes. And past life (fossils, etc.) cannot be destroyed by Earth contamination.
I am fine with your preference being "I don't give a shit, I find it cool to send humans there".
But you seem to say "this is just the beginning of space exploration, and it will bring massive benefits to humanity", to which I answer: you should probably read about it first.
> But as I said, this isn't an argument over facts.
That physics doesn't allow us to reach a planet outside our solar system is a fact.
My opinion is that landing humans on Mars could be the start of a new age of exploration, which would massively benefit humanity. And the risk of contamination is worth the potential reward.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it happens to be NASA's opinion as well.