I certainly wouldn't say foolish - unless you consider the Apollo program foolish. (And we know what happened there).
I wouldn't call astronauts who end up on the ship to Mars nutters, anymore than the big shot fighter jet pilots who climbed over each other to get an Apollo mission were nutters.
Given the research, which is ongoing, into the many technical, physical and psychological problems that will need to be overcome before any meaningful missions takes place (I have been lucky enough to have been privy to some of the data already gleaned) - but - there are clearly significant hurdles we need to overcome. And lie Apollo, it's unlikely every single one of those potential problems will be solved prior to launch.
I certainly wouldn't call a Mars project foolish. But it will of course be dangerous.
Brave, dangerous and inevitable.
btw - I personally think rather than targetting Mars directly, it would be an important (yet maybe prohibitively expensive) test of technology to go via the moon.
It's extremely likely that there will now have to be a 1G gravity simulator (AG)on the craft - the sheer physical decimation of 16 months (return trip) in microgravity will be terrible - the comparatively good gravity on Mars may turn out to be just enough to sustain bone and muscle mass to preserve function along with exercise - but clearly, we can't know that yet. Either way, the 16 month return trip would be prohibitive without AG.
Finally, come guys - I think it's really quite apparent that probably the most stringent testing for crew will be the psychological testing. I.E. someone saying "want to go to Mars because earth is ****" is just not going to cut it. There are now some interesting data from the experiment which I've heard anecdotally - but we will have to await the publication of the data:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/hi-seas...ation-mission/
