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{going to mars} But we are talking a massively expensive project...
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The answer is both simple and on-project: The Catholic Church should fund the next Mars mission. They've got loads of money, and a mission like this could really help improve their image of being out-of-date and out-of-touch. Nothing would bring them up to the cutting edge like a boundary-pushing science project.
I'm sure some justification could be invented: extra real-estate needed for the vatican, searching for heaven/ God, want to test the power of prayer at relativistic speeds... someone will think of something.
Once they've put the money in, tried the hardware and proven the concept, the rest of us can follow in their footsteps and colonise Mars.
It's not actually such a crazy idea: Way way back the church used to be at the forefront of astronomy and the sciences- until scientists started getting burned alive for discovering the wrong things anyway.