To play devil's advocate - there are a lot of people who would argue that the view: "Why would you do something with so many known and unknown dangers, when you could focus your energies on making a VR simulation of it instead?" also very sad.

I'm not saying we should shoot for Mars, just that until we reach the point of being able to do round-trips and step up the solutions, it sounds like an awful idea to go there. The VR is just a personal wish that I think would be great for not just Mars but all space exploration. I know that I'll never get a chance to visit the moon. But before we're able to engineer a roundtrip I could purchase, I know we'd be able to engineer a rig that could transmit a VR experience that we could all enjoy.

We need both - simulations and to go there in person. We used simulation even for going to the moon, it's going to be an essential tool for Mars as well.