According to NASA, the cost of a 20 year long program with the goal of going to Mars would cost $80–100 billion

In perspective, the pet food industry is about 100 billion dollars per year. Not counting the pet waste industry, the pet cage industry, the advertising systems that coerce people to spend money on other things that they don’t need…

I think 5 billion per year isn’t very much to be keeping people motivated to go to school for science instead of sitting around making cat videos.