the tech to safely establish human beings on mars would be very, very useful because of what it implies we'd also be capable of here on earth. the number of engineering and scientific challenges to doing that are not trivial, to put it mildly. thus, if we are advanced enough to solve those we are advanced enough to address a hell of a lot of scarcity here too. in terms of energy production, medicine, food production etc if we could cost-feasibly scale up to mars colony levels, the standard of living on earth would probably be amazing. might as well solve global warming by just having less sunlight via dyson swarms at that point, why not?
i don't see why mars should get special emphasis, or why sending people/colonizing there has particular benefit over alternatives though. and it's probably worth applying the relevant advancements on earth as a priority.
i suppose it also depends on what you mean by "our times". if you mean "the existence of humanity as a whole", at some point in the very distant future we will either leave earth or get roasted trying, in a literal sense. i don't think humans will look too much like they do now by then, but who knows.