In my opinion, before a man can walk on mars and return to earth alive, there must be a permanent or semi permanent manned outpost on the moon. Maybe some kind of station orbiting mars too.
That’s what always made sense to me as well. A long time long shot trip straight from Earth to Mars is not the best way to go. Getting to Mars should be like mountain climbing: one builds base camps along the way to have a fallback position. Then one goes for the summit.