You are not going to Mars in a ship built on earth. If you are going to put Men on Mars, you are going to send them in a large ship, built in high earth orbit. Making it to Mars in a claustrophobic tiny ship is something the mind cannot handle. It might seem survivable in tests, but tests are far from the real thing.
When explorers landed in the new world, they found a habitable ecosystem there waiting for them. That will not be the case on Mars. They will need to have resources there, ready and waiting and redundant. Food, fuel, equipment and building materials must all be there when they arrive, if not already deployed by robots.
The large craft they covered the vast distance in, would remain in high orbit and be refueled and waiting for the return trip. The means of returning to high Martian orbit will already be there, landed on Mars by remote mission. Because the psychological benefit of such things will be immense and these travelers will need every benefit, psychological and physical, that they can get, or the mission is more likely to fail than not.
As costly as this plan will be, it far and away pales by comparison to what a failure will do both psychologically for the next attempt, and to the very idea of mounting another attempt. In addition to the above, there should also be planned regular arrivals of supplies following at 3 to six month intervals. This is not crossing an ocean, this is dealing with the most in hospitable environment of the universe, places that have been and are, unable to sustain life as we know it.
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