Anything - including flight to and colonization off Mars - that moves humans closer to building mega scale space habitats is an important step forward. Thats where the road to immortality ultimately leads for humans as a species.
And possibly for individuals as well, given the potentially almost limitless resources available in Space.
One thing I've seen becoming a spacefaring civilization explained as is a "coming out of the cave" of sorts, which doesn't line up perfectly but it's not far off. The species' possibility space will be severely restricted so long as offplanet infrastructure is limited.
We can’t even not fck up our very own and livable planet, it’s just naive to think of colonization. We will kill ourselves much much earlier than that.
And possibly for individuals as well, given the potentially almost limitless resources available in Space.