It's actually an interesting comparison. If the Queen of Spain circa 1500 had today's technology she wouldn't care nearly as much about Mars as she did then about India (sic) because extracting anything from Mars can't possibly be profitable yet. She wasn't in it for the science; she was in it for god, glory and gold, and not necessarily in that order.
On the other hand both Spanish capital and Columbus personally took a huge risk. They knew less about what lay ahead than we know about Mars. They new the rewards were high, but the risks were enormous.
Colombus and his band of scoundrels certainly took a huge risk. He was hell-bent on joining the aristocracy, and it seems to have made him willing to believe and argue things that a less motivated person might not have done.
Google says his whole expedition cost about 1.5 million maravedis. I'm not finding what fraction of the Spanish crown's budget that was. Do you know?
