I think that of course its too far away for a short trip.
But its not unrealistic to in terms of colonization efforts.
NASA did work the past decade on the VASIMR engine which in theory could reduce the travel time to mars to about 40 days (a bit more than a month)... thats a significant improvement to the 5 months (travel time varys depending on distance at launch) thats usually assumed.
And that engine is currently considered to operate in the "low energy area" (while low is a relative term considering that the plasma has to be heated to insane temperatures).
