I have argued this for years. A few months ago, I saw a political cartoon in the paper that said it all. There was a homeless man leaned up against a dumpster looking a newspaper with the headline, "NASA Spends $30 Bazillion on Mars". Or something to that effect.
Where does NASA get their money? Donations, the government? In either case, why do we need to explore Mars? Are we going to be living there one day? Ha, ha! I doubt it. Consider all the starving children of the world. Consider the countries that have no medicine or vaccines for their children. Consider all the homeless just in your city.
Couldn't $30 Bazillion do a little more than build broken buggies that run around a forsaken desert?
Consider the 8 year old girl in New York who was beaten to death by her mother's boyfriend because the case worker was over loaded and didn't have time to investigate.
Couldn't this money pay for more salaries for case workers? What do we need space exploration for anyway? WE ARE HERE! We live HERE! We are running out of trees and fuel and food and water. Meanwhile we're spending our money on Mars.
Yeah, that place look like a grand oasis.
