exploring the world brought us coffee and chocolate and other cool stuff. Imagine the cool sh*t we can exploit on the back of our space colonies and their labour force. I want me some space chocolate.

[Link]

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.

Ironically, the USA space effort was a result of recruiting German rocket engineers after WW2. An instance of the Arms Industry benefitting mankind.

The amount of money spunked on space exploration is still very large. From a personal perspective, I only see diminishing returns for future missions.

We might be better off spunking the cash on trying to sort our own planer out,....but perhaps that is futile too

Edited by Forest Hillbilly (29 Sep 2017 9.19am)

I disengage, I turn the page.

Well yes and no, those rocket scientists were borrowed by NASA, but the reason they were rescued from war crimes trials, wasn't the space race - It was to build missiles: the German V2 missile scientists were very sought after - once their use was largely done with, they were shifted into NASA etc (or in the case of one Nazi Rocket Scientist, the Disney Science show).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Von Braun was always obsessed with space flight from a child. He was in rocketry for his own purposes but circumstances dictated his work on the V2 for Hitler.
He plotted to go to America way before it happened but they obviously wanted rocket technology primarily for military purposes. The leap to space flight was inevitable, it having potential military and propaganda value.

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (29 Sep 2017 4.52pm)

NASA's budget, at its height in the mid-1960s - i.e. when they were hell for leather to the moon - was less than 5% of the total national U.S. budget. For the vast majority of its existence, it's been a fraction of 1% of the total budget. [Link]

By way of comparison and contrast, the U.S. military budget is more than half the total.

We don't do possession; we do defense and attack. Everything else is just wa**ing with a football.