Quote Originally Posted by Runaway Jim
NASA is one of the biggest costs in the US budget
No, that's just not true. NASA is tiny these days. They only have a budget of $16.3 billion. That's just $50 for every man, woman and child in the country. Nobody in politics seems to think it's very important.

On the other hand, the military has an annual budget of almost $450 billion (not including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars), amounting to $1500 per person, to build up and maintain a huge arsenal of weapons and trained killers so we can kick the shit out of other countries who are pissed off because we put so much effort into kicking the shit out of other countries, to maintain a nuclear arsenal capable of launching the planet into a nuclear winter that could destroy civilization as we know it. What the fuck are we doing?

We are the richest country on the planet, and what are we doing with our vast reserves of wealth? Are we feeding the poor, combatting diseases in the Third World, or assisting humanity in its transition to an interplanetary species? No. Our politicians are too worried about silly things like power and patriotism.

As Carl Sagan, my personal hero, put it:
The choice is with us still, but the civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky. In our tenure of this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage â?? propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders â?? all of which puts our survival in some doubt. But we've also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and desire to learn from history and experience, and a great soaring passionate intelligence â?? the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity. Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestial intelligence, and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours rush inevitably headlong to self-destruction. I dream about it, and sometimes they're bad dreams.