I absolutely agree with you. So many people think the space program is a waste of money, but we inevitably have to figure out how to get off this planet. Even if there's not an imminent catastrophe (and really, who knows?) we'll exhaust the Earths resources at some point. I do wish, though, that NASA would spend its funds more wisely, sometimes I think they fly to to space just because they have to look busy. I really don't think it's necessary that we send probes to murcury, or constantly fly up there to do little insignificant tests of this and that. When it comes to space, I say work on getting us farther out; otherwise spend the money on Earth-bound technologies and theoretical sciences (IE quantum mechanics).