"Lee" wrote:

The point being a country has a limited amount of resources/wealth at its
disposal.

There's a science called 'economics' that you might want to look into a
little more deeply. Resources are not equivalent to wealth. Wealth is
not limited the way you seem to think it is.

If a country spends more than it takes in from its citizens in the
form of taxes it acquires debt. This debt must be paid. Now a country could
borrow money from its citizens or from another country or it could sell
resources oil, coal, land or any government item, whatever has value. In
anycase, too much debt limits a countries choices.

I think you might be confusing the terms 'country' and 'government'.
I'm also a little curious about how much valuable government property
you think the US has at its disposal. There's not a lot of 'industry'
included.

Here is the full text:

I read it the first time. I understand it the same way I did then.

Figures as high as 600 billion dollars to put humans on Mars isn't exactly
chump change [1]. Yeah, and the war in Iraq isn't cheap either. A few
billion dollars here a few billion there and pretty soon it adds up to a
bankrupt country.

I can see it now in big headlines the "US space industry is sold to China to
cover its debt". Yes, it's far fetched, and the US people wouldn't allow it,
but you get the point.

Repeating it doesn't make a point appear where there was none before.