ROI

Return On Investment.

So what has NASA and the space community done to provide ROI to the taxpayer
lately.
Especially now that we find out that Moon Bases and Mars Landings have been
doable for a quarter of a century? With just a bit of Shuttle lego
required...

Space has NOT been opened up for manned space EXPOITATION.
The Apollo on Steroids will do NOTHING to alleviate this.
It will be a magnificent STUNT.
Once Mars has been acheived, and the last of the Apollonian Gods returned to
write their memoirs, there will still be no manned space Exploitation.

And the real important questions will still be unanswered!
Like, how do we LIVE in space and prosper?
Like, how do we make stuff, and engineer solutions.
No real technological breakthroughs will be made - just a bit of refinement
of technology that dates to the 1900's, and was done like a stone axe
because of time and budget constraints.

So privatise NASA - make it an EMPLOYEE owned enterprise - like the SAIC
(they are the guys that used to own the guys that used to own the internet).
Let the employees benefit from patents and IP and profits.
Actually give the taxpayer and the citizen TANGIBLE benefits from all that
investment!

If NASA keeps space all to itself, without involving the greater bulk of
society far more than it does, then it is DOOMED.

And so is the future of space exploitation, at least from an American
perspective, anyway.