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Message: <blockquote data-quote="slobster" data-source="post: 8340570" data-attributes="member: 6693711">Even assuming that one doesn't see the value to Earth in doing things in space (which I covered a bunch in a longer comment upthread so I won't revisit that here), I've never understood why people who want to call out misspent money focus so vehemently on space research.Last year, NASA's budget was about $23 billion. SpaceX (which has made massive advances in rocket reusability and lowering launch costs) doesn't cost taxpayers a dime, other than in space launch fees for space station missions which is included in the above NASA figure, and is in fact a cash positive enterprise as it operates a very profitable business selling services to customers. So it isn't a drain on the economy any more than any other profitable business.For comparison, people around the world have spent approximately $23 billion JUST ON AVENGERS MOVIES (or I guess MCU movies). People spend about $20 billion on golf courses EVERY YEAR just in the United States. The United States spends $715 billion on defense every year, and the rest of the planet spends a combined $1200 billion on top of that. In 2020, countries exported around $80-100 billion in diamonds, a rough approximation of how much consumers spent on that. College football spends 18.8 billion every year in the United States, with $3.6 billion of that being spent on coach salaries alone!!The whole point of that rant was just to point out that we as a planet spend money on a lot, A LOT of things with a dubious return on investment. Is space devlopment, which is arguably a positive for the economy even over the short term, and which is a massive boon for planetary science and climate science, really the place to raise moral objections?Some food for thought!</blockquote>

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