For centuries, man has looked up into the night sky and stared at the stars in wonder. Only in the past few decades has he been able to experience first hand the wonder of space and space travel. As interesting as analyzing "space dust" is, however the fact that the government spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on space travel would cause a sane person to become sick to their stomach. With million of under privileged families in this "great country", one would find it only logical to transfer the bountiful funds of the space program to a much more logical cause.
The greatest money grubbing agency of all time is NASA, although they have been given enough money to rebuild America five times over, they still complain and moan more and more. Just when you think they will shut up, they want to build a new 35 billion dollar rocket. With all of the low-income families I"m sure they could find some use for a little bit of financial assistance. The people though have no say at all about how that money is distributed since NASA is an agency they can literally do whatever they want with the PEOPLES money and not have to show us any progress.
What is extremely confusing though is our sudden interest in Mars. The Rover, the Probes, and Satellites sent to orbit the red planet, would cause Bill Gates to go broke, and gladly put every graduating high school senior through any Ivy League college. Maybe the geniuses at NASA have forgotten, but there is this place called planet Earth and it could use a little makeover. The fact that we blow hundreds of billions out into space, and then complain about our national budget or social security only makes us look more foolish. It is true that the space program has produced many useful items, yet we are no longer in the so called scientific Stone Age and the need for more efficient microwaves or tougher Velcro is kind of at a low.