In my opinion, NASA is sucking tens of billions of dollars away from our government that can be used for important stuff.
NASA serves no functional purpose aside from exploring celestial bodies so far away, are grandchildren will never set foot on them. And there is no point behind that. They say they are looking at other planets, especially Mars, because we are going to leave Earth and inhabit those planets. What is wrong with earth?! Life started here for a reason, not on Titan or some other moon.
If earth is such a bad place to live, then we should fix that before we go somewhere else and leave that place in total disarray as well.
In all honesty, we don't need pictures of places we will never reach in this generation. We need to fix the problems here before we go and make problems elsewhere. Discuss!
The problem with only having life on Terra is that we'll eventually run out of habitable space and either will have to exterminate large numbers of people, force them to have abortions (either way having to practice eugenics), or to colonise other planets.
Personally, I opt for the latter(er?). NASA won't help to that end, though. Only private exploration is innovative enough to achieve casual interplanetary travel.
Oh, and I mught as well get kick-ass wallpapers for my tax money. The celestial bodies are undeniably the most gorgeous things in the 'Verse, and I could spend days on end staring at them. Google Images search "NGC" and be amazed, terrestrially-minded Earthling.
Actually, one purpose of NASA's studies is to help understand how we can facilitate life in an extreme climate. One lab at my university, for example, discovered a compound in bacteria that allow them to live in very cold temperatures. Findings such as these can help us to improve life on earth.
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