NASA barely has the funds to complete the ISS. NAS has had to chose between
a Europa Orbiter & the Pluto/Kiuper-Belt
Flyby mission due to a tight budget.

Advanced projects, like colonies on the Moon and Mars, etc., are suppposedly
'fantasies' because the money supposedly isn't there.
Really? Then how come I saw a figure quoted on a TLC program about the LAPD
that indicated that illegal narcotics
are costing the US economy [get this!] 110-billion dollars, annually!

Un-be-liev-a-ble!

The US government is drained of, and or denied, 110-Billion dollars in revenue annually because of illegal drugs?

Let's assume that [hypothetically] 90 percent of that
110-billion dollars [annually] were to go into education, energy, medical research & healthcare benefits, pure science, military improvement & modernization, environmental cleanup, and government debt payments, that would leave eleven billion dollars[US], annually that could go into ambitious NASA projects...like a Moon base; and
startup funding for a manned Mars mission in the near-future.
Eleven billion dollars in additional NASA funding [ANNUALLY] would more than
DOUBLE it's budget.

cheers.
------------------------------------

Now about the economically draining
problem of illegal narcotics:
You're gonna ask, what can we do about
the drug problem?...
I think there maybe
partly a technological solution [DEA versions of the LACROSSE & KEYHOLE
spysats?], partly a bio-engineering solution [manipulating the DNA of the coca-plant to produce a harmless strain?] partly a social-political "carrot, not stick" solution that would
entice crackheads with better offers
than they're receiving now.

Too simple! Maybe! I'd like to hear your solutions then.

cheers.

Jacob