re: NASA's money
"NASA has used over 1/2 trillion dollars of tax payer money. 500 billion dollars is not pocket change. What has NASA done with all this wealth?"
It went to the Moon, it built 5 Shuttles, it went to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Eros, Gaspra, Ida. It developed great technologies like the SSME's. 400 humans went to space, at lesat one is permanently up there in the station, telescopes were sent to orbit to study the Universe, it also made mistakes, repaired them (better and safer rockets), etc.....and you say it squandered it.
Raoul