PS: If the Left's general fear is that a trillion dollars will be spend by the US on space related activity, then I would say it's a gross underestimate of the future costs. It's like being at the beginning of the 20th Century and saying the US govt plan of building roads for automobile travel will cost a MILLION dollars.

Seward's Folly, The Lousiana Purchase and many other "costly" government expenditures were ridiculed and poo-poohed by the masses. Yet we can't imagine a US without them now. In the future it will be hard to imagine mankind was ever limited to the earth! Thousands of years from now, anyone would hold the people opposing Bush's proposal with the greatest contempt and disdain. In fact, their opposing views would be interpreted as a form of insanity or suicidal dementia!

The move to sustainable manned exploration of space is the equivalent of the railroads, or the highway bill, except on a much more significant scale. If we wait until the price tag attached is exorbitant it scares everyone away - or when we literally can't go into space because we have overpopulated the planet - mankind will be doomed to die out on earth when our sun makes life here impossible in X number of years.

Is there even a price one can put on the value of sustaining humanity?

If this world whines and blows the biggest opportunity to take mankind into the infinite universe, until overpopulation or nuclear wars literally take away our ability to go into space - than this world is a dead end and is essentially awaiting the inevitable changes in our sun/planet which will make life here impossible.

The Russians want to help. The Chinese are moving in the right direction. No democrat president or congress will ever willingly support space exploration or advocate a manned return to the cosmos, as long as there exist an endless number of programs that can swallow up that money and return large number of votes. Poverty and disease will exist as long as man does. Anyone with 20/20 vision can see their focus is very narrow and has limited depth perception and will doom not only future generations, but will doom all of mankind!

This is the most powerful space message that our nation has ever signalled to the world, even bigger and grander than Kennedy's "We'll beat the Russkies" speech to congress. President Bush had absolutely no reason to promote this at a time when war expenditures were already being used to clobber him. However, this shows the underlying gumption that is within George Bush - and that despite it being unpopular politically he truly understands its significance.

I just can't fathom how many people want to not only look this ultimate gift horse in the mouth but are already setting the torch to it. This direction is a dream. It is the only direction that will lead to the visions of Heinlein, Asimov, 2001, Star Trek or any other futurist vision.

Mankind, in its ignorance, perhaps does have a suicidal quality. They lack that long-term perspective because they believe they are personally finite.*

Progress is not optional. Mankind cannot limit its exploration and discovery, ever.

SDAI-Tech1

*Whereas the truth is we will all have to live with the consequences of human inaction on an earth more resembling Dante's inferno than Milton's paradise if we do nothing now. ;-)