Hello,
Last friday, I went to the Seneffe castle and saw balloons being lifted and there came our astronaut Frank De Winne with our Prince Philippe.

The purpose of that meeting was a conference about what we spend on space and is it worth it.
First, Frank believes learning how to go to Mars will be done by longer stays on the Moon rather than flights to asteroids.
Everybody was disappointed NASA was not interested in international cooperation for the Vision of Space Exploration (the ESA was not asked).
Every belgian spends 16 € per year in space as tax money and Belgium is also a country which gets its best return for space investment, within the ESA.
It is also important to improve the ESA image and media contacts (no ESA TV exists, yet). And to understand manned spaceflights are not meant for science and technology alone but also for other reasons like inspiration, long tem visions.

Raoul