priorities
"$72 billion more for the Iraq War, or just a few billion to explore the
Sol system? What and where are our priorities these days?"
Our priorities are immediate survival, then long-term survival. So SOME funding (and not a paltry amount, either) goes for exploration, and most efforts go to keeping fascists and fascist-appeasing at bay abroad and at home.
Compromising our essential liberties -- like the cowardice in obeying murderous mobs who demand we not print what we want in our own newspapers because their masters don't like it -- is the long-range doomed strategy, IMHO.
Off topic, but the comment deserved an answer -- just not an extended argument.