"Showcasing US power" is what non-Americans are taught to believe it represents. That's what space meant to the Russians - not America. One merely need read the foreign press and the leftist US press to here the "Space -it's a waste" song and dance routing targeting the poor of the world -the Chavez interpretation of US programs and activities.

We never should have given up the moon. Trying to bail out the French imperialist rubber colonies in Indochina depleted the spare change coffers and so Nixon decided to shut it down and get the US off the gold standard (Bretton Woods System) at the same time, 1971, allowing US to print more money without having matching funds payable in gold at Fort Knox and other bullion reserves. A depressed economy is always politically dangerous.

The US has a responsibility to do what other nations can't. It's not a real obligation, but rather a moral one. The same reason we clean up the worst messes in the world and are always first on the scene with emergency aid/ food and relief all over the world.

We've been to the moon. We know what to expect. We need to keep industrial capacity alive here in the US and a healthy space program DEMANDS increases in our know-how and technical ability to design and improve various technological fields and manufacturing processes. Space exploration is good for our economy in ways folks don't measure and is one of the reasons the US always held a technological edge. Since the days Wernher von Braun and other German 'bright boys' were for all intents kidnapped and brought over to the USA to improve our technological proclivities, the US has had an edge and it continues. For freedom's sake around the world, folks should hope we keep this edge. manned space exploration or global tyranny? Amazingly...true!

Plus, if we don't do it now - we may never get back into space. Why? Because the masses of poor, uneducated folks are reproducing around the world at a rate 100:1 over the educated, technologically minded empire builders. These masses will eventually just demand handouts, food and medical care.

Every day the global IQ gets lower. Think about that for an hour or two.

The smart elites get smarter, but the disparity between the no-nothings and know-everythings is larger than ever. The smart are becoming statistically insignificant.

If it's populist thought - that can really be translated to - ignorant thought.

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton et al could only thrive in such a world.

The physics of the equation is increasing exponentially at this point against space exploration and the goals of advanced minds. The leftists (the workers parties) all over the world naturally feed the poor what they think they like to hear ("Space is a waste of money! USA is a wasteful, resource hogging devil!") This media/leftist anti-space ignorance is to be expected and is universal, even here in the US. So the US space program is waging its own war against the global leftist propaganda that constantly denigrates space exploration and especially manned space exploration, trying to indoctrinate the masses against the technological endeavors that will only serve man in a million different ways in the future.

The proletariat strikes again.