Sure, there are some nice things which could be done, telescopes, living experiments, that sort of thing but nothing worth the cost.

In Kennedy's time it was to be FIRST. That was THE appeal. A collective ego trip. It wouldn't have been worth it to be second.

Were there ANY cost-effective reason to be there, the Moon would have been heartily worked over by now. But we got rocks on Earth, dust too. Lots of both.

There really isn't much for ISS to do, either. The goal was to build it, to have it, rather like a large diamond. It's about as pretty, and about as useful. An ego trip.

Space is fun, I'd like to know if there is life out there, as a believer in modified Panspermia, and we'll find our answers much faster without sending people. The only reason to send people is that same ego trip.

If we can't keep the planet to which we've spent a billion years adapting habitable, if we can't protect areas of it from outside influences, we can't do it anywhere else.

And I'm a believer that humankind hasn't demonstrated any right to not become extiinct than did dinosaurs. There really isn't anything sacred about humanity except for that ego which wants to think it is. Witness the Crusades, the current situation in Iraq. Not shining examples of man's more noble aspects.

'Nuff sed.

Arf