A country that survives intact. You and I both know without a strong USA, that venture would not happen.
Like I said... 99.999% of the world's population would never benefit from the existence of a tiny outpost on the lunar surface, other than -- I suppose -- taking comfort in knowing a barely measurable sliver of it might survive for a little while after the inevitable asteroid hits earth.
Which it won’t do if you insist on looking at your toes instead of the sky. You and I both know that the situation down here will NEVER be perfect, if we’re not going to venture to the stars until then we might as well just commit suicide because the country can’t survive longer than the planet... unless we get some part of it OFF THE PLANET.
It’s not about the ones that stay behind. Again, it’s colonization NOT RELOCATION. We get to the moon, we learn, we grow, we get someplace else in the solar system, we learn, we grow, eventually we get OUT OF the solar system. Then and only then do we actually have a country that survives. That barely measurable sliver can get big fast. The Europeans colonizing the New World we a barely measurable sliver at one point, now look at us.
You’re obsessed with the short game. It’s sad really. Your mentality is self defeating and doomed. LOOK UP, it’s a grand and wonderful universe and your thinking is keeping us out of it. We will DIE FOREVER if we think like you. None of it will matter, every problem you’re trying to solve will destroy us because it’s keeping us from solving the only problem that actually matters.