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You are questioning the relative merits of research which can propel the US far into the future versus sitting on our arses accepting the status quo.

Did you have to take engineering economic analysis as part of your geochem curriculum? Every engineering project public or private undergoes a detailed analysis of costs and benefits in light of the time value of money. It is something that engineers especially those who work in private industry are accutely aware of. Physics, chem, math and other pure science majors don't have to take even an introductory course and most opt not to because it is both demanding, and seemingly off the path of pure science. But engineers do. It is required at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Pure scientists scoff at the notion of considering such pedestrian concepts as money where you only round to two decimal places, rarely get to use scientific notation, and don't need solutions to the hypergeometric differential equation to understand. Thus they feel immune to it. Besides, the bean counters take care of that stuff anyway, just as long as the grant money lasts. Modern space travel and exploration is applied engineering. It is an engineering project, not a "science project", and in the true spirit of engineering projects needs to be considered using the bottom line. I'm sorry to pop your bubble but the crustal abundance of oxygen isotopes or a pretty xrd of montmorillonite ain't the end all be all. Things cost. That's just a simple fact of the real world. If you weren't so hung up on your geochemist shoulder chip, you might see a real world instead of one that owes you a living in the form of research grants. You aren't the only one who knows who Goldberg was, or can use Phreeq, or knows about lattice packing, or how to prepare an xrd sample. There is a word for financial undertakings that have no demonstrable downstream revenue that offsets costs either known or reasonalby conjectured. They are called hobbies. Another thing that I find disingenous to those who have to foot the bill is all this romantic talk of space colonies and so forth. C'mon people, you don't get it? The exploration of space since the Russians put up Sputnik is all about the militarization of space, plain and simple. If they'd at least come clean and say that without all the romantacising to enchant the taxpaying public, I'd be a bit less skeptical. But that's all it is, a military engineering project. It just happens to be up there and not down here. When the spot price of cataclastic brecciated basalt appears on the London Metals Market I will think of investing. But I reserve the right to invest or not.

The exploration of space since the Russians put up Sputnik is all about the militarization of space, plain and simple. If they'd at least come clean and say that without all the romantacising to enchant the taxpaying public, I'd be a bit less skeptical.

And the taxpaying public would promptly yawn and forget about it, ignoring any national security concerns. By the time the public is worried about national security it is too late.

And as far as cost/benefit, every civilization needs some mechanism for such pie-in-the-sky speculation. You don't bet the farm on it, but if you don't address it in some way your competitor will and if it pays off he will eat your lunch.

Speculation pays off in ways that simply cannot be seen by a cost/benefit analysis. All the noise about colonies, etc. is just applying the analogy of Columbus to space exploration. Reality may be nothing like that, but experience teaches us to expect great things from great endeavours.

Besides which, NASA is not going away and this money will be spent regardless. The question is not whether or not to spend the money, but how to spend it.