Please see the following link: The Best of NASA Spinoffs. If you disagree so strongly with the money spent to date on a "single-minded technological forray with questionable benefits for the citizens at large", please do not use the technologies developed from such research.
If you think they are equivalent, you are delusional and can't be trusted with public monies.
In fact, I personally have saved the U.S. Taxpayer over $14,000.00 during the course of a very small research project for the U.S. Geological Survey. Can you say the same?
And your argument as to "know the value of" is a red herring.
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic.
I propose that you do not understand what consitutes a "red herring". The relative value and potential of acquired real estate (in this case the Louisiana Purchase) is hardly an irrelevant topic in connection with your previous statements.
Have you drilled under your property to check to see if there are any hydrocarbons down there?
A classic example of a "red herring" - thank you for providing it. BTW, we own our property down to a depth of 200-feet...fairly standard within suburban residential real estate. I know because this was one of my first questions at closing.