While the author was a tad harsh in his critique, he made a lot of excellent points. On the other hand, you merely called him a name and mischaracterized his essay.
Perhaps, yes, we are hard-wired to hike to the top of the hill to peer into the next valley, or sail on the ocean until land recedes from the horizon. But that doesn’t mean we have to spend billions of dollars a year groping in the cosmos so that thousands of bureaucrats can keep their jobs. Bumbling in space costs money this family doesn’t have.
Our government needs to understand that there is no glorious future in space because they already spent it generations ago. As long as the welfare recipient is clogging the line in Wal-Mart, wasting my precious life because she did not select the precisely correct kind of generic condensed orange juice or the 2% milk instead of the approved whole milk, I refuse to think grandiose thoughts about sending some slick {retracted for profanity} astronaut to Mars.
And another thing, if the moon were made of purest refined plutonioum (much less cheese), it would still not be profitable with current technology to go fetch it. If we survive the Great Socialist Economic Implosion, then NASA resources should be spent on finding the cheapest way possible out of the gravity well and making it cheaper. We need a Northwest Passage or a Panama Canal at least, into space.