[RightWhale]

You know I would build a permanently manned base on the moon and begin mining asteroids. However, we are entering an era of war and that will consume all our energy for many years. As soon as the war is over, and Americans begin to feel like Americans again, then I would immediately begin exploring and colonizing out into space as the #1 national priority.

Outer space is America's destiny. Not Russia's destiny, not China's or India's or England's destiny, America's destiny.

[discostu]

I'm not sure war is a good excuse for not doing a big project. The greatest era for these structures was the Depression (Golden Gate, Sears Tower, Empire State and Mount Rushmore), we always seem to be able to scrape up the resources when we need them (because we're America dammit, see how that works). Permanent manned base on the moon is pretty cool. I've always been partial to suspension bridges, I'm just not sure we actually need anymore... of course that never stopped us before. Here's something that would really piss off the tree huggers: a suspension bridge over the Grand Canyon, at it's widest point of course. Space is important though.