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They're only wasteful if you ignore the scientific discoveries and inventions that came about because of the effort.

NASA is like the government's R&D arm with the excuse (marketing) that it's all about space.

I also think that the outcome value of going to space is far superior to spending those same R&D dollars on DARPA. Don't get me wrong, DARPA does make some cool tech...but instead of generating some science, some footprints, and a flag on the moon, and some rocket science to put communications satellites into orbit, those dollars in R&D put bullets and bombs into people, and prepare ICBMs to drop overseas. They're going to spend the money anyways, I'd rather they literally burn the cash than spend it on killing people.

I would say NASA is the public facing R&D arm. They also have DARPA as a more secretive R&D arm.

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