I am an engineer, I grew up dreaming about space, reading stories about the Apollo program and all. I would give up a lot to train as an astronaut and go to the Moon, so I totally understand why the people involved (including the astronauts, of course) love the idea.

But this is all paid by the public, and I don't get why the public would want to pay for that in 2026. Ok, it was exciting in the 60s. But now we know "it's just an expensive engineering problem", and it's virtually not bringing anything useful that couldn't be developed without wasting so much money into sending a handful of enthusiast humans in space.

I mean, by 2050 (or probably earlier, look at the news these last few years) it's likely that we will all have global instability issue: global warming, mass extinction, end of abundant fossil energy. Individually, each of those problems is life threatening. But somehow the people is agreeing to paying billions for... sending a handful of enthusiasts to Mars?

I just don't get it.