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Hmm so far only 2 haters...the first 2 replies. I love how people are always asking "what are the benefits of space exploration?" Well one poster put out a nice list of all the spin-offs we have thanks to the space program. Plus, the way I look at it is that we are only in the infancy stages of exploring space and possibly exploiting the resources on another planet or asteroid. To draw a parallel to something more terrestrial, what we have as far as manned spacecraft are like small sail boats. Now, you can't really cross an ocean in a small sail boat and expect to be able to establish a colony and exploit new lands for financial gain. That took hundreds of years of technological advances to get to the point where you can turn on the investment.
The idea of the moon base is to learn to live on the surface of another world that is not Earth. Having a moon base will give us the experience we need to ensure success and minimize risk for a Mars mission. Also, the Lunar dust can be processed into useful resources such as hyrdogen and oxygen.
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