Has space travel ever achieved anything?

Today was supposed to be the day that America would be returning to the moon after an absence of nearly three decades. However the date has been set back and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (which is intended to orbit the moon and chart it) has been delayed until the new year. The move will drive the price of the expedition up to a whopping $491 million. America is a country with rising utility bills, increasing levels of unemployment and the worst financial recession since the wall street crash and NASA wants to spend nearly half a billion dollars of state money to take photos of the Moon.

In 1961 President Kennedy told America it should achieve a successful manned mission to the moon by the end of the decade: 8 years, 25.5 billions tax dollars and 3 astronauts fatalities later this was achieved. What has humanity gained in the last 39 years as a result of Neil Armstrong planting the US flag in the Sea of Tranquillity? Other than a blow for US pride and distracting the US electorate from the controversial and embarrassing Vietnam War the lunar missions archived absolutely nothing.

The next step in the “Vision for Space Exploration” is to return to the moon (a feat already achieved five times between 1969 and 1972). Finally the final most ludicrous plan of them all is that an American should set foot on the surface of Mars by 2020. The total cost of the US lunar missions cost the estimated equivalent of $135 billion. Travelling to Mars is not as simple as travelling to the moon; whereas the Moon is relatively close (240,000 miles), Mars is a staggering 47,000,000 miles away. It would take an estimated three years to complete the journey (compared with a mere 12 days for the longest of the moon landings). It goes without saying that the billions (if not trillions) of dollars it will take to fund Bush' grand design could be spent on buying America out of it's current financial turmoil.