Waste of resources. Should have used these on addressing tissues that need immediate attention. NASA has sent many missions to Mars and to what avail? There is nothing on Mars and new expeditions are not going to find anything different. Of all kinds of research, space exploration is what is most useless in terms of absolute gains. It always makes me laugh when statements such as 'life may exist on this solar system or on that solar system but it will take us 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 light years to reach there' are made. What nonsense. When we look at a solar system that is certain light years away, we are actually looking in the past. A lot has had changed in the time the light from that system reached to us, and a lot more would be changed by the time we would (ever) reach to that system. These types of expenditures make sense when more immediate and necessary issues (such as clean drinking water, sanitation, poverty, shelter, health-care etc) have already been addressed (as is done in States or Europe) and surplus dollars are available for burning.
