Apollo cost around 2% of the US federal budget at its peak. In individual terms, if you earn the current US median income of ~$43,000/year, that's less than $1,

Apollo cost around 2% of the US federal budget at its peak. In individual terms, if you earn the current US median income of ~$43,000/year, that's less than $1,000/year, or $20/week. How many people spend at least $20/week on "wants"? The overall federal budget was much smaller then, too. If we take the peak cost of $3 billion/year, adjust it for inflation (about $23 billion/year), and divide it by the current federal budget, it would be 0.6%, or the equivalent of $5/week for someone earning the US median income. How many people spend that on "wants"? And, it probably wouldn't cost nearly as much if you did it today. SpaceX projects that development of their Mars rocket would only cost $10 billion total, and it would easily be capable of lunar missions. SpaceX tends to miss their time-related goals but hit their cost-related goals, but even if they're off by a factor of 2, it's still way cheaper. Obviously we don't want to spend even that much, collectively, on doing it, otherwise we'd be doing it. But IMO the "what percentage of your savings would you invest in this?" question just shows why we should. It's utterly insignificant on the scale of national expenditures, and the results would be far better than you'd get from another squadron of F-35s or whatever.