Yes, it really isn’t difficult to find someone to take either side of a claim. That happens every day. During the Supercollider vs Hubble debate, where the US

Yes, it really isn’t difficult to find someone to take either side of a claim. That happens every day. During the Supercollider vs Hubble debate, where the US government would only pay for one, I remember reading how unimportant Hubble would be. As for the race to the moon, I’m not sure where that stands as an investment. I’m certainly glad we did it because we still wouldn’t have done it. However, spending that large sum over a decade (2% of government spending a year?) is usually impossible to justify. We can’t say, for example, “Before this decade is out we will… [insert bold goal]” But hey, even if that goal was to cure cancer(s), it wouldn’t be inspiring enough and most would say it’s impossible. In the end, we’d have to settle for simply cutting the numbers of deaths dramatically