I agree that the way we fund (and don't fund) programs is crazy. It will be a significant time before we colonize the Mars or Venus, and that's only within our

I agree that the way we fund (and don't fund) programs is crazy. It will be a significant time before we colonize the Mars or Venus, and that's only within our solar system. We're going to have to practice and master doing that before we can consider putting people in a giant can in space with zero guarantees that their efforts will succeed. I'm not trying to dismiss the value of it, just that we've got a long way to go and a lot of problems to solve first.