My inner devil's advocate says: is that the spirit of spending massive amounts of money on one-upmanship and buying votes* ? ;-) In reality, I don't have a str

My inner devil's advocate says: is that the spirit of spending massive amounts of money on one-upmanship and buying votes* ? ;-) In reality, I don't have a strong opinion on this. It would be amazing to see humans reach Mars in my lifetime, but I can see why governments aren't pouring money into it. * From the Wikipedia page Moon Landing: "Mindful that the Apollo Program would economically benefit most of the key states in the next election—particularly his home state of Texas because NASA's base was in Houston—Johnson championed the Apollo program."