[TheDaVinciChode]

TW - You really are an ignorant little thing, aren't you?

You didn't pay attention to a word I wrote... Which is terribly sad, and shows how closed-minded you are. Must be all the shit clogging your ears from having your head so firmly shoved up your arse, for so long.

It is NOT just about numbers. It is NOT just about pure science. It is about exploration, it is about doing something, reaching outwards... These are things that machines CANNOT do. They can explore, yes, but, not in the true sense of the word. That's like saying "I watched The Discovery Channel, and explored The Amazon Rainforest." You didn't explore it, you didn't interact with it, you didn't do anything other than sit on your arse, and see moving images of it, on a T.V screen. That is NOT exploration. What makes that so difficult for you to understand? Do you have a single human bone in your body? Are you that much of a bean-counting, fact-toting douche, that all desire for true, human exploration, human question, the quest for human knowledge, has been taken away from you?

Replacing man, with robot, will destroy mankind, in terms of exploration. We will create robots to do the menial jobs for us, so that we can spend more time doing exactly that - Explore, Discover, Question. Leave the ROBOTS to the bean-counting, to the number-crunching science. Leave the exploration, to the only creatures capable of doing so - THE HUMANS... because robots will never do it as we can. They'll crunch the numbers, they'll throw the facts... they won't live it, nor experience it.

You completely glossed over the fact that, in comparison to federal bail-outs, or America's swelling military budget, that $80 Billion is a few pennies... A few pennies, for something as extraordinary, as living in space, with multiple nations, performing experiments (no matter how "mundane," if that is what you believe,) and partaking in a new frontier. How can that be a bad thing? It's not, that's how. Pennies, sir... pennies.

How sad your life must be, if you will try to take from that accomplishment, from the greatness of that human achievement, just because your Government doesn't allocate enough funds from its warmongering, to allow for Earth-based science, as well as extra-terrestrial exploration.

Humans explore. Humans ask questions. Humans seek that personal connection with anything.

It is in our nature. Why try to take away from that?

Much more money has been spent on failed projects, on warmongering, on bailing out failing businesses, just to keep the fat-cats happy. Complain about THAT money being poorly used, because, no matter what you say, you CANNOT justify a few pennies being "misused" to further the boundaries of human exploration, understanding... human nature. If you feel so strongly about the lack of science being performed on the ISS, stop seeing it as merely a "tool of science," and see it for what it truly is - A station, in space, where people live, perform experiments, observe, and... explore. It is not a robot, it is not a tool, therefore, it is not comparable to the Mars Rovers, nor the Hubble Space Telescope, nor any machine that you desperately try to compare it to, simply to pursue your pathetic agenda.