[dogma1138]

You need to feed the imagination and inspiration otherwise you don't have anything to strive for.

Same can be said about the vast majority of space related exploration.

But that argument doesn't hold water space exploration isn't even a rounding error in the budget of most nations including the US, not to mention their GDP.

And the technology developed for it is then used to improve life here on earth for a lot of people.

The ROI on NASA and other similar agencies world wide is pretty huge.

And even if it wasn't the 250m for a new space telescope won't improve the life of that many people.

Before you talk about cutting space travel maybe it's worth talking about not making another iPhone yet alone buying 2-3 fewer fighter jets.

One stealth bomber that will be (and is already) obsolete before the US would have to fight a war in which it might actually provide some advantage costs as much as sending an SUV sized rover to mars. And unlike a B2 bomber or its replacement the technology for Curiosity isn't classified for the next 10000 years.