[raamdev]

This reminds me of a letter that was written by a NASA engineer in the 1970s in response to a nun in Africa who was questioning the value of spending billions on space exploration.

> In 1970, a Zambia-based nun named Sister Mary Jucunda wrote to Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, then-associate director of science at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in response to his ongoing research into a piloted mission to Mars. Specifically, she asked how he could suggest spending billions of dollars on such a project at a time when so many children were starving on Earth.

The letter is well worth the read: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html