[ars]

> I'd love to see military budgets (as one example) plowed into aggressive space research and exploration

Interesting example - because they are. The military is responsible for a lot more research than is immediately obvious. All you have to do is come up with some plausible military use (offense or defense), and you have a chance for funding.

I've seen projects with just the barest hit of possibly being militarily related get funded by the military.

I get the feeling the military knows they are overfunded, and they try to make up for the lack of funding in other places.

Or perhaps the military likes being over funded - so when they need it, they have it. But the rest of the time they can fund other things (and presumably cancel them in an emergency).

[prawn]

I'm talking about the 'fighting' part of the budget more than anything else. How much money and effort around the world is spent on destructive or defensive behavior rather than constructive or exploratory action?

[ars]

Very little. Most of the military budget goes to research of one kind or another. The rest goes to pay salaries for all the military employees.

[prawn]

Are you just making that up? R&D is around 10% of the US military budget (and the US military budget is roughly 50% of the world budget).

If the construction, deployment, staffing, etc was pointed towards space research and exploration, we'd be able to push forward all sorts of projects.