[cromwellian]

It's not an either-or. This canard comes up a lot. The US federal government invests in an enormous number of things, think of it as a huge portfolio. NASA's budget is less than 0.5% of the federal budget, it's existence won't harm policies needed to mitigate climate change (e.g. carbon taxes), and indeed, a chunk of NASA's investment helps climate science.

[markdown]

Oh I didn't mean what you think I meant. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear.

I'm not one of those "why spend money on space when humans are starving on Earth" people.

My point was more about the actual technology required to terraform a planet. Why talk about terraforming Mars when our own would be saved by the same non-existent tech.

[cromwellian]

Oh sorry, my bad. I'm just triggered from seeing that argument so much. I agree, we need to terraform earth first. 1) stop the damage from getting worse 2) if it doesn't reverse itself, we may need geo-engineering, carbon capture, orbital mirrors, etc