[mathw]

True, however if you want to be great on the world stage and have people look at you and say "wow they can do amazing things" I'm not sure landing on the moon really has much value. The obsession with beating China there this generation is certainly not very healthy, especially when it's built on a moon landing system that was primarily designed to keep space shuttle contractors in business.

Want to impress the world? End poverty. Advance cancer treatment. Build a viable nuclear fusion power plant. Make an HIV vaccine and sell it affordably across the world. We could be done with the Cold War-era rocket-waving.

[snapcaster]

>Want to impress the world? End poverty.

China didn't _end_ poverty but they did lift hundreds of millions of people out of it and i've literally never seen anyone outside of China give them props for it

[qcnguy]

Really? I've seen the opposite. They get way too many props for it given that the main reason China was so poor to begin with was their own cultural history. You shouldn't get credit for solving a problem you created for yourselves.