[sillysaurus3]

As far as government coercions go, it's hard to understand how someone could have a problem with forcing people to give up money in order to develop the most important technology in the history of technology. Would you mind explaining your point of view in a little more detail?

There won't be a market for space travel until it's a reality, so this would seem to be one of the only ways forward.

[vonmoltke]

> it's hard to understand how someone could have a problem with forcing people to give up money in order to develop the most important technology in the history of technology

I'm not trying to defend stefan_kendall3's position, but you made a pretty large personal value judgement in that statement. You think this is "the most important technology in the history of technology"; many people don't.[1] In fact, many people think that human spaceflight, including some of the Earth orbit missions we already run, are a waste of valuable resources that should be diverted elsewhere.

[1] For the record, I think human spaceflight is pretty important in the long term, but disagree that it is most important area of technology. I think certain areas of medicine should be placed ahead of it, for example.

[sillysaurus3]

Good point! Thanks for the point of view.

I was genuinely hoping someone would provide a defense of stefan's position, but it's looking less like it'll happen. That's too bad, because it was a chance to learn something.