[CocaKoala]

> You could do a better job just taking the money spent on space exploration, and opening some innovation/invention centers.

That is an extraordinary claim that I'd like to see some evidence of. Having an end goal presents you with a number of problems to solve, which then give you an opportunity to innovate. Simply throwing money at somebody and asking them to come up with something doesn't seem like it would be nearly as productive as saying "We need to put a man in space and have him not die and then have him come back to earth and not crash" and then breaking that down into the smaller set of problems which need to be solved for that to happen.