[ohitsdom]

Seems like a huge waste of money to me. If you're interested in ET, why not invest in the space industry to advance our capabilities? It'll be hard to interact with ET when as a society we are essentially[0] earth bound.

[0] http://howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

[netcan]

I guess that's a matter of defining "earth bound." If we don't have people in space but we have probes on all the nearby planets, moons, comets and anything with enough gravity to hold one down, does that count as earth bound?

ATM, a manned mars mission is in the "very hard and expensive" file. Unmanned missions to anywhere in our solar system are doable on smaller budgets. We can use telescopes to look much further. In all cases information is being moved back and forward between earth and space.

[ohitsdom]

Agreed that manned missions are hard and expensive. That is an area that $100 million could help (even in a small way).

But even robotic missions are very limited. We just had our first flyby of Pluto (not an orbiter). Jupiter doesn't get an orbiter until 2016 (Juno). No orbiters around Neptune or Uranus. So, lots still left to explore and observe with probes in our own solar system.