[Utah-astronomy] Re: NASA's purpose?

Chris Clark wrote:

...In other words, what do you (we?) expect to "get" out of our collective spending on NASA's activities?

How's about the laying of the foundation of future (and to some extent, current) private investment in space? IMHO we all owe NASA and the world's other space agencies a big thank you for getting us into space. But while government will always have a place "up there" it's private enterprise that will really push things up there in the future. Patrick