Those who do not see the need for an ongoing, highly funded and supported effort to explore space and develop interplanetary and interstellar travel are severely shortsighted.

• The development of space travel and exploration technology also has the side effect of increasing our knowledge and technology in fields such as medicine, biology, nanotechnology, and many others. Great — and even trivial — technological advances are often based on the technology developed for space exploration and experimentation.
• The long term goal of space exploration is to eventually populate other planets, not just study them. In order to succeed as a species when our sun transforms into a Red Giant in roughly five billion years, we need to make significant advances in space travel in the next several thousand years. These advances will serve as a basis for the immense task of moving out into the galaxy and populating other places. If we want to prolong the existence of our species, we must figure out a way to travel to and survive on other tellurian planets.