We could have colonized Mars with the money we spent on the Iraq war -- what else could we do?
we could have bought with the money wasted in Iraq: for example, we could have sent a colony of over 500 astronauts to Mars, provided modern nuclear power to the USA and shut down its coal plants, built modern cities for 600,000,000 Chinese people to live in..
LOL, I just noticed this. Yeah, we could be doing all these things, but you think private corporations whose main goal is to make money and invest profitably for their private shareholders are going to put the good of society first? Yeah, right!
Indeed one of the reasons space exploration has halted is because it's not profitable for corporations. It's no coincidence most of the achievements in space exploration were achieved by the Soviet Union.