Just remember this 2 Trillion is spread over many counties, I think it is somewhere near 30 that are in on this project. Most think it is just the USA and Russia, because we are the 2 major countries that are up there and we are the only 2 counties that have spacecraft that can go to the Station. Each load that goes on the Shuttle or on the Soyuz is billed to what ever counties has that load on that spacecraft. Point the USA and Russia are not paying 1 trillion each, the cost is spread over many counties.
This type of talk is what stopped the Moon landings and we are missing allot because of that.
One major thing is He-3 (Helium-3). Helium-3 is what in the most part powers the Sun. Point, if we would have never stopped going to the Moon we could have taken He-3 from there (the moon is full of it because of no atmosphere to burn it off) and solved all our power needs here. Instead using the duty fuel of Nuclear, we could have been running He-3 power plants... He-3 has no dangerous wast like Nuclear dose.
Another... Stepping stone to other far out places, yes we could have been stepping on Mars by now.
It is very hard for "us" to understand how important it is for "us" to start exploring the outer reaches of space. We will not see it in our life time, but one day this big blue marble is not going to let us live here, so we must travel into space to find other life and places that we could go if man kind is going to survive. If space exploration is ever stopped, then one day man kind will no longer exist, that is if it isn't to late already.
Just 2 more things I would like to add to this and I wont be posting anymore because I know where this kind of thread leads to.
1... If you think man kind is the only life in this universe. Then I feel sorry for you, your mind is to shut down to understand anything I posted above.
2... God is not going to save us from what sooner or later is going to happen, one day the earth will die (1 minute from now or billions of years), either by nature or by man kind itself. If we are not set to travel away from this planet, man kind will die with it.
There is so much more I could type, but allot of it is what "I think" so I will end it here. But I can tell you this, I do believe in "my" life time (I am 42) I will see a major life change to man kind, what that will be I have no clue, but for all of us I hope that it is a good thing and not a bad thing.
Good luck with this thread and your personnel thoughts of what will or will not happen.