[Mind's Eye] Re: are we as a global society moving forward or backward?

[Ash]

Without getting into the details of what's already been said I think you 
both Chuck and OM have it mostly right. A feasibility standpoint makes much 
exploration at this time have little returns in my op, but we should keep 
pushing forward. I thought radiation and rapid bone loss were big problems 
but these are things we can try to solve. All the more reason to make 
technological progress a very high priority. For one, time spent in space is 
hazardous so if we could launch from a tethered orbital space station and 
have some sort of elevator technology that would allow spaceflight at better 
than cruising speeds. Terraforming, colonization, and finding rich sources 
of materials in need, all of this could benefit from a large scale project 
evolving today's robotics and mini/nano-tech fields. This is why I think we 
should be working on both the human-space and industry-space equations, they 
are interreliant IMO.