So, yes, you can feel free to be idealistic about the how -- putting someone on the Moon is the ultimate ideal fulfilled -- but you can't be idealistic about the why. The way we're going now, space travel will be a necessity, not a luxury. That's why I see it as a failure. Because we're not doing the former, so we'll have to do the latter.You assume that we give up on Earth if we ever leave for another planet? I see that as one of the biggest successes of our species should we accomplish it. Becoming an interstellar species would be a huge achievement.
Yes, it would. But the reason I assume a negative impetus for doing so is because that's what we've got right now. We've got overcrowding, we've got an inadequate food supply, we've got holes in the ozone layer, we've got oceans that will rise by 60 feet and drown most of Manhattan and all of Holland, we've got less species on this planet than ever before, we've got nonrenewable resources out the ass ...why can't we take care of Earth AND travel the stars?