I could agree with your statement, but I'd stress that the flip side of that coin is the debt burden created by the state.

There is no free lunch here.

You and I won't be alive when that debt must be paid back. Our children and grandchildren will have subsidized our high-paying jobs with their higher taxes.

We will have stolen that choice from them, made it for them, and they will have to live with the consequences of our actions.

Maybe we'll have made the right call. Maybe we'll have made their lives better.

Maybe we'll have just made their lives more complicated. More dangerous.

Either way, we'll have taken away their choice of how much of their paycheck is devoted to the state's debt.

That's how government "races" work. We spend money we don't have, and ask future generations to pay for it.

I'd ask you, how do you like the choices your grandparents made for you? How do you like how much of your paycheck feeds your country's debts, or your country's military industrial complex?

I think I'd rather have had a say in those decisions my grandparents and parents made on my behalf.

But you are right - it has the potential to create a huge value chain with high-paying jobs. If they remain in the West....

To what end?

In a perfect world, a "moon ISS" would conduct science experiments and potentially mine He3 for use in fusion reactors. International cooperation would foster technological developments that will better life for all humankind.

But in reality, over the long term, the moneyed interests of our world will engage their respective governments to carve up the moons' resources via military control.

The same exact scenario is playing out in the Arctic ocean, right now.

China and the US want moon bases because, militarily speaking, virtually NO nation has the ability to project force on the moon. Moon based weapon systems would need virtually zero defensive protection, and would become the ultimate threat deterrent here on Earth.

Which would better enable the powerful interests within those countries to walk all over everyone else.

Our governments do not exist to serve you and I. They exist to further the agendas and wealth of the ruling class.

We do not go to the moon for the betterment of humanity.

We go to the moon for the betterment of the powerful here on Earth.

Some of us may be lifted up, economically speaking, as part of that process, but that's not the goal - that's a byproduct of the goal.

And let me be clear - I'm all for going to the moon and beyond. But sugarcoating the why of the thing, and the who will benefit the most - that doesn't help you make rational decisions in your own best interests.

What......what do you think a space race is?

What supremacy would Europe seek in space, with respect to China & the U.S.?

Our nations don't "race" each other because they just want us all to have better lives.

I agree that a true space race will usher in new tech, but only after wildly increasing the EU's debt burden (increased taxation) & making the world a little more dangerous to live in.