[SteveA]

As much as I'd like to see people living on another planet, there does seem to be something wrong when we can't even keep 30 year old technology in the air.

I seriously believe we've lost a lot of good engineering talent. It's nice that Windows does so much but few people really know what's inside anymore. It used to be people built their own computers practically, not that we should return to that but the analogy is likely similar for the Shuttle. A lot of older engineers have passed away who helped develop the fundamentals and the younger generation isn't taught much of this anymore. (I'll refrain from pointing fingers solely at public education because there are a lot of other issues involved as well)

Assuming we landed men on the moon in the 70s, it's also rather amazing that we have such problems with landing successfully small unmanned rovers, though the costs are orders of magnitude in difference so that's a plus but still ... how did we get men safely to the moon, and back while we can't even get a piece of metal to hit and survive. (Yes, it's always easier being on the outside and complaining though instead of on the inside helping ... but then again if you're one of the people expected to pay for it, then you at least deserve a voice in the matter).

Overall, I love space exploration but think we'll find better returns in the long run letting commerical markets continue to improve technolgies instead of using a lot of engineering talent for questionable returns. Most people, I'd assume, would prefer to see engineers working on something commercial like improving housing construction technology so housing prices drop instead (and freeing up these resources would lower government costs/taxes too so that's a side benefit).