Don't get me wrong, the Space Program has done some great things for technology over the decades...but we're spending biiillllllions and biillllllions of dollars to go dig around in the sandbox on Mars...

The only thing good it has done so far is create some high dollar NASA jobs, probably some private tech company contracts that have worked on the equipment. I sure hope we bring something back that we can turn for a profit or learn how to make something grand with the technology that changes the world. Maybe we'll dig up a Martian diamond that we can flip for a couple million at the pawn shop when we get back...or maybe a Mickey Mantle rookie card!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch on this planet....will there be any money left in Social Security when I hit retirement? What happens when we hit the fiscal cliff at the end of the year? We've got 8.3% unemployment, droves of underemployed, and a metric crap-ton of people that have given up looking for work altogether. We need jobs. We need American manufacturing. Welfare...healthcare...bailouts, are we broke, are we not...Europe debt crisis...oil prices...record drought driving up food prices...homeless and hungry all over the world, including here at home...

Hey, I know, let's spend a few billion to go to Mars! And I few billion to go to Jupiter!

one billion dollars.jpg

That would be kinda like me taking all the money out of my savings account to put in a swimming pool while my roof had a gigantic hole in it and it was raining in my living room.

But I'll agree, pictures from Mars are cool to look at.

I keep hoping a little red guy will run out and wave.

If we discover that Mars is inhabited by millions of little red people that look and act like Snookie from Jersey Shore, can we just fly the rover home and pretend it didn't happen?