If Felix has found something interesting or valuable he would have said its very delightful and some more such missions should be conducted , and he would have also said " I did it " lol , things do get change according to the situation .

Space Magic, that's how. Space Magic.

They are not going on mars for playing and blasting rocks , they collect samples and try to find something useful .

@veni vidi vici

It's not necessarily what they find that could help, its all the technology that is pioneered in trying to develop new ideas. In the US, interest in science and technology has dropped tremendously in the last few decades, something that can easily be correlated to the US decline worldwide. Historically, the society with the most advanced technology has been the leader of the world or known world at the time.

We owe a majority of our current technological roots to the space race of the 60's. Telecommunication satellites, microprocessors, and fabrication techniques for modern items like cell phones, computer processors, etc, all have beginnings from the mercury, gemini, and apollo missions.

It's a shame that people nowadays do not correlate these things and think that space is a waste of time! With a little more education we could swing back into the powerhouse that we used to be and make more breakthroughts

P.S. We no longer have any manned space flight as the shuttle was cancelled. We now rely on Russian space craft to get to orbit... The US RELIES ON RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT!!!! Meanwhile the Chinese are launching people into space and building space stations and have their sights set on colonizing the moon. If we don't get our act together and start thinking about the future, we could be seeing nothing but RED in the night sky!

So what? We don't take the risk? I might just live in a titanium underground box because I may die upon exit. We must take risks to progress. As long as we are cautious that risk will be within acceptable levels.
Another thing is that the relationship between funding and research breakthroughs is not proportional, but exponential. Eventually, scientists will have more than they need, and each penny beyond that will be wasted on little progress. The marginal utility of funding decreases as we put more into research.

Hence, to maximise utility we must spread our money across health, the environment and space.

No but risk assessment is made and I was only commenting on the "yes we should as one single invention or a cure of some disease can be found can cause big revolution . And will benefit the living on earth ." remark.

As the likelihood of a greater harm to earth is more a possibility then a cure of a disease.

Also, scientist will never have more money then they need... because the search for new scientific data also is exponential as the information we discover brings about new and more interesting scientific possibilities.

Just the discovery of DNA and how it is associated with our life has caused numerous research and development research and is a never ending quest for more discovery within it.

Scientific knowledge is the truest form of exponential growth. With each new discovery bring more and more questions.

Costs... will NEVER go down.

What are you, stupid*? Didn't you see War of the Worlds? They'll die from our colds!

lol

@Spartan
You mock someone for having concerns of pathogens, but it's perfectly balanced to rant about how we will will, within great certainty, find a revolutionary cure?

*I'm not really calling you stupid. JK

You know what the terms scientist and economist mean? Economist doesn't mean banker, and scientists aren't people who without moderation would not care about morality. Bad things have come out of science, but if were to stop trusting scientists, I think far worse things would follow. And some economists (such as Peter Schiff) do use their predictions to earn money (Schiff sells gold), but most of them earn their paycheck by teaching others about economy, or by consistently making reliable predictions.