The fact that it is 50 years since the moon landing should be cause, not for celebration, for self-criticism. We should have gone far further than we did, instead we de-funded.

Doing this properly publicly would have been far more effective than waiting to generate billionaires

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) July 21, 2019

Exactly. We should have at least one permanent orbital habitat (subsidized by earth, for research) and a large-ish permanent base on Mars. Not colony, as with current tech Mars is impossible to colonize. But humanity does have no backup plan. That would be at least the shell of one, as well as all the science we could and should do on Mars given the time and funding. And no, it can’t all be done by robots.