Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
Carl Sagan explains the need to fund exploration the best:

"Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive."
The time frame indicated here is too vague to be useful here. When are we obliged to?

I don't think mining on the moon is going to be big. You could use He3 for fusion reactors but there are other ways to do it--I think the He3 way is just promoted by people who want to go to the moon.