Re: The most important near-term goal of a space program:

[jdporter]

Distract Americans from the big money sinks such as the Department of Education, whose budget is 4 times that of NASA.
If NASA had had that kind of funds, historically, we'd probably be beaming miners to Ganymede by now.

[belg4mit]

DoEd?! And how exactly do you expect there to be adequately trained personnel to run your beloved space program without a decent education system? The biggest money sinks are entitlements (medicare, social security; which will only get bigger) and the DoD.