This reaction, how can we spend so much on this sort of thing when there is so much poverty, suffering, etc., is an empty gesture in a world of politics and greed where “no good deed goes unpunished.” Take that viewpoint much further and we’d all still be living in grass huts. No amount of money we throw at politics and education will ever solve the problem because politics is not interested in solving problems instead it’s only interested in keeping things as they are. But you know this. Anti-science hippie environmentalists (you know, the kind that see humanity as a blight on the planet) spout that line all the time without acknowledging the fact of just how much the Apollo 8 “Earth rise” image did for the environmental/ecological movement. Of course an ecofeminist would dismiss space exploration as merely a men/boys thing when we all know that’s bullshit.