Damn you Atlantis! Such a great launch watched from my cube door. Hopefully we can get 'er home and not follow a Columbia.

Now begins the inevitable discussion on the worth of the space program and manned space flight. I find the facts to be spooky. For every dollar invested the ROI is 8?! Wholly crap!

Also, as usual, XKCD puts a great spin on it:

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.



http://xkcd.com/893/