> $4 billion per launch lol

The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day (~$3 billion/day[0]). Not that adding to the debt helps at all, but the old proverb about being penny wise and pound foolish seems relevant

0. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951

> $4 billion per launch

This is not a lot of money on a nation-state scale. It's equal to giving every person in the US about US$12.

Ignoring the fact that we aren't using money for rocket fuel (that is people are benefitting from us spending that money) the potential upside is immense. There are a time of resources available in the asteroids and a moon base makes mining those resources easier and cheaper.

The longer term value of having moon outposts for observation, mining, etc. will pay off massively.

This is way bigger than just putting people on the moon or hubris. It's the prerequisite for everything we've also said about Mars. Elon just muddied the waters so much that people are so negative about anything else.

>we can still do hard things

Absolutely! What do you have in mind?

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