We've had discussions on HN before about NASA and man vs robotic space exploration. It's really hard to convince people that NASA should not be going to Mars and not be going back to the moon with people at this time. The best way for NASA to spend its money is to build LOTS of robotic explorers/surveyors and learn as much about the solar system as possible. When we find something of value then it'll be time to send humans, which should take more than 15-25 years once we survey the solar system. At that point we'll have a VC bubble with people trying to extract whatever resources we find.