well, a good part of the budget for space exploration IS dedicated to finding cheap, reliable, lightweight means to power space craft on long duration flights. that would cover the "new energy technologies' part of your question.
i like to think of the space program as a publicly funded r&d department that develops things that are to expensive for any one company to do on their own.
isn't a job at NASA one of the things that every scientist wants to have on their resume, because of what they do and the way they let the free thinkers actually think and bring their ideas into reality?
i don't have any numbers to back it up, but i've heard it said that every dollar that gets put into NASA gets returned to the economy 100 times over as a result of what is learned and how to apply it. i think that would make it possibly the only government agency that is profitable.
well, except maybe for the defense department, what with all those contracts to build tanks and guns and what not..
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