Some would argue that we've been under invasion since the mid 1990's... Oh, you meant "invaded by a foreign military".

I want one, but I don't want the hospital bills from doing 90 degree turns at 200 mph.

Probably in the same way that the Bureau of Investigation knew that Al Capone was breaking the law. They just didn't have the evidence to get a conviction until they discovered he'd cheated on his taxes.

Star Wars: Galaxies will likely be shut down within 3 months of Star Wars: The Old Republic being released. Now, this might sound unlikely, but LucasArts has already given Sony Online Entertainment a new IP: The Clone Wars. TCW is going to be based on SOE's Free Realms platform, which is going to be aimed at ages 8+. So SOE shutting down Galaxies is all but a done deal. There are emulator projects out there. Someone mentioned Everquest; there are about 30 EQ emulators based on different rules and times in that game's life. UO has emulators, Star Wars Galaxies has emulators. Even Earth & Beyond has an emulator. If you want to play these games, do a GIS and get your game on.

It's much cheaper to simply launch your weapon on an ICBM or launch a stealthy weapons platform in space than it would be to go to the moon and set up a giant frickin' laser. If there's ever weapons on the moon, they'll probably be used for fighting other people on the moon.

Besides, there's that whole outer space treaty that makes the moon a neutral zone like Antarctica. Hasn't been too many wars on that continent, and it's a lot nicer than the moon.

Probably because those crimes generally involve an unwilling participant, usually referred to as a victim. Homosexuality is usually an act committed between willing participants, and in the case a participant isn't willing, we have laws for that.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Here's my beef with theocratic Republicans: They're trying to impose their religious teachings to non-believes through law. If Christians and other religious folk could simply practice their religion and not impose it on others, I wouldn't have problem with them at all. But they do. So, problem.

When asked about potential choking hazard to dolphins, the Japanese scientists were quoted saying, "Fuck you dolphin!"

Biosphere II was a failure because it's inhabitant's lives weren't on the line. The sponsors weren't going to lose face due to their employees dying. That meant that it was only a half-hearted attempt at a self-sufficiency experiement.

What we really need is a Biosphere III to be built in orbit. That way when the crew starts running out of air, they'll have a reason to fix the problem instead of saying "well, we could just open a window".

This is probably the stupidest argument against exploring space I've ever seen, and it keeps being repeated like it's a valid statement. Guess what? There was nothing on Antarctica prior to 1905 either. That's when the first research station was built there. Private industry has been sending cruises with tourists for the last 60 years.

There are hundreds of thousands of destinations out there, just in our system alone. Only a tiny fraction has been explored and as far as anyone can tell, it's all raw resources up for grabs. The big expense in space expeditions is the cost of sending everything up there. What we need is a place where we can start to manufacture things from the resources available, and that's not all that far off.
Things like 3-D printers and Fab-Labs are just the beginning when it comes to what we'll be able to do with manufacturing in the near-future. Sure, anything we build up there will still need regular supplies, but I would assume that a corporate sponsored space station or colony's "second order of business" would be to become as self sufficient as possible in order to cut expenses. Once we have the capability to manufacture things like station modules and space craft in space the costs will drop dramatically, just like they have for every industry before.

So yeah, there's not a lot of nearby cheap destinations right now, but they're coming and they'll continue to grow in number as long as there's a market for it.

Decimate us, huh? Thank goodness! You see, Decimate literally means "to reduce by ten percent", or "to kill one of every ten". If an alien asteroid attack on Earth is only going to kill one in ten, I'll take my chances.
Had you said we'd be annihilated, which means "to destroy completely", then I'd be scared.