NASA should advertise for people to make donations so they can fund research like this. If not enough if donated, then such research should not be done. It most definitely should not be funded via taxation - if people don't fund it voluntarily through donations then they are saying "we don't want this" and if they don't want it then why should the state force them to pay for it?

Then it shouldn't happen. I don't think it's ethical to confiscate personal wealth to pay for such things. If people want it to happen then they can pay for it.

Being a good thing for a government does not mean it's a good thing for the people being governed.

You think confiscating personal property off people - property earned through labour, is justified because some government can brag to another one? Really? I don't see much to brag about if you have to enslave your people to achieve the goal. Land of the free indeed.

If via taxation, then I oppose it strongly. If via private corporations and voluntary contributions then I think it's a great idea.

Space exploration is all well and good, but it should not be funded for via compulsory wealth confiscation (i.e. taxation). Fund it through entirely voluntary means and you'll have my support and that of a lot of other people who value liberty. It's a sad reflection on our society that the only way to advance ourselves in endeavours like space travel is to have the state compel us to fund it using threats of force.

Pandora's Star and the books that follow (including the "Void" books) are in my opinion the most enjoyable Sci-Fi books I have read. That title used to be held by the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card.

Unless they happen to be gay, eat shellfish, tease a bald man, work on the sabbath, worship another god (these you must kill), associate with non Christians, or god forbid you happen to be a witch (they cannot be suffered to live).

No thanks. You can keep the mythology around this invisible friend. The message of the summer solstice (for those of us in the southern hemisphere) is one of sharing and compassion. A very non religious message.

We (New Zealand) have elections in a couple of weeks, and not one single political party is campaigning on principles based on protecting people without harming them. Their policies are about what additional regulations to introduce, how much more or less tax to tax from people, how money raised through property confiscation (i.e. taxation) should be spent.

So whether or not previous governments started out with the intention of protecting people is a moot point. What matter is what governments seek to do *today*. This is why I believe we need to start again with a constitution that specifically limits what the state can do.

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the operating systems the infected computers were running.

Which is the point of a constitution. It needs to be founded on a basic set of ethics. That of self ownership - I am the owner of me. No one should be able to initiate harm against me and I must not initiate harm against anyone else. In my opinion the very purpose of the state it to ensure people abide by those rules.
The problem is that the state actively harms people, and it allows people to vote on what form the harm takes and whether people should be harmed any more.

The state should be protecting us, not harming us.