You would think the houses out there would be cheaper.

Also, "Itchy itchy Ichabod. I i I"

For approximately 1.5 trillion dollars the world 2014 military spending. Lets use, half... nah a quarter of that directed to space. Plenty of money for maintenance and payroll. That give you $325 Billion for space development. 2014 total expenditure was about $65 billion so thats 500% more resources available. Give the engineers and scientists some money to burn.

Your country wants to opt out? No space for you! (literally)

You are correct, all the money in the world is insufficient. Which is why we need resources from other worlds/asteroids. People aren't going to leave earth unless they can make a buck or gain fame. As with royalty of old, we need government to fund exploration for future commercial development. I do not think it is a false dichotomy to say that we must expand or collapse. Certainly the Earth is not completely exploited but we will eventually tap out the easy resources. Is that the time to begin to act or now when we have resources to spare?

I was doing some napkin math/blueprints on putting humans on the first stage for tourism. People require too much stuff to make economic sense, especially when you factor in the 'i went boom my family sues you" part. Besides that you would have them laying down and they would not get to see much. Might as well send them though a centrifuge.

Would you accept Star Wars: The Toaster instead?

That's what they said about IP addresses.

"What what what!" - Kyle's Mom

WE don't need more taxes. THEY do.

Asteroid bombardment, vulcanism, and tectonics are the primary methods by which heavy metals accumulated on the surface. If this theory is correct some core materials could have de-orbited back to the surface as well. Either that or Aliens did it.