The U.S. Federal Government should increase its exploration and/or development of space

I enjoy this debate so far, but the play must go on! I will first defend my points from the attacks and then attack my opponents case. So in my opponents first attack to my first point, to summarize it, if America were to go to the moon and mars, then there will be great benefits like the ones at the Apollo program. Well first of all, times have changed, and America would get more harm then benefits for going out to Mars or to the Moon for expansions. The bush administration wanted to put man on the moon again in the year 2020, but there was nothing to back it up, there wasn't the money to do it, and there wasn't the resources to do it either, so the Obama administration turned it down because it would cost too much money and other reasons. To my opponents second attack to my first point, basically saying that there doesn't have to be world peace to go to space. Once again times have changed, and there are some more countries that have hostilities towards America, like Pakistan, and extremist organizations such as Al Qaeda who are willing to attack at any moment if they saw America doing well in something. There needs to be a world peace to expand in America's space program, because of extremist groups and hostile countries to America will be willing to harm America if they try to do any big progression. To my opponent's attack to my second point. Well first of all, "The U.S. government officially hit its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling... The U.S. spends on average $118 billion more each month than it takes in."[1] The U.S. is in major debt! The U.S. can't afford major missions to the moon or mars or any where else in space! The reason why America could afford the Apollo missions is because America wasn't in this much debt, so they had the money. Besides, Obama is taking money out of NASA and putting it into private companies to take care of all the sending things into space. To my opponent's attack on my third point. A. To the "everyday risk attack", on earth, there are hospitals if something were to go bad like the gallons of gasoline that we sit on every day to get to work, but in space, there are no hospitals, just like the Apollo 13 mission, because you love the Apollo missions so much. B. With the recent quest to find life in space, and the search of water on other planets, which can harbor bacteria, viruses, and other disease that can harm the human race because the human race isn't ready for it, that's not Hollywood, the finding of a cure in a short amount of time is Hollywood. C. Do you really think that new technology is more important than life? Now to my opponents case 1. That is all childhood dreams, when I was a kid I wanted to be a scientist, but now I don't. Anything can leave impressions on people to be something, but it is their choice to choose to be what ever they want to be. A child could watch a rock and roll band, then that kid would want to be in a rock and roll band. There are more important jobs scientists and engineers, such as jobs that help society function. 2. First of all, how can America know more about our planet by studying other planets? They're different planets, they have different features, studying Jupiter won't say how the Earth will turn out. Global warming is a myth, the earth goes through both hot and cold cycles. America currently knows a lot of the universe all ready, I can tell you the brief story of the creation of the universe to where we are right now, the big bang theory of there was a big boom and that created the simplest of elements, Hydrogen, in these big hydrogen clouds, the hydrogen started to come together and then make heavier elements and soon that created stars, and when a star super nova-ed, it would create even heavier elements where those elements would come together and make planets and other bodies in space and then it would create the earth and then through a long period of time of certain things it would lead to us right now (there is a TON more but I don't want to explain it all). Just by that we know a lot of this stuff already, so there isn't a big need to obtain more knowledge. 3. If we look at the time line of technological discoveries, at the start it would take a long time to come up with new technologies, but as soon as the human race went further in technology it would get shorter and shorter to get some new technology, this is called Moore's law, where technological discoveries would come sooner as time went on. There has been many many more discoveries before the ability to go out into space. America is going to get new technology, its only a matter of time, space program or not it is going to happen, like the work on artificial intelligence is now being worked on. 4. Going back to my defending, America wasn't in a big debt crisis back during the Apollo missions, and now that America hit the debt ceiling. I ask you to vote for Con! I can't wait to see my opponents response. [1] = http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com...