Im just saying, as simple as I can, that if there was an extremely valuable resource - ANYWHERE - that the US is the first to show up and say hello to the locals. No matter where in the world that resource is. Lets skip over politics for a moment and really think about the target of what the person in control is here. Why wouldnt that person or persons, with an open checkbook (in reality) .. not want to pursue one of the most reliable (valuable) resources on the earth at any given opportunity? Wouldnt the transportation of it at least be on the list? What about the mining? What exactly has anyone fucking done to harvest that shit? Not a fucking thing. It doesnt fucking make sense.
I ask this, because .. why wouldnt space exploration, if we knew for a fact that it would pay for itself - wouldnt that be justification to at least .. try?