We will have to take the Moon back from the space Nazis first.

Spending the money isn't really the problem. The problem are the joke laws that the US has for taxes. Spent money is not lost, it just changes owners until it comes back to the state anyway. That is if there weren't so many giant holes for rich people to hoard money without giving back a dime.

I am somewhat excited. But you know they're not going to share half of what they discover, with us.

I don't mind being a guinea pig for NASA, I'd happily live on Mars.

Yes, I am excited. I see space travel more as a noble goal, than an actual way to save the human race, and just as flight in Earth's atmosphere took us induldging upon a number of evolutionary steps (most of them failures) space travel is something that we have to tackle and fail at in order to eventually succeed at it. Likely, that will be in the distant future, but that future will only be possible if we are willing to embrace our ignorance now. 

That's a private mission, the one referred to in the article is a NASA mission.

I believe the "one-way trip" stuff could be a lot more viable if there was a constant stream of missions to mars.

I could be the first guy to take a piss on Mars, and with Mars low gravity you'd get some serious distance too!

I agree with you that NASA's budget is criminal.  They're operating with money stolen from all US citizens. 

We have nothing to gain from maintaining a base on te moon. Therefore it will never happen. Simple as that.