Yeah. It's kind of unfortunate that some people still think that by simply focussing all resources on one problem you can solve that problem. Has that ever been the case? Or even possible?

Either way, we do things off Earth for the same reasons we do things out of our towns and countries. It has been working out pretty well for us so far.

This has probably be linked too many times on HN but here are Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger's words again. http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html