Reply #22: Or set up some radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon...

[Solon]

They could be ten to 100 kilometers in diameter, we could use a crater as the base, or, build a series of them, and specific angles etc. for focus, kinda like the VLA. With a low gee environment, building big isn't necessarily expensive, nor is it impractical. After construction, they don't even have to be manned, place a hard link, high bandwidth optics, that travel around to within line of sight of Earth and communicate with the observatories from there.

Light telescopes are also possible, they can work in tandem, hell, they would probably have a resolution to pick out a planet the size of Mercury from a distance of over 100 LY, that is some serious science.

Of course, I also imagine that we slash the federal budget by at least half, all that is cut is most of the military budget. Make it so that its divided up like this: 20% Defense budget, 60% for domestic services(Medical Care, etc.), 10% for NASA and other sciences, 10% for paying down the debt. Just a guesstimate here.