Reply #6: Once you can live in space, you have a lot of space.

[sofa king]

And perfecting that ability has massive repercussions on what we can do at home. The use of solar power, water purification and recycling, carbon dioxide scrubbing and air filtration, hydroponic plant growth, and the minimizing of exposure to solar radiation are all avenues of research inextricably tied to human space exploration which have inestimable value here at home as well.

None of those avenues of research are indispensable for robotic space science and, if not funded by NASA, will be approached unsystematically by corporate competitors, if at all. The results will not be in the public domain, either.