It's interesting watching the DUmmies who claim to be super-educated stating that these flights serve no scientific purpose. MineralMan and Magistrate have been leading the charge. Apparently neither of these pompous windbags understand that pushing on engineering boundaries is how technology grows. They also don't appear to understand how much money is spent on R&D (both publicly and privately) that is determined to be unfeasible, but the results of these endeavors are often utilized in other research. DUmmies discussing any complex system (engineering, economic, political, etc.) is both hilarious and sad. Hilarious to watch them try to figure out things that are way beyond their intellectual capacity, but sad that, when one of them comes up with the least stupid solution, the others will readily agree regardless of how ignorant they are of the subject.