Think of it as a billion-dollar pair of shoes
Budget and trade deficits got you down? Tired of hearing the words “military quagmire” and “Hurricane Katrina”? Need a way to shrug off those mid-term election blues? Here’s an idea - why not go shopping!
For a multi-billion-dollar spaceship that can land on the moon! 
It won’t solve any problems, but goddamn it feels good! Sort of like eating a whole fried-chicken-and-molasses pie when you’re already morbidly obese. What’s a few more calories tossed on the pile? Or a few more billion dollars on the ol’ charge card?
And you know, the therapeutic part of shopping isn’t actually having something nice when you’re done - oh no. The thereputic part is the act of spending money impulsively, recklessly, even (and especially!) when you can’t afford it.
So go ahead, buy that spaceship from Lockheed Martin, the same company that dicked you over for a cool billion the last time you tried to buy a spaceship. It doesn’t matter, because really, does anyone believe we’re seriously trying to go to the Moon again? There’s no Islamic extremists on the Moon!
On the other hand, there weren’t any in Iraq either. Maybe it’s all a part of an elaborate Rumsfeldian plan to lure al-Qaeda to the Moon, where, finding themselves in a vacuum, they would quickly swell up and explode. Problem solved!
But all cloak-and-daggery aside, there’s probably a much more mundane explanation. As aerospace analyst Paul Nisbet inadvertently puts it, “NASA decided to do something different and go with a company that has not been in manned space before, sort of spreading the wealth….”
He can say that again.
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