NASA Postpones Mission to Visit Asteroids - Yahoo! News

The Dawn mission is indefinitely postponed, see NASA Postpones Mission to Visit Asteroids - Yahoo! News. But this should also bring to mind the dilemma of how we want to spend our space dollars (and yen, yuan, euros). Should we concentrate on scinece in its purest form, to understand our solars system or or focus on space habitation, setting up shop our there and then let science be more of a field study?

If China should decide to follow that kind of strategy, it is very likely they would be able to establish, say an asteroid base, before the more experiences Space nations.

It could also be interesting to know my about Space ambitions of other, right now non-exisitng players like India and the Moslem world. How do they see space exploration and the future for them there in Saudi-Arabia? - Surely they would have the cash for that kin of endeavour.