NASA has spent around a trillion since its start (if you take into account the value of their dollar to the modern dollar). The total is $919,307,000,000. That's 0.919 trillion.

Here's a list of their budget where I got my numbers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

Note: If you take just the raw dollars, it's in the 471 billion dollars.

Uh, the article you got that info from says differently. Adjusting for inflation, NASA's total budget over its 50 years history (the adjusted figures in the article only go to 2008) is $790 billion. Even if you include the nominal dollars budget for the last three years, you still don't get a trillion. Also, look at the percentage of the total national budget that NASA takes up; after the surge of the space race in the 60's and 70's, it never even reaches 1% of the total budget, except for 3 years in the mid-90's when the work on projects like the International Space Station, Hubble and the Mars rovers happened. Even then, the percentage never got higher than 1.05%. As of now, the Nasa budget only accounts for about a half of a percent of the total national budget.

I made a small mistake. I added everything up with Excel, which included the projected budgets through 2015.

Still, even at a trillion, I think it's money well spent. It's enabled more security, more communications (and possibly the destruction of honey bees) and a lot of scientific understanding of the world. We've used it to validate Einsteinian physics, to discover what's in our world and to begin building plans to harvest asteroids and moons. I think in 100 to 200 years, we'll not just see amazing things like life-saving plastic. We'll see something we can't even fathom.

I love it when people use this argument without any leg to stand on. It’s the same with military fanatics. “Well, herp a derp, you see, if the military had not shown such an immense interest in planes then there would be no way in hell that today you could fly from ’Murica to Europe in a matter of hours!”
Likewise, some people seem to believe that capitalism is the only economic system able to sustain progress.

The Internet. True story.

Sure, but those things could have been developed by a peaceful world, too. War might speed technological development in some ways, but is it worth the price? And what if war kills brilliant men or destroys research or resources?

No what, there. You are absolutely right. It was DARPA (actually, ARPA at the time) who picked up the tab for a small team based on a couple published papers by a couple different professors about connecting computers through a phone line.

I see your reasoning, and that is why I wasn't harsh in my tone. But the point remains, is an increased speed of technological development worth the human price of war? Is any technology that we have now as a result of war worth its price?

Thomas Moore imagined a Utopia in the 1500s. It wasn't perfect (far from it in some regards), but the point is that we have had all that we need to establish a close-to-utopian world for a long time. Tech is good. Hells, tech is great. But technology isn't going to save us from ourselves.

And can we say for sure that war has in fact speeded human progress? Might a world in which we weren't focusing so much of our efforts on destroying one another have actually developed technology faster? The resources and people not destroyed in war, and the cooperation implicit in such a world, could possibly have more than made up for the difference.

(Also, don't get me wrong: Vigilance is good, and I support a strong military. But I'm skeptical of any argument for the necessity of war on grounds of anything other than ideology. The Bill of Rights, for example, is probably worth the cost of the American Revolution, tho even that is a tricky issue.)

I don't know if I'd agree that a peaceful world implies stagnation, but I do know one thing for certain:

Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll are just good as gaming and the Internet. :-P

But do you think that war is the sole bringer of progress? Do you honestly believe that if mankind could focus on cooperation rather than competition we would do worse than now? Digga, please ...

I never said that you said that :P

Here’s another question: Why are you so keen on progress anyway? What I’ve gather about your world view so far it’s not like this would equate to purpose in life, would it?

I see. What is your take on the notion of an afterlife?

That is a horrible idea. I mean, as a practical mode of transportation, once you start thinking about it, it's just the worst idea. More than 250,000 deaths a year already all over the world from cars on the ground, and who knows how many smaller accidents, poorly maintained vehicles, etc. Imagine how much worse with all those cars falling out of the air.

But I want a flying car too.

^This. Early tribal and group societies had the greatest equality and hunter/gatherer allows for the most downtime/culture. If we weren't so attached to our flying cars the easiest route to prosperity and peace would be to progress in the other direction. Africa is seen as the world's armpit because it isn't as developed but, in truth, it is merely the victim of progression. It is exploited and manipulated by developed countries that ignore any war that doesn't hurt its profit.

The human race does seem to race towards its own demise and I don't even buy the entirety of global warming.

Personal cars are a pretty shitty invention anyway if you look at the pros and cons. Public transport should be way, way more dominant. At the very least in major cities.