Re: *clears throat, pt 1*
Those day to day improvements are not a result of space exploration; therefore, they cannot justify it.
NASA is not useless or unimportant, space explorationis useless and unimportant.
The New World was important to economic and imperial growth; same thing for manifest destiny, and on a side note: the gold rush didn't push us West; nationalism, pride, and imperialism drove us West; the gold rush came afterwards. The moon and Mars have nothing to offer; they have no economic value, and the ideas of imperialism have long since died.
Again, inventing telephones, electricity, and all those wonderful things is way different from colonizing another planet. These things are all out of context.