To Infinity...and Beyond

Britain's dour new premier Gordon Brown is being urged by his own government scientific advisers to increase Britain's commitment to space exploration.
BBC Newsnight

This excerpt from Perry Rhodan #4 INVASION FROM SPACE neatly sums up the economic argument:

The President of the Asiatic Federation leaned forward. “What project are you referring to?” he inquired eagerly.
Perry Rhodan smiled. “A space fleet. Our planet must have a space fleet!”
“What for?”
“There are many reasons, Mr. President. One of these is purely economic. It is no longer a secret that war and rearmament used to be part of the economic welfare of a state. This may sound rather cynical, but is nevertheless a sober fact. We must therefore proceed according to this well proved principle. With this exception, though – our efforts will no more serve to manufacture arms for war, but we will have a new goal, to build a space fleet. This will bring about an economic boom for all nations on Earth. New industries will arise, every able person will find work. We will stamp factories and huge industrial enterprises out of the ground. We will find new methods of producing new materials and manufacturing thus far unknown machines.
“I have spoken about the purely economic aspect and the tremendous advantages for all of mankind. But there is also a military reason for having a space fleet.”