The first, and also the most futuristic techno-utopian one, is the colonisation of Mars. Elon Musk founded Space X in 2002 (Peter Thiel was the first outside investor) with the idea of re-founding humanity. It’s all there: the call to save humanity by turning it into a multi-planetary species, the desire to start from scratch without the legal constraints of Earth, and the will to break with the established order. As you can read, half-hidden, on the terms and conditions page of the Starlink service owned by Space X:
The parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.
I barely have two nickels to rub together, but I would donate them if it would get these fuckheads to Mars.
I think it’s also about economic factors … the first spaceflight programs in the 60s were a huge boost to the economy, both by creating jobs and inspiring a generation of engineers. they hope that mars settlement would have similar effects, maybe on a larger scale, depending on the size of the project. which very much fits into Trump’s narrative to “bring back manufacturing to the US”.
Any big dump of money (Manhattan Project, Space Race, Arms Race) brings about great strides in progress. It would have been great to see a big dump of money, on the aforementioned scale, dumped into raw research.