President Kennedy said it best
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
We should choose a crash program to develop technologies that will allow us to be 100% energy independent, give us the edge worldwide economically, and prevent climate change from destroying our economy and starting more wars abroad (I.e. fights over water, oil, etc).
If we devote 4% of GDP as was done in the 60s, these issues can be resolved. It is of vital strategic interest to our national security