Spending on the final frontier: worth it, or a waste of resources?
NASA | AP Photo
Mark Around the World – September 3, 2012
In a remarkable technological feat, America landed the Curiosity rover on Mars last month. The total cost of the 10-year project is $2.5 billion. It seems all Americans, including political leadership and pundits on the right and left, are proud of the achievement and agree that undoubtedly the program’s pure science will spawn practical new technologies.
The event certainly makes me proud to be an American. However, many people are describing the cost of the program as astronomical and not justifiable in this time of financial difficulty and budget deficits.
That is nonsense. The $2.5 billion bill for this 10-year scientific program is not at all astronomical; in fact, it is peanuts. To put it in perspective, for years now, the U.S. has been spending over $2 billion per week in Iraq, and another $2 billion plus, in Afghanistan. Like the Curiosity Rover, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are also 10-year programs.
Another way of looking at it is that we Americans had a choice, for the same amount of money, to either:
a) Blast the arid landscape of Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 10 years at a combined cost of $5 billion per week; or
b) Blast Mars with 1,024 Curiosity rovers during the same period ($2.5 billion per rover times 2 per week times 52 weeks per year times 10 years). In fact, the number would be at least 3,000 rovers, given that much of the program cost went into one-time R&D. Once in production, all the subsequent rovers could be launched for a fraction of the cost.
Obviously, our elected representatives chose option “a.”
So let me pose a hindsight question to you. Given what we know about how the wars turned out and how the Curiosity rover turned out, if you were given the choice of:
a) Blasting Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 10 years like we did, or
b) Alternatively, blasting Mars with 3,000 Curiosity Rovers;
which would you chose? Please explain your choice.
Bonus Question (not fair to participate if you did not answer the above question): If your choice had no restrictions, and you could decide how to spend this $2.5+ trillion dollars of American tax payer money, how would you have spent it?
September 3, 2012 - 6:00 AM
Oi vey. Cool stiry bro, tell ut again. Can we at least change out the picture? Do we really need to see this guy every post? It’s almost as bad as that other windbag warlock.
Last week’s GOP convention = A GIANT AMERICAN YAWN!
September 3, 2012
GOP Convention, Romney Speech Evoke Lukewarm Reactions
Speech gets lowest ratings of any Gallup has measured since 1996
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ — Last week’s Republican National Convention had a minimal impact on Americans’ self-reported voting intentions, with just about as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as say it made them more likely to vote for him.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/157256/gop-convention-romney-speech-evoke-lukewarm-reactions.aspx?utm_source=add_this&utm_medium=addthis.com&utm_campaign=sharing#.UEShtjJiXzk.twitter
Welcome, Mark! Its great to have you contributing here.
Indeed, there seem to be a lot of people thinking that Curiosity is an astronomical waste. I’ve found a good solution and it helps to put things into perspective for them: I try to hand them $7.50. When they ask what it’s for, I explain that that is how much Curiosity costs each of us, one time only. I’ve never had anyone take the money, but they sure do change the subject real fast.
I do have to be a bit argumentative and say that your question is impossible to answer knowledgeably. We don’t even know if Curiosity will last ten years yet, so it’s hard to quantify its worth right at present. Off the cuff, though, I’d pick b) and shower the planet with rovers, but don’t get me started on why we’re already littering on other planets, please.
For the bonus question: I’d put one trillion into getting our infrastructure up to par and the remainder would pay on our debt. I strongly believe that if we get our house in order first, the rest will fall into place.
I wouldn’t choose either.
And to J.M.(#3), couldn’t agree with you more about the litter comment.
Space exploration has given us many of the articles we use daily. It is easily one of the best bargains we have. Compare that to spending on wars that we should never have gotten into?
J.M., one way to answer the question knowledgably, is to take a humanitarian point of view. For example, you can base your answer on first adding up how many people died in the wars and compare that to a worst case calculation of how many people can die if we spent the same amount of money blasting Mars with 3,000 rovers. Albeit, we must acknowledge that rovers number 5 through 3,000 would not contribute very much to science.
“Albeit, we must acknowledge that rovers number 5 through 3,000 would not contribute very much to science.”
No, but it would make for some awesome episodes of “Battle of the Bots,” eh?
We could land all these bots on Mars, and then give radio controllers to world leaders, who would use the bots to fight proxy wars on Mars rather than real ones on Earth. /sarcasm font off
Between pointless and bloody wars, and scientific exploration the choice isn’t difficult. We’re not given the choice though.
People are paying Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) $200,000 to fly them for a few minutes into suborbital space. I think NASA could charge good money to hand over the remote control to a Mars rover for 5 minutes.
Folks, Dan’s suggestion, as well as mine are absurd. But isn’t both Option “a” and option “b” an absurd way to blow $2.5 trillion?
I fully agree from a humanitarian viewpoint; mine was more from a reliability viewpoint. Spirit and Opportunity have proven their worth beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but Curiosity hasn’t had it’s chance yet. I believe this research is important and NASA’s part in it invaluable. Things that we now use every single day (and often take for granted) were originally pioneered through NASA research and innovation.
The wars are ridiculous, unnecessary and exorbitant. I’d choose to dump 5 billion/week in a fiery hole in the ground before I sent even one more of our troops to die in a foreign land. We could use that money instead to make rovers that would clean up the messes left by the other rovers.
I kind of like Dan’s Battle Bot idea, though. If we made them modular, they could combine together to make larger robots that could, in turn, combine to make one giant robot of interplanetary mayhem… with lasers! OMG! {swoons}[/nerdgasm]
#1 So does that mean you vote for war on Earth, mattyr?
Let’s go with giving NASA the money… not necessarily for Curiosity rovers, but studies in the 70′s were showing that for every $1 spent on the Apollo project in the 60′s, $14 were injected into the US Economy (via stable jobs, new inventions, and the primary/secondary ‘trickle down’ of what innovation and Research & development produce.)
The space program is the perfect example of the government being the greater fool… and it has successfully shown that it pays off.
My friend Johnny, an essay reading, non-blogging friend of mine, has a novel idea for the bonus question in this essay. He calculated that the $2.5 trillion amounts to about $7,500 per US citizen. He suggests a better way to have spent it than blasting Iraq, Afghanistan or Mars is to send every US citizen on a two week luxury cruise around the Mediterranean. He argues that the multiple benefits would include:
1. It would bring happiness to many more people than the wars did or the 3,000 rovers would,
2. All those American tourists stopping in Spanish, Italian and Greek ports would solve the Euro-zone financial and unemployment crisis as they drop much of that $2.5 trillion directly into small businesses (cafes, bars, restaurants, souvenier shops etc.), and
3. All those American tourists stopping in ports of Muslim countries like Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Lybia, Tunesia and Morocco would serve as our good will Ambassadors, dropping a bunch of money and showing what a bunch of nice peaceful open minded people we are.
Archie and Edith in Ankara and Tripoli!
(That might start more wars that it would prevent).
Simply put. If space exploration helps us to find a way off this solitary rock hurling through space it’s worth every penny. I look it as making an investment in my human ancestors 20-100 generations down the road.
If we don’t find a way to colonize and move to other worlds, the human race will guarantee it’s own extinction.
I would spend it on public education. Some on infrastructure, some on payroll, but most on a colossal paradigm change. Public schools should be in the business of engendering curiosity, not blunting it with standards testing that aims for minimum proficiency.
I guess the point was to bring to your attention how huge amounts of money are put by the USA into bombing other countries. As expensive as the Mars mission was – for the american money that are used for killing and devastating – US could have 3000 such Curiosities built and sent. It is just sort of translation, little, inteligent metaphora…
Of course I would prefer that instead of bombing the world US gives some cash to each citizen.