by Gaz
How to Spend $456 Billion
5:29 pm in Ramblings, Technology by Gaz
George W. Bush thinks a good use for $456 billion is to wage war on Iraq. The Boston Globe thinks that money could have been put to better use, and so do I… Yesterday, I was tagged by Ian Hedges to take part in the $456 Billion meme, who was in turn instigated by Sam of Blog, MD.
Even using US billions, $456,000,000,000 is a tremendous sum of money that is hard to contemplate – more than $1500 for every man, woman and child in the USA; or, more than $70 for every man, woman and child on the entire planet; or, to really give it some perspective, almost $30 for every
In the current political and cultural climate, I don’t believe money alone can bring about world peace, nor make an end of world poverty or disease in any significant global fashion, so as a foil to other meme participants’ laudable goals, I’m behind using that money to revitalise the space programme. The money came from US tax dollars, so I think it is only fair to reinvest it in something that will particularly benefit the people who paid…
How much could $456 billion buy today?
About $24 billion was spent in the late 1960′s to put a man on the moon, or about $132 billion adjusted for 35 years worth of inflation. But technology has come a very long way since then. I have, as an example, considerably more computing power on my desk right now than was available to the entire Apollo programme between Kennedy’s famous 1961 speech and the Apollo 11 landing in 1969, 8 years later.
In the 1990′s, Robert Zubrin’s The Case for Mars estimated that NASA could put a man on Mars for no more than $20-30 billion ($30-40 billion in today’s money when adjusted for inflation). Although he sets out many strong arguments for why mankind needs to take a foothold on Mars (echoed in part by Stephen Hawking’s occasional pleas for us to Leave Earth, or Die!) Zubrin’s costings are little more than educated guesses, and he fails to take the relentless march of technological advancement into account.
New Vision for the Space Exploration Programme
Perhaps, in an attempt to gain some of the glory won by Kennedy in 1961, President Bush announced a new vision for the space exploration programme in January 2004, calling for a return to the moon by 2020 as a launchpad for putting a man on Mars before 2030!
Unfortunately, most of the skills and individuals that were key to the success of the Apollo program 35 years ago are no longer available. Particularly frightening is the loss of all plans and equipment used for the Saturn V rocket that was used to put the original Apollo spacecraft into Earth orbit. And yet, the key players at NASA in the 1960′s were able to conceive, build and execute the events that put Neil Armstrong on the moon in only 8 years — spending $132bn (inflation adjusted) along the way.
Various Opinions on the Cost
Bush proposed a budget increase of $12bn to help NASA fund his new vision, which is plainly not enough, but it is a sorry state of affairs that an opposition sponsored press release from Citizens Against Government Waste conjured a cost of $1 trillion without any substantiation, which caught the public attention and punctured what might have been a surge of public enthusiasm in rekindling the worlds pioneering spirit:
In a 5 April 2004 official press release titled ‘New Report Reveals $6 Trillion in Hidden Spending in Bush Budget’, the Kerry campaign says, “The True Cost of the Mars Mission ($160 billion to $1 trillion): President Bush has only included $1 billion in increased NASA funding to fulfill his ambitious plan to establish a lunar base and land people on Mars. Independent estimates of the cost of the Mars mission range from $160 billion to $1 trillion.[3]“The $1 trillion reference is listed as “[3] The $160 billion estimate is from Congressional Testimony by Michael Griffin, former Chief Engineer of NASA on 3/10/04. The $1 trillion estimate is from Gregg Easterbrook, ‘Red Scare,’ The New Republic, 2/2/04.”
At the other end of the scale, in his book New Moon Rising, Keith Cowing agrees with the lower bound cost of $160 billion. Given all those numbers, it seems to me that $456 billion is ample to establish a permanent base on the moon, and from there fund the beginnings of establishing a Martian colony… and how much more beneficial to the human race can we get than saving it from extinction due to natural disaster, cosmic cataclysm or over-population?? It is certainly a better option than carpet bombing the Middle East — no matter what your views on the relative importance of the US Space Programme.
A Cheaper Alternative
Interestingly, in the process of writing this post, I discovered that Buzz Aldrin (PhD), second man on the moon, has advocated an alternative cost effective means to assemble an on going Mars programme over the last few years.
Passing the Baton
Having enjoyed all the number crunching and deep thought required to contribute something interesting to this meme, I tag Chris, Dave, Zath and Leo. Hope you guys have time to contribute too :-)
I wouldn’t really worry about how much a new space exploration program would cost – after all, governments can pretty much make money appear out of thin air nowadays (ignoring the inevitable inflation of course). Instead, i would be worrying about getting the right people interested in pursuing such a program. I’d also be thinking of getting the general public actively interested – although sometimes i wonder if everyone is more interested in watching dodgy sci-fi TV shows rather than getting out there and really doing something about it ;) … Although on a more serious note, i think in the end private corporations have a much better chance of exploring space than governments.
I agree up to a point, and yet private corporations aren’t likely to invest the huge sums of money it would require unless there is a clear path to making a profit from it further down the line. I think revitalising Bush’s “Moon, Mars and beyond” ideal could be the very thing to garner general public enthusiasm on the one hand, and also to blaze a trail that lowers the barrier for corporations who want to jump on the band wagon by proving the technologies and skills available to humankind are adequate to the task.
I fondly remember my formative years in the mid-70′s, looking forward to being a spacefaring civilisation by the year 2000… which really would have been possible if NASA handn’t thrown in the towel after the Apollo programme wound down. Waiting until 2030 to see something happen still seems like an awfully long way off :-(
Hello Gary, Brilliant response. This is like a breath of fresh air after all the get-rid-of-world-disease-and-poverty posts that this meme has inspired. This is my first visit here, I’m adding you to my blogroll and Bloglines. Regards, Vijay
Hi Vijay,
Thanks for the kind words. I’m glad you enjoyed the article, as I enjoyed writing it!
I’m curious, which part of India do you live in? It’s been more than two years since I visited, and I miss it terribly.
Cheers, Gary
I live in Salem, a small city in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (which incidentally was the first municipal corporation established by the British in India about 150 years ago). If you haven’t been here on your visits to India, there are hundreds of historical temples, a few highly commercialized hill resorts, one big city (Chennai, formerly Madras).
I haven’t been to Salem, though it sounds lovely from the link you cited. I visited the Southern part of Tamil Nadu for a Kalaripayatt demonstration just before the tidal wave (I left the day before Christmas Eve), and was surprised to find a TV crew and radio interviewer awaiting me when I arrived! For a time I was thinking of taking a job in Chennai, with an eye towards settling either outside Bangalore or somewhere in south Kerala for a few years but it all fell through when the business I had contacts with folded. Now that I work as a writer and free software engineer over the internet, I’m still angling for the opportunity to spend a few years living in south India, except that I worry about maintaining reliable and affordable connectivity to the internet outside of the big cities… Advice always welcome! ;-)
Hi Gary, An excellent response. That’s what I like about blogging, everyone has an equally valid point of view that they can express for everyone else to read. I like your approach, a new beginning for humanity. The article by Buzz Aldrin, was interesting, thanks for finding and linking that. Regards, Ian
Hi Ian, Well, thankyou for the tag. One of the things that keeps me engaged with blogging is being able to take part in the community as a whole, and be given the opportunity to put some thought into group writing projects like this. If it weren’t for blogging, I would certainly never have expended the effort to look outside of the areas I usually write about with such an interesting topic as this.
And I always welcome the opportunity to explore a new angle… after all, it is often through a combination of disparate disciplines from which innovation is borne!