How to Spend $456 Billion

By Gaz under Ramblings, Technology

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 homo sapiens that has ever lived on the planet (looking at wikipedia’s earth population numbers, and assuming an even spread of ages and an average of 20 years between generations, there have been less than 7 billion deaths in all of human history according to my calculations).

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

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1. Leave Earth, or Die!