Wednesday, May 28, 2008

And There's More...

There is another knock-your-socks-off image here. A quite incredible picture.

As I mentioned the 'space' v child welfare/drug clinics/save the rainforest/etc argument has arisen on a good few occasions when I have mentioned this Mars mission.

I wonder why 'space' always gets used in this kind of comparison as if it's the only thing government spends money on which could be spent elsewhere.

The Phoenix mission is costing something like $420 million. It is a lot of money for you and me but it's 'only' the money Hollywood spends/wastes on a couple of blockbusters. Mind you, if that Phoenix sum were distributed to, say, the population of the US and the UK, everyone would end up with roughly one dollar.

In Munich there were plans to build a super-duper magnetic monorail Transrapid link from the centre of the city to the airport. This was going to cost €1.85 billion. People complained that it seemed rather a lot for something we didn't really need but there was no, "why don't we spend the money on health care" protest.

Hmm... dunno.

In the words of Ena Sharples, "there's nowt so rum as folk".

5 comments:

Doris said...

Wow! I have been out of touch for a day it seems and hadn't seen these latest images. Really amazing.

As expensive as it seems, I'm all for space exploration too. It is attitudes on earth that need changing that will allow better distribution of wealth.

I wonder how the cost of space exploration compares to the amount spent on wars? Let alone the inestimable human cost.

Neutron said...

Hi Doris, long time no whatsit. I was looking at the costs of the US Iraq 'war'. It is something like the cost of one Phoenix mission every day and a half.

Anonymous said...

"I was looking at the costs of the US Iraq 'war'. It is something like the cost of one Phoenix mission every day and a half."

Ah, now THOSE are the figures they don't want to talk about. That is the tragedy and the shame. They don't want to spend on something that might help us some time in the future, but they will spend on something that causes huge damage, right now. I think it's called political expediency.

Doris said...

"Hi Doris, long time no whatsit." Sorry about that .... I'll try not to stay away so long next time :-) Especially when you had so many juicy posts for me to respond.

Are the costs of war really that high?!

Anji said...

I've seen the war counter on some blogs and it moves too fast to see.

Amazing picture, i'm not sure how big that crater is, but it is amazing!