Comment & Debate
Virgiliu Pop. “Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost?”. Space Daily. January 19th, 2005 – “many of the critics of the space programme on social grounds are “limousine liberals”. They point the finger at the US government for wasting their tax money in space instead of helping the poor, but they are not feeling guilty for their own consumerist life style and for their own scale of priorities.
For instance, this year, total pet-related sales in the United States are projected to be $31 billion – the double, almost to the cent, of the $15.47 billion NASA budget. An estimated $5 billion worth of holiday season gifts were offered – not to the poor – but to the roving family pets – six times more than NASA spent on its own roving Martian explorers, Spirit and Opportunity, who cost the American taxpayer $820 million both. Instead of providing a launch pad for the immorally expensive shuttles, Florida can do better and clothe the underprivileged – a genuine alligator pet collar cost only $400 a piece.
Are space rockets expensive toys for the big boys? In any case, they cost less than the $20.3 billion a year spent in the US on the human popular toy industry. One doesn’t need toys to play with when the most popular game is playing deaf and blind to the needs of the poor – provided one criticizes the waste in space.
Instead of betting on the future, Americans spend $586.5 billion a year on gambling. It is perhaps immoral to criticize one’s personal choice, so instead of kicking the habit and feeding the poor with this money, one should stop instead the enormous waste in space who stands at a scandalous amount of 40 times less than gaming tokens.
Speaking about personal choice, $31 billion go annually in the US on tobacco products – twice the NASA budget -, and $58 billion is spent on alcohol consumption -almost four times the NASA budget. Forget space spin-offs – here are genuine tangible benefits: $250 billion are spent annually in the US on the medical treatment of tobacco- and alcohol-related diseases – only sixteen times more than on space exploration.”
NASA administrator Dr. Michael Griffin – “The average American’s tax bill is around $8,000 per year. Of that, Nasa gets $60. 15 cents per day.† That’s fifty times less what goes on defence. We’re gonna spend that money to keep open our access to space. So, if we’re spending that money anyway, where do you want us to go? What do you want us to invest that money in? Put the question that way, Tim, and people want to go to Mars.”[1]