Bravo,
What is the $180 million about? The current costs for the twin Mars rover mission is currently
$820 million.
What would you have spent the $180 million (or $820 million) on? I won't bother repeating the standard NASA justifications--how about looking at the question from another angle:
I don't believe that video games are worth spending money on--I think it is pretty much a waste of time and money--however, it has been an important driver in reducing computer costs and increasing performance.
Pornography--Another place where it is probably not very healthy to spend money. Again, it is porn that created the whole early Video Cassette Recorder / Rental movie market boom, and it a still a very large part (something like 50%?) of Internet traffic / search engine traffic.
Personal automobiles--Dirty, expensive, involved in huge numbers of deaths and accidents. But it still was fundamentally responsible for something like 10-20% of the entire US economy. Remember Henry Ford's $5.00 a day wages? How about mass production, and now
reliable low cost electronics, navigation, air bags, international trade, etc.
Or, we can look at other government programs such as welfare. I have seen it destroy more families than any single other cause in history (perhaps with the exception of all out wars if you look outside of the continental US).
Speaking of Wars--a very bad thing--but we, and others, have fought for our freedoms. And as side benefits have gotten space programs, mass production improvements, transportation, RADAR, SONAR, aviation, ships, submarines, navigation, GPS systems (still run by the military), etc.
Spend it on schools? Washington DC has one of the highest (if not the highest) per pupil spending in the US of public schools. Right now, the rate of minorities dropping out from schools (nation wide / big city?) I last saw was running around 50% before the end of high school. Almost 50% of California State spending goes to schools--and they are now among the worst in the nation--and we just approved another $15 billion (that is $15x10^12) dollars just to cover the last few years of deficit spending by our democrat legislator and former governor Gray Davis)--and deficit spending is already against the law (our state constitution). Catholic private schools spend roughly halve the money, have very few administrators, etc. and yet turnout better students.
And, believe it or not, I am on the fence about how much and what we should spend our tax dollars on for the space program. I always ask myself, is the tax money we are spending on government project/program XYZ worth taking it at the point of a gun/threat of jail. When asked that way, very little government programs/spending would pass my tests.
It is easy to complain about specific programs and pick on specific issues--but what are your spending suggestions?
-Bill
PS: Here is another example of where we spent $850 million since 1994,
Haiti:
[ QUOTE ]
``In the last few weeks, we saw Haitian national policemen without arms,'' Noriega told a combative House International Relations subcommittee hearing in Washington. ``The government was distributing arms to its gangs. Most of the looting and violence to people and property was committed by allies of Aristide.''
Noriega, an assistant secretary of State, said the Aristide government didn't investigate or prosecute any killers of his political opponents, and frittered away more than $850 million in U.S. aid given during his tenure, which began when he was reinstated in 1994 by the U.S. following a 1991 coup.
[/ QUOTE ].
Where do you want your Billion Dollars spent? -BB