Every time NASA is in the headlines, there's some talk about the huge costs of their achievements. Any news story about the latest space probe will include mention of its cost, which will be in the hundreds of millions for even the cheapest of missions. Couldn't we feed the poor/cure cancer/fix the economy, everyone asks.
As a socially-concerned techie, I'm torn by these arguments. On the one hand, I'd like to feed the poor/cure cancer/fix the economy as much as anyone. On the other hand, the space program fan in me feels unfairly picked on. Yes, the space program is hugely expensive. But our world is full of hugely expensive things that nobody ever questions. For instance, the Total Recall remake cost $125 million - the studio's not getting that back, they might as well have put that in to curing cancer. Or a space mission - more people would have watched that.
But the chorus of cost complaints is notably muted for the Curiosity mission, in spite of its high-even-by-NASA-standards cost of $2.5 billion. Why? Because the other big story on the planet is an even bigger, even more superfluous expense: The Olympics. In fact, the one tweet I saw going around talking about Curiosity's cost was comparing it favourably with the games (which cost nearly six times as much.). It'd be nice if in future NASA could schedule its missions during the Olympics, but it's hard enough coordinating with the orbits of the planets.
As a socially-concerned techie, I'm torn by these arguments. On the one hand, I'd like to feed the poor/cure cancer/fix the economy as much as anyone. On the other hand, the space program fan in me feels unfairly picked on. Yes, the space program is hugely expensive. But our world is full of hugely expensive things that nobody ever questions. For instance, the Total Recall remake cost $125 million - the studio's not getting that back, they might as well have put that in to curing cancer. Or a space mission - more people would have watched that.
But the chorus of cost complaints is notably muted for the Curiosity mission, in spite of its high-even-by-NASA-standards cost of $2.5 billion. Why? Because the other big story on the planet is an even bigger, even more superfluous expense: The Olympics. In fact, the one tweet I saw going around talking about Curiosity's cost was comparing it favourably with the games (which cost nearly six times as much.). It'd be nice if in future NASA could schedule its missions during the Olympics, but it's hard enough coordinating with the orbits of the planets.
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