Thread: Organics found on Mars!

Everyone (on earth of means) should pay a 'science tax' to fund these sorts of things - weather they find Martian metropolises or pretty dirt it's a damn sight more important to human development than most of the things we spend $8 on

I think $8.00 spent on a six pack of craft brewed earthly organics is a better investment.

Seriously - spending $2.5 Billion today, to poke around at martian dirt when people here on Earth are starving, and dying in the streets due to lack of sufficient health care? I doubt people living below the poverty line will be dancing in the streets over this.

Originally Posted by honedright

That's it?

I want my $8.00 back

Mars Rover Curiosity Cost Each American $8 - Business Insider

Originally Posted by honedright

I think $8.00 spent on a six pack of craft brewed earthly organics is a better investment.

Seriously - spending $2.5 Billion today, to poke around at martian dirt when people here on Earth are starving, and dying in the streets due to lack of sufficient health care? I doubt people living below the poverty line will be dancing in the streets over this.

Food for thought. NASA and space exploration is one of the reasons we have the technology we have on earth. We need a maned mission to mars imagine what that would bring to this economy. The tech that would be developed and the industry created.

Your right Endofab, that budget is nothing. We can buy 18 seats to the space station for what the president spends going to Hawaii for Christmas. Oh crap I said the C word. I mean winter holiday...don't want to offend anybody.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Your right Endofab, that budget is nothing. We can buy 18 seats to the space station for what the president spends going to Hawaii for Christmas. Oh crap I said the C word. I mean winter holiday...don't want to offend anybody.

The defense budget is always a soft spot with everyone. But the bank bailouts where more than the NASA 50 year running budget. And what about govt waste and do politicians really need to get paid that much and failed social programs? From Neil Tyson and I am loosely quoting him, "its not that we don't have the money its that our priorities are all messed up."

I recall reading some article in the mid-1980s that the U.S. Army was spending $400 per hammer and $800 per toilet seat. I wonder if this is still the case?

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

I recall reading some article in the mid-1980s that the U.S. Army was spending $400 per hammer and $800 per toilet seat. I wonder if this is still the case?

Depends where you are using the head .

Originally Posted by honedright

I think $8.00 spent on a six pack of craft brewed earthly organics is a better investment.

Seriously - spending $2.5 Billion today, to poke around at martian dirt when people here on Earth are starving, and dying in the streets due to lack of sufficient health care? I doubt people living below the poverty line will be dancing in the streets over this.

With that attitude, why bother doing anything?

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

I recall reading some article in the mid-1980s that the U.S. Army was spending $400 per hammer and $800 per toilet seat. I wonder if this is still the case?

Not entirely correct.
Those number only got that way due to budget allocation.

Let me explain. Suppose you have a department that is responsible for buying stuff.
As part of an imaginary contract, the department orders 1 apache helicopter and 1 hammer in a single bid. I know, this is a silly example but it allows me to show where those numbers are coming from. The total administrative overhead in paperwork and manhours is 1000$ for the total bid.

How do you allocate that overhead? Do you divide by the number of hours spent on filling in the paperwork for each item? Do you distribute it evenly based on price ratio? Do you divide it simply among the total number of items? You gotta do something because that monetary overhead has to be accounted for in the budget?

In the end, policy determines how the distribution is made. and in some cases you end up with a 400$ hammer simply because that was how the numbers worked out; not because someone actually charged 400$ for a hammer.

And in the case of the toilet bowls, those numbers usually reflect the cost to have that bowl at that particular place. And the total cost would include not only the administrative overhead, but also the cost of installing it and hooking up the plumbing.

Originally Posted by Bruno

With that attitude, why bother doing anything?

So are you saying that my suggestion that we prioritize spending means that somehow we should just do nothing at all? I don't see how that comment makes any sense. Or were you intentionally asserting a fallacy to discredit my previous post?