mark your calendars
Last night, I attended a lecture at UAS about radio astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. I find this kind of thing extremely fascinating and besides, my best friend studies astronomy in Vienna specifically for this purpose: to be the one who finds The Signal that would shatter the glass. The speaker works for SETI in California and had studied under Carl Sagan. He bet the audience a cup of Starbucks coffee that we'll hear something by 2027. My best friend would be ecstatic.When opened up for Q&A, a woman came up to the microphone and said: "I just want to say, I love the Matrix!! Machines rock! But anyway, um, why are we putting money into this when people are starving and dying? I just wanted to mention that."
The reply was commendably handled. Firstly, he said the budget for SETI when funds still came from the government (and has since been eliminated anyway) came up to only 3 cents a person per year. And if you took the entire budget of NASA, which does use tax dollars, and put it in health care for example, it would amount to just 1% of their current finances. Regardless, he said, basic research is essential to society. Core problems of survival have always existed, but it's the periphery which drives the future.
posted by valorie @ 5:17 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
i always find myself answering this same question when i talk about SETI to people. i always tell them that they should be more concerned with the bloated pentagon budget than with the space program. if we cut 10% of the defense budget that would be an extra $50 billion or so, enough to provide health care to every man woman and child in this country by most estimates. not to mention the fact that the space program has spurred research that has brought us safer tires for our cars, a better understanding of our weather, "space age" fabrics like nylon, kevlar and mylar and who could forget tang? anyway, i could go on and on about it, but i think i'd be preaching to the choir at this point ;)
yeah it's not about how much money we could "save" if it didn't go to a space program. it's about priority of funds and the military budget is so overbloated
yep. and even if we cut 10% out of the budget every year, we would still spend more than the next 10 countries combined...
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