What’s the point of sending the thing to Mars if it has no instruments to do anything?
Keep in mind that a big chunk of the cost was the delivery mechanism – everything from the rocket to the parachute to the capsule.
Pteryxxsays
if Mars Curiosity cost USAnians 7 dollars per person… how many Mars Curiosities per person did the bank bailout cost us?
I know which I’d rather have.
ah58says
Maybe if we put guns on the rover it would be better. Although, come to think of it, it does have a frickin’ laser.
blfsays
The laser is to shoot down incoming nukes launched by those mean and nasty Iranians. And the skycrane didn’t really crash after landing the rover, it flew back to the secret SEALs base on the farside of the Moon. Besides, it’s all a UN plot to confiscate all the guns and wimmen and keep ’em deep undersurface camps there on Mars.
Crudely Wrottsays
The budget of NASA is to the total US budget as an ice cube is to Antarctica. ‘Nuff said.
I read that NASA’s total budget since they began, is more than $100 billion less that the military budget in 2010. Can’t find the source for that at the moment.
Eric Rsays
I read that NASA’s total budget since they began, is more than $100 billion less that the military budget in 2010. Can’t find the source for that at the moment
well the 2011 DOD budget is lower than the adjusted for inflation dollars of the entire NASA budget. though arguably not by much
and the boing-boing budget numbers are from back in ’08 so they would need to be a bit higher still
boraxsays
Let’s see. 2 billion to kill people overseas, or 2 billion to land a rover on Mars. I want my tax dollars going to Mars. I wish that when I pay my taxes I could earmark where it goes.
gussnarpsays
Is all what really necessary? I feel like I’m missing something, largely because I have no idea what that stuff in the upper right is saying. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes it’s worth squat.
I mean, I get that the NASA budget is a pittance, and the cost of this rover is minuscule by comparison to the rest of the budget, and I support this kind of science mission, and I can assume at some point that CNN was questioning it and this is an attempt to put that in perspective, but I have no idea from this what NASA actually said. I followed the link, but the high res version is still unreadable. Anyone know what the CNN bit is about?
Oh I know! Send bankers to Mars instead of a bailout! They can pave the way for an eventual human mission.
corallinesays
#7, simply not edible:
Here’s what I *think* I can make out under the photo…
“Is Curiosity worth its $2.4 billion price tag — or is it a glorified ‘box with wheels’? Experts and commentators weigh in.” Then a bunch of links to “FULL STORY” and “ROVER HAD ‘EXCITING RIDE'” and “DESCENT” and things like that.
corallinesays
Oops. That must be $2.6 billion.
georgelockesays
WHAT DOES IT SAY? I can’t read it!!! need a larger version of the image, which I can’t find.
Yeah, and the Associated Press referred to Curiosity’s cost as “budget-busting” in an otherwise good story. Then, of course, some vacuum-brain wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle to decry NASA’s expenditures on space exploration while “hundreds” (she really said “hundreds”) of children are going hungry (in the world? in the U.S.? in her backyard?). The stupid, it burns!
Pteryxxsays
from CNN: “Mars rover: Is all this really necessary?”
“Later, in 2004, when the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed, it became one of the largest worldwide Internet sensations,” said Bell, who also worked on that mission. “It slammed NASA’s website.” The rovers scored several discoveries including evidence of an ancient wet environment on Mars. Price tag for Spirit and Opportunity: $800 million (PDF).
Nowadays — at least for some space travel fans — Martian robots aren’t so cool anymore. Curiosity “is just another box with wheels on Mars,” says CNN commenter It_could_always_be_worse. “Develop useful technology — not this shooting of boxes with wheels all over the place. SEND PEOPLE, and I will be proud.”
Basically CNN quote-mined their own comment section and made it a snappy (or snippy) headline.
Pteryxxsays
Found the source and larger image, on Milky Way Musings’ Facebook page:
Is Curiosity worth its $2.6 billion price tag – or is it a glorified “box with wheels”? Experts and commenters weigh in. FULL STORY | ROVER HAD “EXCITING RIDE” | DESCENT | PHOTOS | WHY WE LOVE MARS | 12 AWESOME LANDINGS
So, yeah. Controversy, both sides, etc.
gussnarpsays
Glorified box with wheels? Freaking idiots.
Although, budget busting is technically correct, even if it is misunderstood by the general public audience. Curiosity did bust its own budget. It just didn’t make a dent in the overall federal budget. OF course, somehow I’m pretty sure the the misunderstanding is intentional. Why tell the public something they can understand when you can sensationalize!
Pteryxxsays
Sure, the Curiosity project went over budget. LIKE THAT TOTALLY NEVER HAPPENS IN BUSINESS, FINANCE OR THE MILITARY. Sheesh!
aziraphalesays
I looked up the total of US bankers’ bonuses for 2011, thinking it might be comparable to NASA’a total budget.
Wrong.
It’s eight times as much.
Value for money?
Trebuchetsays
I looked up the total of US bankers’ bonuses for 2011, thinking it might be comparable to NASA’a total budget.
Wrong.
It’s eight times as much.
Value for money?
But you don’t understand — they’re the JOB CREATORS. The jobs may be mostly in China, but still…
I do have a nitpick: I suspect your total Bankers’ bounuses includes all bank employees, although you don’t cite a source. If you included only executives, it’d probably be only four times as much.
robrosays
EricR:
well the 2011 DOD budget is lower than the adjusted for inflation dollars of the entire NASA budget. though arguably not by much
Is this an apple/oranges comparison? I wonder what the “Inflation Adjusted Cost” of the DoD budget is. The CSBA article you link to does say, “In inflation-adjusted dollars, the total national defense budget request for FY 2011 is at the highest level since World War II.” It does not give that number.
I note that the first paragraph of the CSBA article ends up giving the 2011 DoD budget as $861 billion which includes $19 billion in “defense-related atomic energy programs” (I assume DoE), $9 billion from other agencies, and $122 billion is for vets.
didgensays
If only there was some easy way to calculate the benefits to our technology, culture and just the sheer beauty that we have achieved this wonder. Of course the military has caused massive opportunity’s for us to advance medicine.
NASA has been dealing with questions like this pretty much since the Eagle landed. I swear, it’s like some people think we packed up $2 billion and sent it to Mars, rather than, you know, paying workers who spend money and re-circulate it back into the economy.
Meanwhile, satellite technology can predict hurricanes, spot crop blights before they’re visible from the ground, track pollutants back to the source, foster global communications, and probably helped avoid accidental nuclear war with the Soviets.
Some of the money for Apollo went toward developing computer technology. And telemetry. And remote sensing equipment. Stuff that we use every day. It’s an investment in technological development.
And when we study other planets, we learn about our own.
Yeah, total waste.
Somewhere out there, there’s a smart, dishonest politician who has nightmares about the common people developing a sense of scale about money and government budgets. Too bad that nightmare probably isn’t going to come true any time soon.
tim rowledge, Ersatz Haderachsays
I swear, it’s like some people think we packed up $2 billion and sent it to Mars,
Funny, that. I really can’t think where we put all the shops out there to spend the magically missing money
jackolanternsays
Yep, with 1/6 to 1/3 of the defence dept’s budget from one year, NASA could probably put an astronaut on Mars.
Barkeronsays
It’s a law of nature that every time science celebrates a victory the reactionaries have to go into smear mode.
txpipersays
If we were to completely eliminate NASA, and the entire defense budget, we would still be running a $400 billion deficit for 2012. Actually the interest being paid out is almost 12 times NASA’s budget.
DLCsays
We should end the nonsense in Afghanistan, pay them some foreign aid for a while to help them rebuild, and then put the remaining savings into the space program and/or national science foundation grants. Oh, and while we’re at it, how about some relief for student loan debt ? We could do all that on the budget for the current business in Afghanistan.
amethyststarlingsays
I just wish people would just appreciate how much talent and effort went into this program, rather than worry about what’s in it for them.
txpipersays
“how about some relief for student loan debt ?”
Traditionally, the party who gets the loan is responsible for paying the debt.
It’s not enough that the landing was a complete success. It’s not enough that JPL and NASA have gone almost 15 years without a major robotic mission failure. No, it always comes back to the tired questions of “can we afford this?” and “why should we pay for it?”
Here, the media, let me answer these questions for you. I’ll save you the trouble of having to ask them again:
1) Yes.
2) To develop advanced technology and push the limits of engineering capability, to question our place in the cosmos, and to pursue the eternal desire of exploration unique to our species.
… [Here] is the sad irony of this entire narrative:
The Curiosity mission was cheap. In fact, our entire planetary exloration program costs almost nothing.
…
Curiosity had a total cost of 2.5 billion dollars, yes, but it’s not like NASA went over to the Rover Depot, plucked the glamor model off the shelf and whipped out Uncle Sam’s credit card.
No, NASA spread the cost of this mission out over eight years. The money spent went into salaries of highly-skilled engineers, programmers, managers, and independent contractors in over twenty states across the country. Things like the cost of rocket to launch it to Mars are included in that total, too, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the amount.
If you you just divide the total cost by the number of years NASA has saved for it, you come out with about $312 million per year. This works about to approximately 1.8% of NASA’s yearly budget and approximately diddly-squat of the total federal budget. That’s about $1 per year for every American, aka, nothing. Think of it this way: say you lose one dime every month this year. Whoops! You’ve lost more money than you spent on Curiosity.
For this tiny amount of money, we’ve developed some of the most advanced machinery ever created. We advance our scientific understanding of the universe. We encourage the development of highly-educated problem solvers and provide some of them with jobs. We’ll make discoveries and raise new questions that no one could have previously dreamed of.
… Americans spend more on dog toys every year than the cost to run all of these [robotic] missions. Just think about that the next time someone in the media asks the question, “can we afford this?”
That’s the crux of this sorry joke. Not only can we afford it, we can afford to spend a lot more. Instead, we choose not to explore. We choose not to know what’s out there. We choose to pretend that Curiosity is some budget-busting mission when really it’s one of the best deals we get from our tax dollars.
There’s also some good advice about changing the narrative and not being defensive when some jerk brings this silliness up.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Traditionally, the party who gets the loan is responsible for paying the debt.
The loan problem is of governmental making, and the government should help solve the problem. Like expanding the economy by spending more money to keep the economy up so jobs are available to help folks pay back those loans. Unlike liberturds like you who wish to contract the economy by reduced spending, making it harder to pay back the loans. Ass backwards as is typical for you txpiper.
Anrisays
Traditionally, the party who gets the loan is responsible for paying the debt.
Traditionally, countries that make certain their middle-class aspiring students need not burden themselves with multiple decades of debt to secure higher education have superior outcomes.
Sadly, this does result in less profit for some executives, and I think we can all agree that discouraging a well-educated populace is just the price we have to pay for avoiding such a disaster.
Pteryxxsays
Traditionally, the party who gets the loan is responsible for paying the debt.
*cue orchestra and musical chorus singing “Traditioooooon! Tradition!”*
—
Via blf’s link above, in Letters of Note: a 1970 letter from a NASA director replying in depth to the question of whether NASA’s money would be better spent feeding hungry children.
Food production by agriculture, cattle ranching, ocean fishing and other large-scale operations is efficient in some parts of the world, but drastically deficient in many others. For example, large areas of land could be utilized far better if efficient methods of watershed control, fertilizer use, weather forecasting, fertility assessment, plantation programming, field selection, planting habits, timing of cultivation, crop survey and harvest planning were applied.
The best tool for the improvement of all these functions, undoubtedly, is the artificial Earth satellite. Circling the globe at a high altitude, it can screen wide areas of land within a short time; it can observe and measure a large variety of factors indicating the status and condition of crops, soil, droughts, rainfall, snow cover, etc., and it can radio this information to ground stations for appropriate use. It has been estimated that even a modest system of Earth satellites equipped with Earth resources, sensors, working within a program for worldwide agricultural improvements, will increase the yearly crops by an equivalent of many billions of dollars.
The distribution of the food to the needy is a completely different problem. The question is not so much one of shipping volume, it is one of international cooperation. The ruler of a small nation may feel very uneasy about the prospect of having large quantities of food shipped into his country by a large nation, simply because he fears that along with the food there may also be an import of influence and foreign power. Efficient relief from hunger, I am afraid, will not come before the boundaries between nations have become less divisive than they are today. I do not believe that space flight will accomplish this miracle over night. However, the space program is certainly among the most promising and powerful agents working in this direction.
txpipersays
“The loan problem is of governmental making, and the government should help solve the problem.”
This is precisely how we wound up with a subprime mortgage crisis.
dysomniak, darwinian socialistsays
@39 By creating policies ostensibly to help the poor but which in reality merely create more opportunities for predatory lending? Yup, you’re damn right it is.
dysomniak, darwinian socialistsays
Oh well, at least student loans haven’t been securitized like subprime mortgages, creating yet another mountain toxic assets waiting to torpedo the economy once again. Oh wait…
alwayscurioussays
The loan problem is more complex than simply saying it’s the government or the banks’ or the recipients’ fault. And the solution has to be complex, requiring all parties to be involved and be willing to give something up. It simply will not be pretty any other way. Unfortunately the present state is: the banks busy worming their way out of legal & financial responsibilities while the government has trouble remembering to change the band-aid on the middle & lower classes.
And there is way too much emphasis here on financial returns. The government pays for education and offers student loans (or any other program for that matter) because we mostly agree it’s a good idea. These programs have to be judged on what they return relative to what we value (an educated society), NOT based on how much money flows back in as a direct result (of interest payments).
What’s the point of sending the thing to Mars if it has no instruments to do anything?
Keep in mind that a big chunk of the cost was the delivery mechanism – everything from the rocket to the parachute to the capsule.
if Mars Curiosity cost USAnians 7 dollars per person… how many Mars Curiosities per person did the bank bailout cost us?
I know which I’d rather have.
Maybe if we put guns on the rover it would be better. Although, come to think of it, it does have a frickin’ laser.
The laser is to shoot down incoming nukes launched by those mean and nasty Iranians. And the skycrane didn’t really crash after landing the rover, it flew back to the secret SEALs base on the farside of the Moon. Besides, it’s all a UN plot to confiscate all the guns and wimmen and keep ’em deep undersurface camps there on Mars.
The budget of NASA is to the total US budget as an ice cube is to Antarctica. ‘Nuff said.
By the way, PZ, have you seen this?
http://jcb-dataviewer.rupress.org/jcb/browse/5553/17145/
From an NBC.com article that I just found:
http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/futureoftech/281-gigapixel-image-shows-entire-creature-down-cellular-level-931565
I thought you’d grok because . . . zebra fish!
Fun Fact: The U.S. spends about two Curiosity Rover missions per month for the War in Afghanistan.
Anyone able to tell me what the marked text (under the picture) says? I can’t quite seem to make out the text.
I read that NASA’s total budget since they began, is more than $100 billion less that the military budget in 2010. Can’t find the source for that at the moment.
well the 2011 DOD budget is lower than the adjusted for inflation dollars of the entire NASA budget. though arguably not by much
NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion.
2011 DOD budget: $712 billion
– http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/25/bailout-costs-more-t.html
– http://www.csbaonline.org/publications/2010/06/fy-2011-defense-budget-analysis/
and the boing-boing budget numbers are from back in ’08 so they would need to be a bit higher still
Let’s see. 2 billion to kill people overseas, or 2 billion to land a rover on Mars. I want my tax dollars going to Mars. I wish that when I pay my taxes I could earmark where it goes.
Is all what really necessary? I feel like I’m missing something, largely because I have no idea what that stuff in the upper right is saying. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes it’s worth squat.
I mean, I get that the NASA budget is a pittance, and the cost of this rover is minuscule by comparison to the rest of the budget, and I support this kind of science mission, and I can assume at some point that CNN was questioning it and this is an attempt to put that in perspective, but I have no idea from this what NASA actually said. I followed the link, but the high res version is still unreadable. Anyone know what the CNN bit is about?
Oh I know! Send bankers to Mars instead of a bailout! They can pave the way for an eventual human mission.
#7, simply not edible:
Here’s what I *think* I can make out under the photo…
“Is Curiosity worth its $2.4 billion price tag — or is it a glorified ‘box with wheels’? Experts and commentators weigh in.” Then a bunch of links to “FULL STORY” and “ROVER HAD ‘EXCITING RIDE'” and “DESCENT” and things like that.
Oops. That must be $2.6 billion.
WHAT DOES IT SAY? I can’t read it!!! need a larger version of the image, which I can’t find.
Yeah, and the Associated Press referred to Curiosity’s cost as “budget-busting” in an otherwise good story. Then, of course, some vacuum-brain wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle to decry NASA’s expenditures on space exploration while “hundreds” (she really said “hundreds”) of children are going hungry (in the world? in the U.S.? in her backyard?). The stupid, it burns!
from CNN: “Mars rover: Is all this really necessary?”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/07/us/mars-unmanned-versus-manned-exploration/index.html
Quote, bolds mine:
Basically CNN quote-mined their own comment section and made it a snappy (or snippy) headline.
Found the source and larger image, on Milky Way Musings’ Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=370777799658582&set=a.198055030264194.47045.192764827459881&type=3
The text in the CNN inset reads:
So, yeah. Controversy, both sides, etc.
Glorified box with wheels? Freaking idiots.
Although, budget busting is technically correct, even if it is misunderstood by the general public audience. Curiosity did bust its own budget. It just didn’t make a dent in the overall federal budget. OF course, somehow I’m pretty sure the the misunderstanding is intentional. Why tell the public something they can understand when you can sensationalize!
Sure, the Curiosity project went over budget. LIKE THAT TOTALLY NEVER HAPPENS IN BUSINESS, FINANCE OR THE MILITARY. Sheesh!
I looked up the total of US bankers’ bonuses for 2011, thinking it might be comparable to NASA’a total budget.
Wrong.
It’s eight times as much.
Value for money?
But you don’t understand — they’re the JOB CREATORS. The jobs may be mostly in China, but still…
I do have a nitpick: I suspect your total Bankers’ bounuses includes all bank employees, although you don’t cite a source. If you included only executives, it’d probably be only four times as much.
EricR:
Is this an apple/oranges comparison? I wonder what the “Inflation Adjusted Cost” of the DoD budget is. The CSBA article you link to does say, “In inflation-adjusted dollars, the total national defense budget request for FY 2011 is at the highest level since World War II.” It does not give that number.
I note that the first paragraph of the CSBA article ends up giving the 2011 DoD budget as $861 billion which includes $19 billion in “defense-related atomic energy programs” (I assume DoE), $9 billion from other agencies, and $122 billion is for vets.
If only there was some easy way to calculate the benefits to our technology, culture and just the sheer beauty that we have achieved this wonder. Of course the military has caused massive opportunity’s for us to advance medicine.
NASA has been dealing with questions like this pretty much since the Eagle landed. I swear, it’s like some people think we packed up $2 billion and sent it to Mars, rather than, you know, paying workers who spend money and re-circulate it back into the economy.
Meanwhile, satellite technology can predict hurricanes, spot crop blights before they’re visible from the ground, track pollutants back to the source, foster global communications, and probably helped avoid accidental nuclear war with the Soviets.
Some of the money for Apollo went toward developing computer technology. And telemetry. And remote sensing equipment. Stuff that we use every day. It’s an investment in technological development.
And when we study other planets, we learn about our own.
Yeah, total waste.
Somewhere out there, there’s a smart, dishonest politician who has nightmares about the common people developing a sense of scale about money and government budgets. Too bad that nightmare probably isn’t going to come true any time soon.
Funny, that. I really can’t think where we put all the shops out there to spend the magically missing money
Yep, with 1/6 to 1/3 of the defence dept’s budget from one year, NASA could probably put an astronaut on Mars.
It’s a law of nature that every time science celebrates a victory the reactionaries have to go into smear mode.
If we were to completely eliminate NASA, and the entire defense budget, we would still be running a $400 billion deficit for 2012. Actually the interest being paid out is almost 12 times NASA’s budget.
We should end the nonsense in Afghanistan, pay them some foreign aid for a while to help them rebuild, and then put the remaining savings into the space program and/or national science foundation grants. Oh, and while we’re at it, how about some relief for student loan debt ? We could do all that on the budget for the current business in Afghanistan.
I just wish people would just appreciate how much talent and effort went into this program, rather than worry about what’s in it for them.
“how about some relief for student loan debt ?”
Traditionally, the party who gets the loan is responsible for paying the debt.
There’s a really nice reply to this sort of crap by Casey Dreier at The Planetary Society, Curiosity Comes Cheap — Why the latest Mars rover (and all planetary exploration) is a steal (emphasis in original but my boldfacing):
There’s also some good advice about changing the narrative and not being defensive when some jerk brings this silliness up.
The loan problem is of governmental making, and the government should help solve the problem. Like expanding the economy by spending more money to keep the economy up so jobs are available to help folks pay back those loans. Unlike liberturds like you who wish to contract the economy by reduced spending, making it harder to pay back the loans. Ass backwards as is typical for you txpiper.
Traditionally, countries that make certain their middle-class aspiring students need not burden themselves with multiple decades of debt to secure higher education have superior outcomes.
Sadly, this does result in less profit for some executives, and I think we can all agree that discouraging a well-educated populace is just the price we have to pay for avoiding such a disaster.
*cue orchestra and musical chorus singing “Traditioooooon! Tradition!”*
—
Via blf’s link above, in Letters of Note: a 1970 letter from a NASA director replying in depth to the question of whether NASA’s money would be better spent feeding hungry children.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html
“The loan problem is of governmental making, and the government should help solve the problem.”
This is precisely how we wound up with a subprime mortgage crisis.
@39 By creating policies ostensibly to help the poor but which in reality merely create more opportunities for predatory lending? Yup, you’re damn right it is.
Oh well, at least student loans haven’t been securitized like subprime mortgages, creating yet another mountain toxic assets waiting to torpedo the economy once again. Oh wait…
The loan problem is more complex than simply saying it’s the government or the banks’ or the recipients’ fault. And the solution has to be complex, requiring all parties to be involved and be willing to give something up. It simply will not be pretty any other way. Unfortunately the present state is: the banks busy worming their way out of legal & financial responsibilities while the government has trouble remembering to change the band-aid on the middle & lower classes.
And there is way too much emphasis here on financial returns. The government pays for education and offers student loans (or any other program for that matter) because we mostly agree it’s a good idea. These programs have to be judged on what they return relative to what we value (an educated society), NOT based on how much money flows back in as a direct result (of interest payments).