NONSENSE AND SENSE (in that order)

    As it is sometimes said, “maybe it’s the season.” It does seem, doesn’t it, that in an election year, judging from some statements, the general level of intelligence is not what we had hoped it is. “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” is a gem. Another, from a highly placed figure is “Corporations are people” (yeah, and bankruptcies are abortions). Then there is “Islam is not a  religion.” And for posterity, I’m sure, is the comment plaintively uttered to a reporter by a woman who must have married up beyond her wildest dreams. The reporter was checking out the wealthy occupants of fine automobiles that were lined up for a recent Romney gala fund raiser: “The little people. They just don’t understand.”
   
    Since my particular field is rocketry and anything associated with it, my pet peeve centers on comments that followed published commentaries on NASA’s Curiosity mission, to the effect that all that money ($2.6 billion) ought to have been spent here, on this planet, for more sensible things. It is as if they believe Martians are now happily tearing off check stubs.  Admittedly, it can’t be argued that disparaging comments about space exploration has anything  to do with the election year. They have been around for some time, and never seem to cease.

    Actually, the rover that now sits on Mars is dirt cheap. The raw materials in the 2,000 pound Rover  cost three dollars a pound, give or take a few quarters. The same goes for the  75,000 pounds or so of material in the rockets that got the rover to Mars.  On further thought,  the material is not worth anything, as the value I quoted amounts to what it took to mine, refine and process the materials from which the rover and rockets were built. Labor and businesses benefited.

    Need an example? That $30,000  Mustang you have your eye on costs ten dollars a pound. About three dollars a pound is in material. The rest is labor and benefits paid  to workers by Ford and its parts suppliers, overhead, profit to Ford,  shipping, processing by the dealer, dealer overhead and profit.

    So what happened to the 2.82 billion dollars spent so far on the Curiosity mission? It stayed here, distributed almost entirely in paychecks to the scientists, engineers, technicians and skilled fabricators who designed, built and implemented the Curiosity venture. That money wasn’t squirreled away in the Cayman Islands. It was mostly spent. A substantial chunk went back to the government. The remainder  found its way to builders, the local mechanic, the hair dresser and barber, the local bookstore, and countless other places, maybe even ballet lessons. You get the idea.Those people prospered too, and also sent money back to Washington. And you can bet that some who worked on the project already have underway spinoff ventures that take advantage of some of the technology that was developed in the program. It’s win-win from every aspect, with the bonus of ultimately learning more about our origins through space exploration.

    There are various ways in which the government can stimulate the economy, but for payoff, there is nothing that can match investments in technology. If you doubt this, think about the multi-hundred billion dollar business that has grown from NASA  and Department of Defense early communications satellites.