Can anyone tell me if there is a feed-the-starving conversion calculator that calculates how many in India (or elsewhere) that could have been fed by the monies invested in the Apollo program? S.E.T.I.? LHC? studies on armpit odor? etc.?
I'm not asking for a lecture on what good came out of the above,* I'm just asking if there's a scientific calculator that converts these numbers?
* Which I'm sure would be a short one.
Well, let's do it simple "back of the envelope" style.
According to House, Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, 1974 NASA Authorization, Hearings on H.R. 4567, 93/2, Part 2, p. 1271, the cost of the Apollo program in 1973 was about $25 billion (which I assume was in 1973 dollars). NASA later estimated this to be about $170 billion in 2005-dollars.
So let's go with that as a baseline: $170billion in 2005-dollars
That goes a long way toward the cost of developing fire-fighting and breathing apparatus technology that save countless thousands of lives of firefighters and protects people from inhalation injuries. But wait, sorry, can't include that...
it comes from Apollo technology. Strike that.
That $170 billion could have been spent to develop automatic pulse generators which can be implanted, detect the onset of a heart attack and deliver a corrective pulse of electricity to save lives (a mini defibrilator) or programmable pacemakers or programmable implantable medication delivery systems like for insulin which no doubt can save countless thousands of lives! Oh, darn, there again, I forgot:
that comes from Apollo technology. Strike those too!
That money could have been spent on developing image analysis enhancement systems which find their use in CAT scans, MRI's, radiography and medical microscopy, again saving thousands and thousands of human lives, but we can't count those either!
That's Apollo technology!
Darn that Apollo program!
I think we have to figure that $170 billion could have been better spent to feed everyone on earth for many, many years.
This would actually be a noble use of money and probably could be applied to
anything and everything.
Not joking here. We spend countless amounts of money on things which don't do anyone any good. I bought this computer, there's $300 I could have donated to charity. I own a house which could easily have been money that was better used to support the less fortunate in my town here.
I work for a company getting paid much more than I need to live a subsistence living on while others around me have it much harder. I'm one of the few who say
please raise my taxes. I'll gladly pay more in taxes to see my fellow people better off. I can do with less.
I see millionaires who
definitely could survive on less. And even if they give lots to charity they still have a LOT OF MONEY. Why? What do they need that for?
This gets to the root of what it means to be human, I guess. We either have to agree that our fellow people are more important than our personal "goals" or we have to accept that sometimes we pool our money for things that don't necessarily benefit individuals as much as they benefit our group as a whole.
In reality the most compassionate and truly, honestly "Christian" thing to do would be to live as a band of simple dwellers much as our ancestors did thousands of years ago. We live
subsistence living which means we take only as much as we need (and we won't need much if we die earlier) and we take care of our "kin unit". Pure and total "communism" after a fashion must be adhered to as well. From each according to his ability to each according to his need.
I am actually not being facetious here. This is the only way to be totally and perfectly fair and caring for our fellow people. If I have 2 loaves of bread and you have one, then I must give up half a loaf of bread to you.
If I ask you to give a fraction of your holdings to serve some greater "good" (say building a temple to God in our holy city of Jerusalem according to the strict protocols laid out in the Bible) then we are diverting money from a much bigger need of simply feeding people around us.
We cannot spare any excess money on
anything until all are cared for at the exact same level.
I honestly don't know where to come down on what is "good" and what is "bad" in this scenario. The only true good would be to ensure the survival of everyone at the same level. No sacrifice from one that isn't born by another equally.
