Cost of the Perseverance Mars trip.

[captain nemo1701]

Put simply, it's research, and the information they find out benefits everyone. The UK spends billions on all sorts of research, nothing quite as fancy as landing a rover on Mars. It's all good !

Exactly. Plus, it employs people who pay taxes and.....what goes around, comes around. Now, who's waiting for the drone deployment?.

 

[matticus]

Put simply, it's research, and the information they find out benefits everyone. The UK spends billions on all sorts of research, nothing quite as fancy as landing a rover on Mars. It's all good !

Well actually we did try to (help) pay for a Mars rover, but ... well we don't speak of the incidents any more ...

 

[Mtbsensa]

Looking at the other thread running on this.
Let me say.......I am not knocking it, its an interesting thread so will not hijack it.......BUT
$2.7 BILLION is a staggering cost.
My opinion this......not suggesting I am automatically right but I feel the money could be better spent down here on planet earth.
I have always questioned WHY they spend vast fortunes on space exploration. How has mankind benefitted from any of it?
Quite happy to be proven wrong with facts though (aside from inventing Teflon etc).

I can see the logic behind this thinking, but if you actually look at the numbers, it's nowhere near vast fortunes. As a matter of fact it's such a small amount of money that it's laughable. Most spaceprograms don't even get 1% of the GDP of their respective countries. Considering we're talking about exploring the universe and becoming a multiplanetary species, dedicating just a small amount of money is definately worth it. Also how else would that money be spent? If we just took 2.7 billion and handed it out in 100 dollar bills to the homeless that'd be great, but thats not how it works lol

 

[Edwardoka]

Hopefully you'll agree war is probably not a good thing

*faints*

 

[mudsticks]

*faints*

One of them lefty libtard snoflakes..

Knew it all along.

 

[cougie uk]

My nephew and his dad have just landed temporary cushy jobs doing test swabs. They are getting silly money for what is an unskilled job. I think it is about £15/hour, £20-25 meal expenses, and if necessary - accommodation costs also paid!

Yeah hanging out with potential Covid infections deserves a bit of extra pay. Do you begrudge them this ? It's not like it will be long term.

 

[ColinJ]

Yeah hanging out with potential Covid infections deserves a bit of extra pay. Do you begrudge them this ? It's not like it will be long term.

TBH - I did think that this afternoon, and they do need the money!

 

[mudsticks]

Thing is 2.7 bn is small change these days.

But It's the kudos, the funding, the 'wow' factor, and the 'best scientific minds' that still get directed towards 'whizz bang' space programs, that's a bit of a shame, maybe, when we have so much more pressing matters to attend to here on earth.

Before we go sending our (possibly infected?) space junk to other blameless planets, in the name of 'mankind goes exploring' for dubious technological gains.

Howsabout we apply some of that science, (and resources) here, to work out ways to live, and exist well on this planet, without fekkin over our own ecosystems ?

Sorry Brian, et al, sure you mean well, exciting stuff etc etc ..

But

Lorks, I'm such a fun sponge

 

[Ming the Merciless]

It’s flown around 471 million km. So around £5 per km. not bad value considering. How much would you car cost to travel same distance?

 

[mudsticks]

It’s flown around 471 million km. So around £5 per km. not bad value considering. How much would you car cost to travel same distance?

Yebbut we haven't got the bill for "landing fees" yet have we??

 

[Wobblers]

Looking at the other thread running on this.
Let me say.......I am not knocking it, its an interesting thread so will not hijack it.......BUT
$2.7 BILLION is a staggering cost.
My opinion this......not suggesting I am automatically right but I feel the money could be better spent down here on planet earth.
I have always questioned WHY they spend vast fortunes on space exploration. How has mankind benefitted from any of it?
Quite happy to be proven wrong with facts though (aside from inventing Teflon etc).

That 2.7 billion wasn't burned on a colossal bonfire. Rather, it was spent employing people. Those people then spend their wages on goods and services, thereby benefitting the economy (US economy in this case) at large.

The technologies developed by the space industry have many uses. For instance, those fancy aluminium alloys in your bike, for one. Or computational fluid dynamics which has led to more efficient power stations, engines and vehicles. Or better understanding of chemical reactions - which has led to (again) more efficient engines, improved processes in the chemical industry and new products. There's new data compression and error correction which has been needed to communicate with these things - which enabled mobile telephony amongst many other things. Or GPS. Or weather satellites. Or Earth sensing satellites - without which we would be much in the dark about climate change.

This is just off the top of my head - doubtless there are many more things. In fact, I doubt that any of us go as much as an hour every day without benefitting in some way or other from the technology developed.

Also not to be underestimated is the effect these projects have in inspiring people to become the next generation of scientists and engineers. Those are the people who'll be needed to solve tomorrow's pandemic, or reduce pollution or improve our lot in ways we can't even imagine yet [1].

Lastly, that 2.7 billion doesn't even amount to 1% of the US defense budget. If you really want to curb waste, that looks like the perfect low hanging branch, doesn't it?

[1] Well, hopefully.

 

[mudsticks]

That 2.7 billion wasn't burned on a colossal bonfire. Rather, it was spent employing people. Those people then spend their wages on goods and services, thereby benefitting the economy (US economy in this case) at large.

The technologies developed by the space industry have many uses. For instance, those fancy aluminium alloys in your bike, for one. Or computational fluid dynamics which has led to more efficient power stations, engines and vehicles. Or better understanding of chemical reactions - which has led to (again) more efficient engines, improved processes in the chemical industry and new products. There's new data compression and error correction which has been needed to communicate with these things - which enabled mobile telephony amongst many other things. Or GPS. Or weather satellites. Or Earth sensing satellites - without which we would be much in the dark about climate change.

This is just off the top of my head - doubtless there are many more things. In fact, I doubt that any of us go as much as an hour every day without benefitting in some way or other from the technology developed.

Also not to be underestimated is the effect these projects have in inspiring people to become the next generation of scientists and engineers. Those are the people who'll be needed to solve tomorrow's pandemic, or reduce pollution or improve our lot in ways we can't even imagine yet [1].

Lastly, that 2.7 billion doesn't even amount to 1% of the US defense budget. If you really want to curb waste, that looks like the perfect low hanging branch, doesn't it?

[1] Well, hopefully.

Agree, the military budget for many countries is obscene..

Industrialised human slaughter devices, funded by, and exchanged between national governments.

Yes UK Arms industry, we're looking at you.

Yuk

But don't you sense any tie up between space programs, and technology development, and the overall industrialised military agenda??

 

[Wobblers]

Whilst expensive the knowledge and invention off of the back of the project will offset the initial cost I suspect. I do wish they would have the same eagerness to explore the oceans (humanely) as I think there is a huge amount to learn there too.

Ironically, the best way to explore the oceans has been to use satellites! You can use a satellite to measure the Earth's gravity, and from that work out the ocean depth. It's given high resolution coverage of the ocean basins much quicker and far cheaper than using ships. And we have learned a huge amount, from how plate tectonics works to ocean currents.

 

[slowmotion]

Watching the Lego lander reaching the surface of the planet made me very happy.

That's priceless!

 

[mudsticks]

Ironically, the best way to explore the oceans has been to use satellites! You can use a satellite to measure the Earth's gravity, and from that work out the ocean depth. It's given high resolution coverage of the ocean basins much quicker and far cheaper than using ships. And we have learned a huge amount, from how plate tectonics works to ocean currents.

Thing is, we can use satellite tech to measure under ocean carbon subduction, and ocean currents etc, for examples, which are fascinating in and of themselves, of course

But really we need those super clever Nasa type bods working on the urgent planetary fixing stuff like this full time, not just producing 'interesting' by products, that may or may not be useful, to someone in the long term .

The best minds, and funding, need to be put to ameliorating humanities effects on this planet first, in fact right now, before setting off elsewhere.


And the media need to get equally excited about the output, of their work in that field of course