[meteorite-list] "Meteorite" for $7.1 billion per gram!

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Marcin writes:
>Think what could be done in Earth for  that
>ammount of money (except next War ofcourse).
>Thousands of  people die becouse have no food. Lets think about this when
>next time we  look on photo of microscopic grain in a gel :-|
 
Marcin, a lot of responsibility does come with NASA's territory.  Not  a 
whole lot could be accomplished by spending $200,000,000 on Earth,  though.  
People spend this kind of money every day, and the change is  imperceptible in the 
large scheme of human events.  There is a natural  limit to the resources on 
earth, do you think the real solution is to spend  money or to think out of the 
box?  Is the real solution jamming more and  more in the same place as waste 
only accumulates daily and resources are  continually dwindled?
 
Don't forget, in economics "spending money" is very different for the  social 
good than for an individual's personal benefit.  The money is still  in the 
economy and not destroyed, it only changes hands, and thus is still  available 
for giving.  The grains collected by Stardust were obtained at  $0.00 per 
gram.  The numbers of $ really are irrelevant to your  argument.  It just passes 
money around from one gear in the society to  another - in this case the 
receivers are employee scientists so they don't add  to the starving ranks of the 
world and be forced to work in a non-unionized  sweat shop and then get their 
jobs sent overseas to feed the overseas middle  class and perhaps corruption.  
This is a collective benefit giving handouts  to the scientists that preserves 
a culture of technological advancement which  today has even started to 
outsource major portions of the missions to European  countries and keep their 
scientists from the breadlines as well.
 
The end result maintains the earthly culture of keeping a bunch  of employed 
scientists and engineering geniuses on call and hard at work,  reaching for 
the stars.  It bolsters a society benefiting from everything  this culture grabs 
from outside of our stagnating terrarium and knowledge  base, and keeps 
afloat an industrial behemoth which can support  novel and cutting edge 
advancements for the whole of human societies, tending to  advance human rights and 
respect.  That same industry would degenerate into  a bunch of dejected scientists 
and has-been high-tech companies that would  vanish into hungry oblivion 
themselves, without this support.  Somewhat  like Katovice was 30 years ago.
 
That sadly won't mean much to someone who keels over in hunger  tomorrow.  
You can alleviate his problem as Mother Teresa sagely  advises "If you can't 
feed 100 people, the just feed one.":
_http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites_ 
(http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites) 
_http://hunger.stanford.edu/help_body.html_ 
(http://hunger.stanford.edu/help_body.html) 
 
Best wishes, Doug