# poverty or space?



## Brian G Turner (Apr 15, 2003)

HYPOTHETICAL:

Through whatever means, you are rich to the point of being able to invest a very significant amount of money into either:

1/ tackling world poverty, with extensive funding programs that will benefit many millions of people

OR

2/ funding an innovative space mission that will vastly increase our knowledge of space and the solar system.

Which is your priority, and why?


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## Survivor (Apr 15, 2003)

Funding an innovative space program.

Why?  Because more money, in and of itself, does not economic prosperity make.  If you got this money by any means that didn't _in and of itself_ create millions of jobs in the economy, then dumping it on the market will simply cause a marked decrease in the value of whatever currancy suddenly sees all these _trillions_ of dollars (or pounds) being dumped into.  Which will significantly depreciate the value of the economic good you do....

In point of fact, dumping that much money into the world economy will probably cause a massive amount of economic stagnation, particularly if you manage to devalue one of the world's major currencies.

On the other hand, building something like, say, a space elevator would probably only take 20-100 _billion_ and it would mostly be spent on improving technology, thus giving a huge _boost_ to the world economy.  And once finished, it would bring the cost of space launches down to the point that serious commercial exploitation of near Earth space would become viable...perhaps even large scale space colonization efforts.  This would have a continuing positive effect on the world economy for _decades_, benfiting billions of people economically, rather than a single short term economic relief that would _cause_ a significant economic stagnation.

But if I didn't have to choose _either_ option,  I would probably opt for a project to create a genetically engineered potato-kelp hybrid species that could resolve both world hunger and the energy crisis by converting sunlight, CO2, and seawater into tasty giant potatos, which could be made into fuel (or vodka) at need.  _That_ project would take only a tens of millions, including the ruthless security guards that would shoot many holes in whatever eco-terrorists that should dare attempt to impede my work


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## Brian G Turner (May 15, 2003)

The potato kelp sure sounds great and tasty! Lucky that we won't need it. 

Sorry - no time for a proper answer at the moment, but this thread deserves bumping up until I can.


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 12, 2003)

I can't believe I was so distracted from this thread - sincere apologies, *survivor*, for not continuing a discussion I started.

Personally, I'd love to find a way to marry both concepts together - a space program whose profits would benefit poorer peoples. 

I'm not too sure what great projects I'd use, though. One lazy idea that comes to mind is to land a single probe on all the major bodies in our solar system - simply little things, each carrying a camera and a few scientific instruments. Imagine the views of dawn across the universe! The novelty of which could perhaps be sold for profit to be ploughed directly into schemes directly tackling Third World Poverty.


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## Gnome (Sep 12, 2003)

I'm with Brian on this one.  Combine the two into one!!
Compromise is the weapon of the wise man!


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