Today I read a story that said most people of the world believe China is moving up to be the new global powerhouse, and the United States is on the decline. I say, big deal. I mean it too. It is a big deal. It is because of greedy people hijacking our future. A future we should of had already, and that can still be had, but maybe at a greater cost.
I know our civilization can muster the resources both material, and human to get back that stolen progress. Not long ago I was looking at the International Space Station. It cost our worlds resources $150 billion.[1] When humans were tasked with the Apollo program, its cost was roughly $170 billion in 2005 dollars.[2] When you add just those two things together we get $320 billion. Money well spent for a lot of important reasons, of which I'll get into later on.
Here's the part that says we all got screwed by greedy people. Remember the "Financial crisis of 2007–08"? Remember how we got out of it? Our nation borrowed heavily, and raised the debt limit. It seems like it was to the tune of $1.1 trillion. That, my fellow Humans was not money well spent.
Instead of spending money in a manner such as the following;
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
Funding[edit]
The bill authorizes $700 billion for the program. The Treasury Secretary has immediate access to the first $250 billion.[12]
T.A.R.P. Troubled Asset Relief Program
As of June 30, 2012, $467 billion had been allotted, and $416 billion spent, according to a literature review on the TARP.[40]...our nation should have spent all that money on finally realizing the future we were all promised 50 years ago. Off world civilization. If our nation had only focused in that direction, it would have solved a lot of problems. Problems we are dealing with today. Here's how I would of spent all that money.
Remember this one thing first. Everything I'm about to propose is technologically possible. Now that we are in the 21st century, we are way better off to do these things than our ancestors were when President Kennedy gave his historic speech.
http://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html
Okay, we start with the $1,167,000,000,000 from the greed programs mentioned above. You take that seed money and put it into a massive national top priority push for the industrialization of the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt. Don't tell me it can't be done. I know it can. I know it would be the best thing for our world. It would provide jobs. It would increase our technology. It would decrease poverty. It would provide greater means for experimentation to solve energy and environmental problems. It would stabilize metals prices. Orbital factories could be built to provide the coming century's people with the products they want and need. They'll have the money to buy those products too!
I remember when the C-5B program started up. Lockheed hired a lot of people, and trained them. They invested in people and now we have a fleet of giant transport aircraft like the world has never known. A lot of people were trained, paid, paid taxes and bought goods and services. That goes for the C-17, and for Apollo too! Look at all the stuff our nation got for the $170 billion we spent on the Apollo program.
- 15 Saturn V rockets,
- 16 Command/Service Modules,
- 12 Lunar Modules
- Program Support
- Management Costs;
- Construction Expenses for Facilities and their upgrading
- Costs for Flight Operations.
The banks that were bailed out would have reaped the benefits too! All them people working in factories building the space infrastructure of the 21st century would be needing savings accounts and checking accounts. All them newly employed people would of been buying houses, instead of loosing them to predatory lending practices.
When president Kennedy made his historic speech, we didn't have the technology to get to the Moon. Then, before the decade was over as that visionary wished it to be, humans were walking on the moon. At the same time our economy was booming, and a golden era of technological progress commenced like the world has never known! Part of it was because of war, the other was because of the space program. Now we don't have a war, but we do have the technology to put giant space stations in orbit. To build huge rockets to lift heavy loads into orbit. To get back to the Moon, and start industry. To mine asteroids to provide for that new industry. To go claim Mars, and use it. It is all there for us, and we have the means to do this. We only need the national will.
SpaceX is a major player in the commercialization of outer space. Boeing, Lockheed Marten, Northrop Grumman and others all across our nation have the tools, and the expertise to help pull off something of this magnitude. Companies big, and small would have a stake in it. We all would, and we all would reap the rewards.
You've read stories of World War II. You've seen video of the actual battles. All of that was built by people working long and hard in factories, and getting paid to do it. We had a terrible enemy to face down, and so we have an enemy today, greed and poverty. It will take the same dedication as it did back then. It will be hard too. Sacrifices will have to be made by us all. Tragedy will have to be endured! Still we can do it. I know we can.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was 6 years ago already. Could you imagine what things would be like if our nation had of put all that $1.1 trillion into 7 Apollo size programs, with the training, and people employed, etc. etc.? President John F. Kennedy's speech was May 25, 1961. By Oct. 11, 1968 Apollo 7 was ready with the First manned Earth orbital demonstration.At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 Americans and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Apollo.html
Lets do that times 7.
I get 2,800,000 jobs requiring the support of 140,000 industrial firms and universities. I know it wouldn't be directly like that, but I also know it would be a major boon too!
"The Apollo program has been called the greatest technological achievement in human history.[83][84] Apollo stimulated many areas of technology. The flight computer design used in both the lunar and command modules was, along with the Minuteman Missile System, the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits. Computer-controlled machining was first used in the fabrication of Apollo structural components."
It is time Humans do this. Time to industrialize and colonize our solar system. This is an open-ended project, with unlimited returns. It will solve problems both social, and economic.
100 years ago if anyone would have proposed Humans do this, they would be called a dreamer. Today, if people think we can't solve our problems without doing this, it is they who are the dreamers.
Lunar Mining and the “Industrialization” of Space
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In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion. This included all research and development costs; the procurement of 15 Saturn V rockets, 16 Command/Service Modules, 12 Lunar Modules, plus program support and management costs; construction expenses for facilities and their upgrading, and costs for flight operations. This was based on a Congressional Budget Office report, A Budgetary Analysis of NASA’s New Vision for Space, September 2004.[71] The Space Review estimated in 2010 the cost of Apollo from 1959 to 1973 as $20.4 billion, or $109 billion in 2010 dollars, averaged over the six landings as $18 billion each.[76]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Cost
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_cost
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008#Funding
[40] Wilson, Linus, TARP (October 19, 2012). New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2164559
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008#Funding
[40] Wilson, Linus, TARP (October 19, 2012). New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2164559
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