Do you find it pathetic the Microsoft millionaire used $25 million dollars for his space ride?

Question

Thatr money could have helped many people.

Answer 1

Yes I do. Here I am sitting here, not completely broke, however if I had an inkling of his money it would completely change my life. Talk about spoiled.

Answer 2

It did help many people. You should be very glad not upset. Not only did that money primarily go to salaries, it permitted funding to continue in important areas of science. There is a body of research that show that giving away money doesn't necessarily help and can even cause harm. African economists have shown that the persistent famines in Africa are being caused by people helping in the wrong way. What seems to happen is that famine is a market failure not a failure to produce food. When the US Government delivers aid, it requires that the food be purchased from American farmers. That is fine, except that near by there are local farmers who would sell the food, but due to social failures the starving population cannot temporarily afford it or due to price controls the farmers cannot afford to sell it to them. So the US Government or other agencies bring in free food. No farmer can compete against food that is free so they stop growing food for the local population and start growing food for export. The immediate famine disappears, but has created incentives to not grow local food. At the next shock, a food shortage occurs as there is now even less food and so the next famine is even larger. The world steps in and helps, but it provides even more free food making the scale of the problem even larger in the third round that is inevitable in future years, reducing each time the number of local farmers financially capable of growing food for domestic use.

The actual solution is to improve property rights, reduce crime in the areas of famine and to purchase the food locally and not import it from developed nations. The long run solution is to stabilize those economies. Japan for example imports almost all their food and has never had a famine because its economic structure is designed around providing goods and services to the food producing economies.

Famines are social failures and are not natural events in most cases. Natural events trigger the famine but famines are not the inevitable result.

That was a wise use of $25 million. It probably reduced poverty in Russia by many times the $25 million due to a factor know as the multiplier effect. Not only did that pay salaries, but the people who worked on getting him into space then went to the store to buy stuff. At a multiplier of say 8, he added 200 million dollars to a poor economy, which is what Russia's is. All of that money will move through markets and not through governments and so should be very efficient in building the Russian economy.

Answer 3

The money has gone from the pocket of one super rich person to pay salaries of poor scientist and to fund scientific work. It was well spent.

You should be more concerned about the $billions Bush is spending on killing Americans and Iraqis in the Middle East

Answer 4

More and more governments are questioning spending money on space programs. Now the space industry is looking for a new source of funding and space tourism may be the answer. I personally think money spent supporting space exploration and research is money well spent. You are free to disagree with me.

At the end of the day it was his money to spend or blow as he wanted, and it is not our place to judge. How would you like it if someone came along and judged you for taking a vacation instead of donating money to charity?