Want to know where $4,292,000,000,000 of taxpayers money is going?

Question

Launch Date Name Result Reason

1964 Mariner 3 US (flyby) Failure Shroud failed to jettison
1964 Mariner 4 US (flyby) Success Returned 21 images
1969 Mariner 6 US (flyby) Success Returned 75 images
1969 Mariner 7 US (flyby) Success Returned 126 images
1971 Mariner 8 US Failure Launch failure
1971 Mariner 9 US Success Returned 7,329 images
Total cost of all Mariner missions was approximately $554 million.

1975 Viking 1 Orbiter/Lander US Success Located landing site for Lander and first successful landing on Mars
1975 Viking 2 Orbiter/Lander US Success Returned 16,000 images and extensive atmospheric data and soil experiments.
Total cost of both Viking missions was roughly one billion dollars.

1992 Mars Observer US Failure Lost prior to Mars arrival
The total cost of the Mars Observer mission including development, construction, launch, and ground support is estimated at $813 million.

1996 Mars Global Surveyor US Success More images than all Mars Missions
Total cost: $319 million including Development, construction and
Launch
5 years of operations

1996 Mars Pathfinder US Success Technology experiment lasting 5 times longer than warranty.
Total cost $280 million, including the launch vehicle and mission operations.

1998 Mars Climate Orbiter US Failure Lost on arrival
Project Cost
$327.6 million total for both orbiter and lander (not including Deep Space 2). $193.1 million for spacecraft development, $91.7 million for launch, and $42.8 million for mission operations.

1999 Mars Polar Lander US Failure Lost on arrival
total $120 million. (not including launch vehicle)

1999 Deep Space 2 Probes (2) US Failure Lost on arrival (carried on Mars Polar Lander)
The total cost of development of the Deep Space 2 probes was $29.2 million.

2001 Mars Odyssey US Success High resolution images of Mars
Total cost: About $300 million

2003 Mars Exploration Rover - Spirit US Success Over 70,000 images lasting 8 times longer than warranty
2003 Mars Exploration Rover - Opportunity US Success Over 58,000 images lasting 8 times longer than warranty
Total cost: Approximately $820 million total, consisting approximately of $645 million spacecraft development and science instruments; $100 million launch; $75 million mission operations and science processing

2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter US TBD
The total cost of the spacecraft was $720 million

If my addition is correct forgive me if I got lost in all those zero's I believe the total cost of US Mars Explorations from 1964 to 2005 is $4,292,000,000,000. Thats 4 trillion 292 million dollars for some very nice pictures space debris floating around in space and some Mars rocks. Is it worth it?

If you took time to actually read the details you would see that its not about space exploration in general just the MARS exploration.

billions is right...sorry

It should have read 4 trillion 292 billion dollars.

Answer 1

Here's my opinion, NASA should be shut down. With all of their failures if they were a privately owned company they would have been out of business long ago. We know so little about our own planet I think the money could have been spent more wisely right here. We are basically clueless about the oceans, volcanoes, hurricanes and a host of other things. We could have spent that money on alternative fuels and oil and its industry would now be a thing of the past. We could have done something about social security and health care with the money. It's true that some great technology has come from NASA, but it isn't worth the price tag.

Answer 2

Are you against scientific progress? Are you an expert at hindsight. Would you be thinking the same way if human existence depended on the work being done in the space program? Do you know that it does not! Are you interested that most of this money is spent on wages of scientists who work for the betterment of life on earth! Do you know how many inventions have come out of the space program, how many improvements in robotics and computing that derive benefits out of this money? Sure I wonder about all the fuel that burns up everytime a rocket goes up, but what important work do you do with the fuel you put in your car? Your costing is over a long period, the expenditure on health care over the same period would interest me, especially treating preventable disease such as obesity and most heart problems. This money is a drop in the ocean on total spending terms Just add up the GDP for all those years. I hope this makes you worry a little less about the waste in the space program and that feel better knowing that without scientific endevor we would not even be able to treat pneumonia and people would be dying from common STD's like they did centuries ago.

Answer 3

We are so lucky that with your lack of even simple arithmetic skills, you are NOT involved in any aspect of the space program! Uh, you slipped a few digits, the total (round numbers) is four BILLION dollars, NOT four TRILLION! You need to brush up on simple addition! You are probably employed by the Obummer administration to do budget analyses, and help him come up with some of the ridiculous fairy tales he spins about the economy, Obamascare, and his so called "accomplishments".

Answer 4

Yes.

Why?

Because we need to explore the universe we live in and make all the strides we can, if for no other reason that we have just about raped this planet to the point where it'll be a dying husk, so we need to work now, so that at some point, some of the few that remain can have a chance to make better choices somewhere else.

I look forward to all the thumbs down....will let me know that the truth hurts.

Answer 5

Yes. That's $4.3 trillion over 41 years. That's barely real money for our government. Besides, space exploration is exercise is scientific problem solving. Many, many items and devices we use in every day life came to us through the space program.

Should NASA be accountable to being efficient with the taxpayers' money? Absolutely. Should we eliminate the space program? Nope.

If you want to save money, look at two things. One, plain, old boring waste. Just in its daily operation, the government wastes money and actually loses some. Two, look at Congress. They waste billions of dollars a year doing things like attending "conferences" in such serious places at the Bahamas, bringing - of course - their entire families. All on the taxpayers' tab. Not to mention the pathetic pork/earmarks.

Answer 6

that's particularly no marvel. The Mets or the different landlord would not do the form, they have a GC (prevalent Contractor) who assigns all contracts to different businesses, it advance into this guy, the GC, who exceeded the $$$ to the corporate's that "might have" mob ties. that's in simple terms yet another media member firing away on the Mets; they could do some thing effective, like get Minaya axed.

Answer 7

I think the space program in general is a waste of money. If they spent that much time and money on the planet Earth, maybe we would have renewable energy sources and not be dependent on fossil fuels.

Answer 8

And how much wealth has the technology that was passed on to the private sector generated in the same time?
Weve spent that much in Iraq just to kill 3500 of own young men

Answer 9

Your math is wrong, you got trillions and billions mixed up.

If you take into account inflation, the total amount in current dollars would be much higher, though.

And, yes, it's been worth it.

Answer 10

Yes it is, we may gain some little Green people to do the work Americans and Mexicans won't do !~!