Curiosity wins over Compassion It boggles my mind that 2.5 billion dollars is spent on landing a machine on Mars when there are so many people here on Earth dying of hungry. Apparently the Mars Curiosity project was $900 million over budget. With that level of discrepancy there really is no budget guideline in place. I shutter to think what the 70% of previously failed missions cost. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not entirely against space exploration. It was after all exciting when Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon making that one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind in 1969. However it peaks my curiosity to know how much money in total was spent on Moon missions overall and where did it get us? Are there people living good lives up there that I don’t know about? Did we give up the Moon, did we discover all there was to discover up there or did man, aka NASA, get bored and need a new greater challenge to pursue? Okay, I know what you’re thinking and I agree, my view is native and narrow-minded but it is not ego driven. Humans are compassionate beings so why does compassion not supersede curiosity? The intelligence required to achieve these great space feats is nothing short of phenomenal. I can’t help but imagine how different our world would be if this collective intelligence and the enormous amount of money spent looking beyond Earth was instead directed toward discovering how to conquer the unimaginable pain and suffering that exists here, in our reality. Why is that we value reaching for the stars more than reaching for one another? Susan Wheeler Guelph
Susan Wheeler