[meteorite-list] "Meteorite" for $7.1 billion per gram!

From: Gerald Flaherty <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jan 26 18:50:02 2006
Message-ID: <018501c622d3$376afc80$6402a8c0_at_Dell>

As always Doug, I am in awe of the knowledge and wisdom at your fingertips.
A Positive spin "half empty/half full" always sways me in that direction.
I too see only advancement of our paultry human knowledge as the benifit of
Stardust.
A smidgen of Mercury or Venus to compare our present unclassified "ites"
might just make someone a "billionaire" as a side benefit to just the
satisfaction of "knowing".
It's difficult enough to squeek budgetary commitment for NASA out of a
overtaxed National Budget.
Let's celebrate success without wringing our hands over the world's "always
desparate condition".
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message -----
From: <MexicoDoug_at_aol.com>
To: <marcin_at_meteoryt.net>; <accretiondesk@gmail.com>;
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] "Meteorite" for $7.1 billion per gram!


> Marcin writes:
>>Think what could be done in Earth for that
>>ammount of money (except next War ofcourse).
>>Thousands of people die becouse have no food. Lets think about this when
>>next time we look on photo of microscopic grain in a gel :-|
>
> Marcin, a lot of responsibility does come with NASA's territory. Not a
> whole lot could be accomplished by spending $200,000,000 on Earth,
> though.
> People spend this kind of money every day, and the change is
> imperceptible in the
> large scheme of human events. There is a natural limit to the resources
> on
> earth, do you think the real solution is to spend money or to think out
> of the
> box? Is the real solution jamming more and more in the same place as
> waste
> only accumulates daily and resources are continually dwindled?
>
> Don't forget, in economics "spending money" is very different for the
> social
> good than for an individual's personal benefit. The money is still in
> the
> economy and not destroyed, it only changes hands, and thus is still
> available
> for giving. The grains collected by Stardust were obtained at $0.00 per
> gram. The numbers of $ really are irrelevant to your argument. It just
> passes
> money around from one gear in the society to another - in this case the
> receivers are employee scientists so they don't add to the starving ranks
> of the
> world and be forced to work in a non-unionized sweat shop and then get
> their
> jobs sent overseas to feed the overseas middle class and perhaps
> corruption.
> This is a collective benefit giving handouts to the scientists that
> preserves
> a culture of technological advancement which today has even started to
> outsource major portions of the missions to European countries and keep
> their
> scientists from the breadlines as well.
>
> The end result maintains the earthly culture of keeping a bunch of
> employed
> scientists and engineering geniuses on call and hard at work, reaching
> for
> the stars. It bolsters a society benefiting from everything this culture
> grabs
> from outside of our stagnating terrarium and knowledge base, and keeps
> afloat an industrial behemoth which can support novel and cutting edge
> advancements for the whole of human societies, tending to advance human
> rights and
> respect. That same industry would degenerate into a bunch of dejected
> scientists
> and has-been high-tech companies that would vanish into hungry oblivion
> themselves, without this support. Somewhat like Katovice was 30 years
> ago.
>
> That sadly won't mean much to someone who keels over in hunger tomorrow.
> You can alleviate his problem as Mother Teresa sagely advises "If you
> can't
> feed 100 people, the just feed one.":
> _http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites_
> (http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites)
> _http://hunger.stanford.edu/help_body.html_
> (http://hunger.stanford.edu/help_body.html)
>
> Best wishes, Doug
>
>
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Received on Thu 26 Jan 2006 06:49:58 PM PST