The headline read: "What's $ 700 B in Apollos?"
In other words, how many NASA moon missions would equal the financial bailout package price recently signed into law by GWB?
The answer? About seven. Translated into 2008 dollars, the 1969 Apollo 11 mission cost about $ 100 B. In light of that, we could conceivably send seven more missions into space for the same money we're using to (hopefully) get the U.S. out of our current money muddle.
We'll see.
Why was this interesting to me this week? Well, I've been glued to the news for the past couple of weeks, waiting and biting my nails. What would the market do, what would the government do ... These two questions lead to some restless nights here, let me tell you. Those of us heavily invested in the market as a means of helping put our children through college, then ultimately retire, have been very, very nervous.
Now that we know the bailout's a go, I found it interesting to read about what could theoretically have been done with that money. It's all academic, of course. The $ 700 B wouldn't have been earmarked for NASA if it hadn't gone where it did. It's just fun to consider.
Reading that article led me to this one about an Apollo-scale program for energy independence, which is apparently a political issue related to legislation on global warming.
Who knew?
On a related topic, I learned that Google, a company accused of being a real energy sponge, is talking about helping the U.S. solve some energy problems by working on "green technology." I guess that's their way of atoning, or just plain good business. More likely the latter.
And those are my interesting tech tidbits of the week.
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