Pumpkins in space
Comments (9)
Thursday, November 1, 2007 | 04:09 PM ETBy quirks
By Bob McDonald, host of the CBC science radio program Quirks & Quarks.
According to the Retail Council of Canada, we spend just over a billion dollars every year on Halloween. That’s about $33 per person (note: Thanks to the sharp-eyed readers who noted a typo in the original post).
The annual budget of the Canadian Space Agency is about $300 million, or 10 bucks per person. For that 10 bucks, we get astronauts who are positive role models, international participation in the exploration of the universe, and a work force educated in high technology.
For three times that amount, we get children who are taught to be afraid of the dark, are exposed to gory images of heads on sticks, and are addicted to tooth-rotting sweets.
Please don’t tell me we can’t afford to explore space.
- Bob McDonald
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Comments (9)
Trevor
Bob, you need to be a bit more careful with your math. $59 is six times bigger than $10, but one billion is only three times bigger than 300 million. One of the numbers has to be wrong.
Posted November 1, 2007 04:42 PM
Dan Victor
Gold.
Posted November 1, 2007 08:52 PM
Minh
Halifax
How does just over 1 billion equate to $59 per person when $300 million equate to about $10 per person? If it's adults for the former, then perhaps that should be included to clarify. Thanks.
Posted November 1, 2007 11:10 PM
Doug Morton
Way to go, Bob. The National should let you replace that Rex Murphy feller once in a while!
Besides the points you make, I assume much of the CSA money is spent not in outer space but here in Canada. For our money our pride will last a lot longer than the Hallowe'en candy.
Posted November 2, 2007 12:11 PM
busty st.clair
courtenay,bc
well said! we should really be further by now in space exploration. where is canada´s sense of adventure? lets explore our universe and leave our children a real legacy, not an outdated and morbid pagan custom!
Posted November 4, 2007 12:39 AM
Des Emery
Bob - I don't know how much the Genoese, or the Spaniards, or the Europeans in general, paid for Christopher Columbus to set sail in three rickety boats, expecting him to either fall off the western edge of the Earth or to prove the world was round. I suppose Queen Isabella cared since it was her jewellery she hocked to send him on his way, but the general populace would likely never have heard of him, either before he left or on his return. Somewhat like today, I guess.
But how I would have loved to have been sitting on that hill in Spain, the sea-breeze up my nose, watching for the appearance of his crowsnest on the western horizon, the ship growing larger and larger as it approached safe harbour.
Now, I can only tune in my television and NASA's pictures from the ISS and wonder at the new manipulations accomplished by the Canadarm up there. I helped buy that tool. And how I wish I was there. Queen Isabella and all her jewels have nothing on me!
Posted November 4, 2007 01:34 AM
mt
Ottawa
Sorry, these numbers don't prove that we can afford to explore space - they prove that we are wasting money on Halloween. We should be taking both the billion dollars and the 300 million dollars and using it to feed people!
Posted November 5, 2007 08:29 AM
Dale Seale
Space is great - lots of inspirational ideas, however, I would prefer to see our candy money spent on ocean exploration. We have been to the moon yet we don't have the ability to explore some areas of the planet we live on. How about a deep sea station doing research and testing our ability to go where no one has gone before?
Posted November 6, 2007 09:52 PM
j rock gray
We may have spent that much on hallowe'en but the space program in
Canada and the United States has costed enough to feed the world for a hundred years,so I would think the
egg-heads that decide that a planet is not a planet should not worry about the cost of a day that would be just pocket change to the space program,Just think of it all that money spent on the program just for some pictures and rocks from space
that could be spent for some real logical things here on earth.
When we start worring about the costs of different things that our children like,We had better stop
having children and sink everything into the programs that do little for betterment of society and people on the whole
Posted November 26, 2007 12:18 PM