Recently, the Kepler orbiting research telescope went down. It did a lot of research before it broke. How much? This much.

With this many planets discovered.

Due to some problems, however, it can no longer search for planets in the manner in which it was designed. Engineers are still looking for ways to employ it, you know, since it’s out there already anyway and has an $18M/yr operating cost.

People complained about how much money was wasted on it. NASA spent $17,770,000,000 ($17.8B) in 2012. I won’t compare that to what’s spent on the Armed Forces or Health Care because those things are important (though how much we spend on them could actually stand some serious revision). Instead, I thought I’d take a look at just how much it costs in terms of things we that we don’t complain about. Things that, honestly, we could have done without or at least without so much of.

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Jersey Shore Bucks (JS)

I’ve never actually seen an episode of Jersey Shore. I’m fine with that. I think I hated reality TV before it existed. I’d say I’ve seen maybe ten total episodes of any reality show ever, and most of them were The Ultimate Fighter. Judge me if you must.

It’s tough to get a fix on how much each episode of Jersey Shore costs (financially, of course; not morally, intellectually, emotionally, etc). However, reality TV shows cost between $100-500K per episode, so I’ll split the difference and say that it cost about $250K, which is both fair and a nice easy number to work with. Think about that. To produce a single episode of Jersey Shore costs somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars. And they made 71 episodes over 6 seasons (spending about $1.8 billion by this math — I am assuming that production cost started low and went high, which still agrees with my convenient average of $250,000).

Starship Troopers III Bucks (SST3)

If reality television breaks your wallet, movies break the bank. There has been some mind-bogglingly expensive cinema produced. SST1 had a budget of $121M. Avatar cost $237M to make. The Avengers cost $624M. Hundreds of movies come out every year and we barely bat an eye at the cost. I try to take for granted that they are art and are created for and enjoyed by someone somewhere. Starship Troopers III, however… sigh. Let’s just get on with it. SST3 had a modest budget of $20M just 5 years ago. In 2012, 677 movies were released, a more or less steady upward trend. That’s a lot of crappy movies.

Royal Caribbean Bucks (RC)

Royal Caribbean just came out with a new ship, the Allure of the Seas, that comes with more perks and twerks on it than most people can even access on land. It cost $1.2B to build and is staffed with more than 2,000 crew members. It’s not going to war. It’s not going to provide food and medical aid to earthquake or tsunami-ravaged cities. It’s for entertainment. Like ping pong.

I’ve been on two cruise ships. The first was chartered by the Marine Corps, crammed much too tight with us troops on the way to Norway. The second was for my honeymoon and it was Carnival. It was fun. Gaudy, too party-y and over the top, but definitely fun. In 2010, the revenue for Royal Carribean Cruise Line (“…the world’s second largest cruise operator by number of ships…”) was $6.74 billion, with a “B.” I like zeros so let’s show them all.

$6,740,000,000

That’s a lot of money.

Money Money Money
So I propose a new unit of monetary measure. Mindless frivolity and dumbing-down bucks. Let’s see what this money could have bought us.

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Cadillac’s net worth is valued at $16B. Honda’s is off the charts at $367B. Think about that. NASA’s budget amounts to a serious but low-risk side project for Honda. As an organization, it’s comparable to Cadillac. I don’t know that there is a single company comparable in scale to the US military or educational system. Yet here we are, a small car company stands in the same lines waiting for soup as our space program, the place where our sharpest minds should be going (vice designing more elaborate video, PC, and table-top games).

I realize my math here is crude, which is why I was so super conservative with the estimates. I did that for two reasons:

1) Because I’m prone to all kinds of dumb math errors and I have enough homework to do as it is.
2) Because I didn’t want you to miss the point.

And what’s the point? NASA is important. While hard to imagine, (I know!) it is actually more important than Jersey Shore, a crappy sci-fi, and a new luxury cruise ship combined. How important? Ask Neil.

I suppose if not for the opportunity to produce things of no real quality, we wouldn’t have the money to miss. But then, surely there must be a line or a limit (the limit of tolerance as intelligence approaches negative infinity). I don’t want you to feel like I’m judging you. This is your country. If this is the country that you want, then as Americans, it’s your right to have it.

So go on, then. Have it.
-CG

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References
MPAA
Family of Four
NASA Budget (current)
NASA Budget (1990 converted to 2007 value)
Honda
Car Conversion
Royal Caribbean
Allure of the Seas
and
Allure of the Seas