NASA In Financial Perspective

Today it was announced that JPMorgan would buy Bear Stearns for $10 a share-- up from the $2 a share announced last week. Morgan will also be responsible for the first billion in Bear debt; the remaining $29 billion debt will fall on the U. S. taxpayer. Wall Street calls that a good deal, and the $29 billion chump change.

In the overall picture, Wall Street is correct. After all, a few individuals in the world-- including at least a couple Americans-- have net worths greater than $29 billion. To compare two numbers, that amount of Bear debt, that taxpayers might be told they should eat without so much as a grumble, is nearly twice the annual budget of NASA. The Iraq War has cost $100 billion and more each year for the past four or five years, and could do so a few years more. One year of that, spread over thirty years, would go a long way towards establishing a permanently manned lunar base and beginning the human exploration of Mars.

Absorbing the Bear debt would presumably be good for the U. S. economy in the short run. Fair enough. Paying for the Iraq War will arguably be to the strategic advantage of Western Civilization in the longer run. Again, fair enough. In the long run, what is the value-- economic, technologic, scientific, cultural, political, and perhaps in other ways-- of establishing humanity on three worlds of immense potential? That is a question deserving of more attention.