The US is giving plenty to the effort! PLENTY! I'm not sure what the actuall figure is but it's over 300 million. The wole world has contributed over 3 Billion, despite the war in Iraq

 

Yeah, I know. Thats why I qualified my statement with "was reluctant".

 

Oh, and is that really a picture from Titan? Interesting, I thought we were only going to get a few minutes of atmospheric data before it struck the surface (also, I think they weren't sure if there was a surface). I could be mistaken, I haven't been reading up on it yet.

 

Never heard anything about relectant from anyone in the goverment ever. That was just the assumption made from people who wanted to make an assumption like that. To think people didn't think that 30 million for 10,000 dead was fair . Well it was even better than 300 million for 200,000 dead isn't it? Some people just want to see the bad side.

 

I think that there is enough money and good sense in the world to achieve a balance where we can help those in need, take care of ourselves, and pursue continuous improvement (whether through space exploration, new medicines...whatever). I don't know if space is the final frontier (I doubt it) but sailing off in a wooden boat centuries ago to explore the earth and find places like North America must have been a pretty daunting task and perhaps ludicrous idea.

 

Most of these posts don't deserve a reply.

Look, all I'm saying is that we're never going to make a dent in the problem unless we set that as a goal. If we do, and landing a probe on Saturn's moon is an objective toward that end, I say we go for it.

 

...sounds better than a probe on Uranus!

 

that so called wole world. any of em bringing equipment and ships to help out? i think not....


and those so called billions of dollars are just pledge, the money isn't exactly in the hands of the victims yet...

pledge all they want.. until i see things being done, i take that they haven't donate a penny.

 

Thanks for the amusing and clever troll.

I'm pretty sure anyone with a pulse can look at the amount of suffering in the world and feel sorry for the huddled masses. However, part of the privilege of being a developed country is having the "mad money" to blow on projects like this.

This probe was launched what, 7-8 years ago? Hindsight does not make a proper argument. Unmanned missions such as this cost a mere fraction of what a manned mission would cost. The money spent on such a mission isn't pissed away either. R&D comes back in different ways via new technologies, people get salaries, companies make profits, suppliers get paid. You know, economics.

If you want to talk aid: Placing recent political flaming aside, isn't the U.S. responsible for around 40% of the aid distributed around the world? That's what was reported by the media surrounding the initial aid funding "cheapskate controversy" by the U.S.

Hey, I blew 30K+ on a two-seat sportscar that has no practical application than as a recreational fun vehicle -- while other people cannot afford to drive or children make sneakers for Nike for $1 a day or maybe simply starving in the streets or dying of AIDS. Should I give up (or be forced to give up) my car, my lifestyle, my salary because of the have-nots? Is this supposed to be a moral issue?

Charity is charity. Don't look towards big government to bail out the world. The US does it all the time and no one appreciates us for it. Private charitable action is where the real effort is made. Let the people give as much or little as they want. From the looks of it, many people are opening their pocketbooks and assisting the victims of the tsunami. Not only that, but we also got some pretty pictures of a dirty, smog-covered iceball in the outer fringes of the solar system and those two Mars rovers are still tooling about the surface of Mars after one year of continuous operation.

 

Such profound statements.