Why Don't They Spend the Money Here, on Earth?

 Why Don't They Spend the Money Here, on Earth?

  By the Numbers

I had a meme cross my desk that represented an all too common theme.  "If you are rich enough to feed everyone, why would you choose to go into space?"  

Probably a reference to which of the billionaires, Bezos or Branson will make it into space first on their purpose made ships, launched by their companies Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

Before I get into it, the answer is EGO.  Pure and simple.  And I am ok with that.

Its a common complaint.  One at least as old as I am.  I first heard a variation of it in Junior High School.  Substitute H-Bomb and India, but the thought is the same.  My teacher explained that you just don't build a bomb, it requires scientists, engineers, administration, supplies, truckers, managerial skills and janitors.  What India was building was not an atom bomb, but a nucleus (pun intended) of the technological society that we see today.  And looking ahead 50 years from then, can anyone say that they made the wrong choice? 

True, India has a very large number of poor people, but the last famine was many decades ago, and I would defy the USA to resolve a 1.2 billion people problem any better.

The complaint about the space program shooting those dollars into space instead of <insert your favorite charity here> is just a whine about how "they" would spend the money, and then all the world would be wonderful.

But first.  A clarification, no one has shot any money into space.  Satellites,  space stations, probes, and in one stunt, an upper mid range automobile.

But not money.

It stayed right here.

The Space Plane, "White Knight 2" carrying "Space Ship 2" 

When Elon Musk started SpaceX, he hired over 3,000 scientists, engineers, administrators, managerial types and janitors. He built facilities, which hired construction workers, designers, and truckers and built supporting infrastructure.  

Where did the money come from?

He borrowed it from rich people.  You can call them investors, or banks.  But in the end, Musk redistributed the wealth from rich people, and gave it to  scientists, engineers, administrators, managerial types, truckers and janitors.  

And they used that money to buy houses, cars and food.

And the stores they frequented owners used it to pay their bills, and run their businesses.  A basic economic rule of thumb is the benefit to the economy is about 7-1 as the dollars cycle.

So if Besos, Branson and Musk had not created their space companies, 7,000ish highly paid and highly trained people would be doing what?  What would that money be doing?

The trained people would be applying for positions of a slightly smaller pool requiring their talents.  This lowers their value. 

The money, like as not, would be sitting in a bank vault, not helping anyone.

But none of it would be shot into space.

Addendum.

To address further the complaints.  Bezos has given away 10 billion to charities.  That is 5% of his total wealth.

Branson has given away 2 billion to charities, about 50% of his wealth.

Musk, by comparison, is miserly, at 150 million to charity.  On the other hand, Musk's economic position is no where near as secure as Bezos and Branson.  I don't think any of his business ventures have turned a profit yet, so he is running on good will of his investors.