Congratulations Europe. But why don't we hear people saying that the EU should focus on their poverty first and would be better off putting this money into getting the Greece, Spain, and Italy economies in order?
I'm italian. There are two things I would like to point out: I read that the mission cost about 1.6 bilion $, with that money you don't solve much in countries of about 11, 45 and 60 milion people.
Also, speaking for Italy, I don't think we need more money if we're going to waste it. We need to make reforms, stop wasting a LOT of money and so on
If people focused on poor in the past instead of science - peasants and slaves would be sligthly less abused, and slightly happier, but we would still use them.
Instead they focused on science and we don't need slaves nor peasants anymore.
I am all for govt. funding scientific endeavours and space exploration like this.
But one thing I don't like about the comic is it implies that many problems faced in the world like hunger and malaria are not easily solvable.
IMHO, It is quite simply a travesty that there is still so much absolute poverty and deaths (through malnutrition easily curable and/or preventable diseases) in the third world. Many of these problems were solved in the early 20th century- It is a lack of political will of governments and the collective apathy of its citizens, who are engrossed in their own first-world problems.
To answer the xkcd comic: Yes. 15 years should be enough to at least halve world-wide deaths due to hunger and diseases like Malaria and Cholera, If the citizens of the first world make it a voter issue. Such endeavours will pay themselves multiple times over. (increased human output, new trading markets for companies, reduced population growth) And you don't need to sacrifice funding for scientific research to do it(coughs military budgets).
I'm not european, but I imagine that the amount spent on this mission (which launched in 2004!) is miniscule compared to the amount that would be needed to fix a country's economy.
