Cost Comparison: Mars Curiosity Vs Olympics

London 2012 Olympics Cost = USD$14.46 billion:

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The original budget for the Games was £2.4 billion, but this was increased almost fourfold to about £9.3 billion ($14.46 billion) in 2007.

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Beijing 2008 Olypics cost = USD$15 billion declared, actual not formally released:

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On March 6, 2009 the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games reported that total spending on the games was "generally as much as that of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games", which was equivalent to about US$15 billion. They went on to claim that surplus revenues from the Games would exceed the original target of $16 million.[10] Other reports, however, estimated the total costs from $40 billion to $44 billion, which would make the Games "far and away the most expensive ever".

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Athens 2004 Olympics cost = approx. USD$11.2 Billion excluding construction costs:

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In June 2004, the BBC reported that the costs of hosting Olympic Games were close to € 10 billion.[12] On 13 November 2004, the Greek embassy estimated the costs of hosting the Olympics at €8.954 billion (about $11.2 billion in 2004) not including construction made regardless of the Games, but including 1.08 billion Euros ($1.35 billion) in security costs.
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As of 2012 many conversion schemes have stalled owing to the financial crisis in Greece. The annual cost to maintain the sites has been estimated at £500 million, a sum which has been politically controversial in Greece, though many of these facilities are now under the control of domestic sporting clubs and organizations or the private sector.

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Sydney 2000 Olypics cost = A$6.6 billion:

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In 2002, the Auditor-General of New South Wales reported that the Sydney Games cost A$6.6 billion, with a net cost to the public between A$1.7 and A$2.4 billion.

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Just to see those figures side by side:
London 2012: USD$14.46 billion
Beijing 2008: USD$15 billion
Athens 2004: USD$11.2 Billion
Sydney 2000: A$6.6 billion

So are you ready for it?

The total cost of Nasa's Mars Science Laboratory, of which the Mars Curiosity Mission is a part of, is about:
US$2.5 billion

Only.

I hardly need to state this but I will: How many planets would humanity have already visited, if for the last 12 years instead of injecting exorbitant amounts of money into 8 weeks of olympic showtime, we had put those funds towards outer space exploration.

On the other hand. Olympics should infuse in people the desire for sportmanship and physical education. To make them want to have a healthier life regime that includes sports. It is also meant to increase sporting desirability in youth... something that is increasingly lacking in todays world.

I repeat: it is what it should do... whether it achieves... who knows what kind of impact it has on how many people... I still find it to be an indispensible program that shouldn't be wiped clean.

The mars program too may prove to be important to science. If u want the USA to be able to fund more programs like this you should take to the streets and demand your government to stop squandering money and stop doing wasteful spending. Because all the spending of 3.9tril dollars, which is Obama's budget for this year, is not all going to where it should go. A part of it gets "lost" and "wasted" along the way.

@ Decius - yeah, I know it's a dead weight.

@ Rainman05 - Perhaps in the past the idea that the Olympics would encourage people towards a healthy lifestyle was present, but it isn't that way now, we have to look at what is factual. As the above figures show, greater and greater amounts of money are being invested into these games - yet at the same time, in the last decade obesity has escalated, here are some world obesity rankings:

USA: 3rd most obese
Australia: 6th most obese
United Kingdom: 10 most obese
Greece: 12th most obese
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9345086/The-worlds-fattest-
countries-how-do-you-compare.html)

Australia, Greece & UK, three countries that hosted Olympics in the last 12 years, all are among the most obese nations in the world. Surely if the Olympics were something were to spark positive lifestyle changes in health & well being, these countries would reflected that.

I was Australia during the 2008 Olympics and it was all facetious from what I saw and experienced before, during and afterwards. During the two weeks it's just a big party for the hosting city and the athletes and afterwards all that is left are all the empty party bottles to clean up and a huge tab.

It is unquestionable to me that the Mars program is invaluable. And in regards to 'If u want the USA to be able to fund more programs like this', > what I would like to see is many nations working as a collective to fund such expeditions, not just America. Nasa is probably the one American organisation that I have respect towards. They aren't just finding information for themselves, the information they find enlightens all of us. This mission alone, has increased my knowledge of the universe at large. For me, that is far more valuable than watching people jump hoops for a gold medal.

Yeah. So it is indeed a program that fails on its purpose on a large scale. But then again... I don't know if that it is its intended purpose. To inspire all... or a great deal of people. It is there just to inspire the people who want to exceed in these domains of physical education and sportsmanship.

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/08/14/with-olympics-gone-from-screens-
some-viewers-look-buff-their-own-bodies/wxkuEFLdf63hkaZevrwsBL/story.html


So in this regard, I think the Olympics are quite successful. The way they could be more successful is if the athletes who are in the Olympics get a better PR. Like Usain Bolt. He has a great PR. Everybody knows about him. Even the fat guy who eats hamburgers and piles down beer after beer. But the PR is not aimed at making such people want to drop the burgers and start going on a jogging trip. It just makes him popular.

If the PR would change in order to increase people's desire to do sports, even at a non-professional level, a lot could be changed.

I am not bashing the NASA program. But it is like comparing potatoes to chicken. their mission statements are different. One is to increase knowledge about other planets and space. The other is to reward excellence in the field of sportsmanship and physical education. If they both had the same mission, yes, we could sacrifice one for the other. Otherwise... I don't know. Maybe its just me and I think this way and its ok if you don't see it the way I do.

Regarding your last paragraph, it's not about comparing missions, it's about comparing money spent in light of the missions. It is not reasonable to spend 15 billion dollars on 26 sports (there were only about featured 26 sports for London 2012) which is over 5.5 million dollars per sport, for the Olympics. I think the objective of the Olympic games does not warrant that much expenditure.

Whereas visiting a planet that is over 50 million kilometers away from Earth, that is a much more justified cause to spend billions of dollars on. The fact that the Mars mission only cost a fraction of the amount spent on the games, makes the Olympics a huge failure imo.

Yeah, you are correct in the expenditure part. I am not going against it. I was just pointing out the differences between the two.

Also, NASA has no challenge (as of now) in space exploration. Russia is barely keeping up with Roscosmos ( I think thats the name of the agency) and China's space program won't launch until 2020. I expect that when china's space program advances and when Russia's space program gets back on its feet and progresses, the costs of space exploration and discovery, like these missions, will also increase. Why?

There is that triangle if you know about it. Human Resources <-> Money <-> Time <-> Human Resources.

If you wish to decrease time, you need to increase money and/or human resources. If you wish to decrease money, you need to increase human resources or time.

When there will be a real challenge to NASA exploration program, time will be of an issue, and thus, HR and money will increase. For the Olympics, its also a matter of prestige. Everybody wants the most fancy and well made olympics and fashionable olympics to increase prestige of the host country. And it has been going on for over a century. So yeah... a lot of challenge there. So ofc, costs increase to the extraordinary amount of 5.5mil $ per sport.

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When there will be a real challenge to NASA exploration program, time will be of an issue, and thus, HR and money will increase.

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That's a very interesting point. Countries could either work in unison, as my idealistic mind thinks they should, or be competitive. And competition is severely missing from space exploration.