A discussion on my facebook news feed got me thinking about whether Canada could afford a larger space program.

Quote> Katie Toth the space travel thing is really something we gotta work on. do we want to be known as the dudes who made an ARM for the rest of canada's history?

As it turns out, the answer is Yes. The USA Space Shuttle program spent $198B over 30 years or $6B/year, with roughly $60B attributable directly to missions. The latest corporate tax cut costs $11.5B per year, bringing the total annual cost to $13.6B since the 2007 round of cuts began. Added to this is the F-35 jet program and ship procurement has climbed to $80B, or 2/3 of the cost of building a shuttle program.

We could have a shuttle program ($3b/year in amortized startup and ongoing launch costs), an annual manned mission to Mars ($4b), a national free daycare program ($2.2b), and tripling the budget to fix water systems on reserves to ($1B). I was going to suggest restoring health care funding, but at a current shortfall in the range of $64b/year, my leftover $3.4b/year will only make a small dent. However, I am sure someone on here has another wishlist item in the appropriate range to make a complete package.

In summary, Starships [really could] Start Here.