Curiosity

6th August 2012 morning NASA reached another landmark victory in its history. Yes, MSL (mars science laboratory) also known as "curiosity" successfully landed in Mars' "Gale crater" landing itself a much appreciated achievement in robotic science. Total cost of the mission is US$ 2.5 Billion. 

Objectives of the missions are
  

Determine the mineralogical composition of the Martian surface and near-surface geological materials.

Attempt to detect chemical building blocks of life (biosignatures).

Interpret the processes that have formed and modified rocks and soils.

Assess long-timescale (i.e., 4-billion-year) Martian atmospheric evolution processes.

Determine present state, distribution, and cycling of water and carbon dioxide.

Characterize the broad spectrum of surface radiation, including galactic radiation, cosmic radiation, solar proton events and secondary neutrons.

I always admired and appreciated space science expeditions.but nowadays I wonder what is the use of analyzing "martian atmosphere" while our own atmosphere itself in its worst condition with Ozone layer depletion is threatening life being in the planet earth. I failed to understand how does "Determining cycling of water and carbon dioxide" in mars going to help man kind in earth while we did not take any step to control global warming or to prevent the drying rivers.

Above all we are not able to distribute the basic need of "FOOD" to all over the world, any other scientific achievements are just in vein and really shameful and ridiculous. some of the below facts about poverty and hunger all over the world must be a thing to ponder before go ahead with any more "curiosity" missions.

• In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty"
• Every year 15 million children die of hunger
• For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
• Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
• The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
• One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
• The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy
• Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF
• 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
• In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
• In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.
• The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.
• One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
• Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
• In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.
• Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
• About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
• To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
• The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
• Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger
• It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.