Monday, October 06, 2014
Of Mars Missions, Toilets, and Investment Choices
If you think there's a lot of crap out there on the Internet, you ain't heard nothing yet ...
Back in May of this year I told you about a public health program in India called "Poo2Loo," which seeks to convince people to not ... um ... defecate in public places. This is a serious problem in India, where there are far too few public toilets and people tend in many places - even the largest cities - to relieve themselves when and wherever the urge takes them.
The other day, I ran across this related report on CNN - Desperate, Disgusted but Proud -- India's Human Waste Removers - about the people who make their living by removing all that ... stuff ... from the streets.
And then I note that India has sent a spacecraft to Mars to send back photographs of the Martian surface.
You might think that the money the Indian government spent on the Mars mission might have been better spent on things like public toilets and sanitation facilities. Or perhaps they might have just used the spacecraft to ship all that excrement to Mars.
We do have odd ways of deciding on the investments we make, don't we?
Have a good day. Enjoy your indoor plumbing.
More thoughts about how we spend our money here at home tomorrow.
Bilbo
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6 comments:
Ugh! A good reason for not going to India!!
Not doing something about this feces problem can have serious public health consequences!
I'm with Angel....not anxious to go there, if the problem is still there. I guess they just don't give a crxx!
The problem is that they give a crap, whether you want it or not.
Next mission: Muck2Mars.
Both as a short-term and a long-term investment, public sanitation seems like a better investment.
The Mars exploration seems more a prestigious-seeking act.
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