Whether you are an advocate of the Iraq War or not, you have to admit that it is extremely costly to be involved in. The cost at the present moment is just under $493 trillion dollars. That's right trillion dollars.

Wired.com recently wrote an article about 10 Sci-Fi Techs We could have if they weren't so expensive. I've put a little spin on it, so the reader can actually get an idea of how much money is being spent on the Iraq War.

These are a few Geek things we could have built for less than what we have spent to date.

A Gundam Meca:

A what? If you're an Anime fan, you know exactly what this is. A Gundam Meca, in non-Anime lingo is basically a giant killer robot.

Someone went ahead and did it: calculate the cost of constructing a military-grade giant robot. The result, when you throw in flexible aluminum alloys, seven engines, thirty helicopter motors and a computer fast-thinking enough to keep it upright.

If you are having trouble imagining it, this should help:

The pictures still doesn't do it justice. The robot is described to be 60 feet (18 meters) in height, and it weighs and estimated 43.4 metric tons.

Cost: $750 Million (non-armed)

We could build an army of them for what we have spent to date on the Iraq War. Granted, they wouldn't be built out of Gundanium, but it would still be pretty cool.

An Orbital Hotel:

A hotel that orbits the earth and can sustain human life.

Leave it to the Brits. After decades of disengagement from human space exploration, it recently reversed its positionto propose a lounge for the station.

Now that would be a cool vacation. Of course a week long vacation orbiting the planet Earth would cost the traveler a cool $10 Million dollars, but having the option would be nice!

Cost: $1.2 Billion

We could have a chain of hotels in space for what we have spent on the Iraq War.

Supersonic Travel and a Maglev NY/LA Express

The Concorde fleet has been decommissioned by British Airways because of the high cost of jet fuel and maintaining the fleet.

With the retirement of Concorde, the only supersonic commuter airliner, 2-hour trips over the Atlantic are a thing of the past. It's perhaps the first tech to go from sci-fi to reality and right back again, all in the space of a generation: no zombie apocalypse required.

The Maglev is basically, a train. A ridiculously fast train:

Maglev carriages, forced along by magnetic fields instead of traditional propulsion systems.....In everyday use, modern Maglev systems manage about 260MPH....

Travel would become quick, no more 9 hour flights, or 24 hour train rides, we could travel the U.S. and abroad in a minimal amount of time. As long as security doesn't hold us up, telling us water is bad.

Cost: $7.6 Billion, if you were to revive and repair 20 Concorde Supersonic Jets and build a Meglev rail from New York to Los Angeles.

We could revive and maintain a fleet of supersonic jets, fuel them and build a super speed train for a fraction of the cost of what we have spent on the Iraq War.

Last, but one I personally would like to see built the most.

A TransAtlantic Tunnel:

What better way to travel from the United States to Europe than a tunnel? No flight delays, no airport, and I would only have to take my shoes off if I wanted to. That and I could finally drive to that SGLondon Event to meet all the girls overseas! (or underseas?)

a sleeper express between London and New York, right? An immersed tube under the Altantic could cost half a billion dollars a mile, about three times the cost of a modern bridge.

We're already looking at about $1.6 trillion dollars, at that burn rateand this doesn't account for the precipitous drops at the continental shelves, or, indeed, the engineering problem of deep-ocean tunnel immersion.

Isn't it scary that we could build a tunnel at a half a billion dollars a mile, and still not put a dent in what we have spent on the Iraq War?

Even if they were to build it under the sea floor, the traditional way a tunnel is built:

If you're thinking of cutting a tunnel the traditional way, under the sea bed, it gets even crazier. Extrapolating the cost of the Channel Tunnel, built in this fashion, and the price lands somewhere in the $10tn region.

It's $10 Trillion. For what we have spent on the Iraq War, we could build 49 tunnels from New York to London, and still have some change left over.

Cost: $11.6 Trillion if both were constructed (I like options, so we have the above sea floor scenic route, and the underground tunnel route)

Chances are, due to cost, I will probably never see these things implemented in my life time. The goal of this article was to get people to realize how much money we are spending on war, when we could be spending money on things that really matter.

Granted most of the things I have mentioned in this article don't
really matter. Money used on the Iraq War could be put towards better and more helpful things for the human race.

I am by no means an advocate of the Iraq War. I do realize that some of that money spent on a daily basis goes towards our soldiers that were wounded, or unfortunately killed while serving. No amount of money can replace a leg, an arm or psychological damage done.

Money can't replace a lost loved one, and I am sorry that money is all we can offer the family, or the soldier that has served our country. I firmly support every soldier that serves our country, and want to say Thank You.

If you are reading this, and you are not registered to vote, quit wasting time and go register. Please remember, when you are at the polls this year, that things need to change in order for us to stop wasting money and lives. Your vote does count, your vote does matter, you can make a difference.

DevilsReject is looking forward to a new U.S. Administration. He won't tell you who to vote for, but he will say: Yes We Can!

oninotaki

Ypsilanti, MI

March 2003

MAR 08, 2008 11:19 AM

I have been complaining about this very thing for a couple of years now, it infuriates me to no end how much money people will happily spend to kill other people. However if you ever suggest building one really cool project they will immediatly jump all over you dismising it as costing to much.

J24U

Danvers, MA

February 2006

MAR 08, 2008 11:23 AM

So, how much will it cost the navy to replace our carrier jets with veritech fighters?

joker_

Minneapolis, MN

October 2005

MAR 08, 2008 11:52 AM

This was a good article. There are a number of articles on the net (that I am not looking up right now) that discuss if the money were used for alternative energy production and research(wind, solar, hydro electric) we'd put a significant dent in our reliance on oil (upwards of 35%.)

Time to go out and vote people.

FitzSimmons

Saint Paul, MN

January 2008

MAR 08, 2008 12:37 PM

Interesting article. I had no idea the war was that expensive.

r00kers

Nederland, CO

February 2003

MAR 08, 2008 12:42 PM

No matter who is elected, we have not yet finished spending on Iraq. In removing the only local effective counterbalance to Iran, we have committed ourselves to being there for a long long time. This was such an ill conceived, poorly executed piece of military adventurism that the people of this country should ensure that anyone remotely tainted by this nonsense should be turned from office for good. The waste of human life and treasure on Iraq is criminal.