The cost of the Rosetta space program is close to $1.5 billion in 2014 values, including expenses, including the extensive delay of the launch. This cost includes development and construction of the spacecraft, along with launch and operations.
Since the launch of the Rosetta space probe, the ship has been on a whip-lash trip, as it takes advantage of each gravitational forces of each celestial body to hurl itslef across roughly 3,728,227,139 miles of space toward comet 67P.
Such a tremendous undertaking was embarked upon because scientists strongly believe that comits are made up of a cosmic mish-mash of materials left over from the beginning of the solar system. They believe that if they can study one more closely, it will give them deeper clues into what or who created our universe. But that the real wasteful spending comes in when you consider the other objectives of the mission;
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The Rosetta mission’s primary focus is to learn about comets. Comets that are thought to be very old objects in the Solar System, possibly existing before the planets were even created. Rosetta has been claiming that it will provide some basic insights into how comets may have been formed, but the results may be nothing more than more hypothesizes.
It is important to consider that what may seem pure science ends up contributing to the store of human knowledge, and the advancement of knowledge always has relevance to everyday life, in the practical as well as the philosophical sense. Many technologies developed for space eventually lead to advances in other areas, though it is very difficult to predict when and how basic knowledge will result in practical benefits. If there had not been a need for particle physicists to share data, there would be no World Wide Web.
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