What costs more than space exploration? Pennies. Literally, pennies.
According to the 2012 Annual Report of the US Mint, between 2011 and 2012, the US government spent a total of $219.5 million manufacturing and ‘selling’ one cent pieces, more commonly known as pennies. Remarkably, this led to a two year total seigniorage of $118.2 million. If you are like me and had to look up the word seigniorage, you may have just learned that that number means that the actual value of those new pennies was $118.2 million less than what was spent to produce and sell them (each one-cent piece costs about two cents to make).
In June 2012, NASA launched the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. NuSTAR is a X-ray telescope meant to, among other things, “take a census of collapsed stars and black holes.” One of NuSTAR’s main design features is a deployable mast; the spacecraft was only about two meters long at launch, but once in orbit, extended a mast to reach a new size of over 10 meters. The NuSTAR mission costs about $165 million.
Side note: the penny pictured here is not a 2012 penny, nor a 2011 penny; it is a 1909 penny. There are many special things about this penny, but probably the most remarkable is that it is currently on the surface of Mars. Using a completely unofficial, back of the envelope estimate based on the total cost of the Curiosity mission, the weight of the rover, and the weight of a 1909 penny, it probably cost about $2,000 to put that penny on the surface of Mars.
(Photos are both public domain NASA / JPL photos)