Canada currently has a budget surplus of $28.46 billion (2007 est. in USD), placing the country 14th in the world, among countries with national surpluses, after: China, Japan, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Kuwait, Singapore, the UAE, Algeria, and Sweden. However, our Aerospace budget is only $0.32 billion (2007 est. in USD), giving our space program the 11th largest budget after the USA, ESA, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, India, China, and the UK. This affords Canada the opportunity to increase funding of our Aerospace program to $20 billion, and still maintain a budget surplus of $8.78 billion. Currently the space agencies with the largest budget are NASA, with a budget of $17.3 billion (2007 est. in USD), and the ESA, with a budget of $4.58 billion (2007 est. in USD) meaning that increasing the CSA's budget to $20 billion would give Canada the most well financed space program on the planet.
Consider what Canada could do with the world’s most well funded space agency and the economic benefits it would bring to Canada. NASA is currently developing Project Constellation, which includes the Ares I and Ares V launchers, the Orion spacecraft, designed to replace the aging shuttle fleet, and the Altair lunar-lander, at a budget of $15 billion spread over a decade. As NASA in not willing to allow international participation in Project Constellation, the ESA, Russia, and Japan are working on a similar project, the CSTS (Crew Space Transportation System), which will likely have a similar budget. The costs for the design and building of the International Space Station have been approximated at $100 billion spread over 3 decades. The ESA and Russia have also begun planning a joint mission to Mars with an expected budget of $20 billion, spread over a number of years.
With a budget of $20 billion, the CSA would be able to compete directly with NASA, the ESA, RKA, and JAXA. Canada could either participate in the CSTS project with the Europeans, Russians, and Japanese, or develop an independent space plane. An independent space plane project in Canada would cost approximately $1.5 billion a year, but would create highly paid jobs in the aerospace field, provided Canadian firms, such as Bombardier or Magellan Aerospace, were to be awarded the contract to develop it. Canada could build a new space station, at a cost of approximately $7.5 billion a year, which would not only open the sky to Canadians; it could generate income as an orbital hotel, film studio, and low-g laboratory. This would still allow a large enough budget to develop independent missions to the moon, and to Mars, as well as dozens of robotic probes throughout the solar system.
Infusing $20 billion a year into the Canadian aerospace program would not only create thousands of high paid jobs, it would do the same thing that the cold-war military spending did in the USA and USSR: create a massive industrial complex, the only difference being that this one would be geared towards off-world exploration and colonization, instead of mutually assured destruction. The Nazis were able to rebuild the economy of Germany from total collapse in 1933 to a global superpower by 1939 through the creation of jobs, via the industrial military complex. This concept is as old as civilization itself; Egypt endured for 3000 years by following the same idea, the government created thousands of jobs building pointy mountains in the desert. However, Canada already has a lot of pointy mountains, and space is unlimited in potential, therefore as Canada currently has the excess capital to invest, space is the logical investment.
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