🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Xns9412909F9DD4jrfrank@216.39.221.8>, Jorge R. Frank <jrfrank@ibm-pc.borg> wrote:
> 
>> Or maybe you peoples know something I don't.  Educate me. 
> 
> I'd like to see a verifiable reference for your $25B figure. If you mean 
> "billion", that sounds about two orders of magnitude too high.

I can't find it now, but yeah, was a recent article (Perhaps from the
Houston Chronicle?) where it stated that the expected cost to FEMA for the
manpower-intensive search across the states for months was in the
neighborhood of about $200 to $250 million, and could be higher if more
information is tallied and additional requests from the states submitted.

For the FEMA - that's definitely about 1% of the claimed $25B figure (or
'two orders of magnitude' as Jorge put it). Whomever told the original
poster that $25B figure for the Columbia accident is pulling their leg.

At least another $150-200M or so, NASA also has to pick up due to the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) costs and other
accident-related expenses.

Perhaps the $25B is the total FEMA agency budget for the entire year,
spanning all possible disasters? That's the only way I can even imagine
such a large number. Incidentally, that number is about twice of NASA's
*entire* annual budget (for manned and unmanned space programs as well as
aeronautical research).

-Dan