This has everything to do with "SPACE"; the reference
to the Beijing Olympics is for comparison purposes only.

First: Some of you have complained that the International Space
Station is a proverbial "white elephant".

Some of you have even claimed that the ISS is Skylab 2, as if
human presence and habitation in space requires progress
in size and utility with the march of time.
You ignore that the ISS is "now" about 300 tons in mass [not yet complete]
compared to the Skylab's 120 tons.
And Skylab, unlike the ISS, didn't have rocket motors, or space-tugs, to boost itself to a higher
safer orbit.

Some of you have also complained, before George Dubya Bush
introduced this coming manned moon project back in 2003, that the ISS
was an end in itself; and leaving human beings endlessly circling the Earth in LEO.
That was then.

I used to agree with some of those complaints and criticisms.....no more.

To show you why, let's compare the present Olympics [and their so-called value]
with the ISS.

(1a) Beijing Olympics cost?...ANSWER: About 40 billion dollars spent over six-seven years.
And that Chinese investment was for an event lasting 16 days.

(1b) NASA budget for ISS?....ANSWER: Since 1994, when work began on the major components
of the space station, NASA has spent between 30 and 32 billion dollars on the station over a period of 14 years
for a space station that will be functional for [at least] another 12 years.

(2a) Beijing Olympics benefits?...ANSWER: Yes, the construction work on the Olympic facilities put
many thousands of Chinese to work, but much of the work was backbreaking and poor in pay.
The prestige that China may get from the Olympics will be short-lived; as will its surge of nationalistic pride
in this brief 16 day event, and the medals that they garner with it....

(2b) The ISS can perform potentially excellent, exciting and promising biomedical research...How many lives will be saved if
scientific and medical research aboard the station find a cure for malaria, cancer, etc...and possible cures
for afflictions like diabetes [my brother has type 2 diabetes], osteoporosis, arthritis, vertigo, etc.
And zero-g material sciences research onboard the station can still potential achieve breakthroughs
in electronics, superconductors, polymers and in things we haven't even dreameed of YET.

So to summerize, which is more beneficial to humanity in the long run? The ISS?.... or these Olympics?