I’m not sure you’ll believe this story, but here goes:
You know how Afghanistan is poor, and they make money off of growing heroin? And how we have the US Geological Survey? Well, the guys there got an idea; if the Afghanis knew where their minerals were, they could exploit those, and get money, and they’d love the USA, and maybe not have to export so much freaking JUNK to our kids.
OK so far?
So we rigged up this whiz-bang P3-Orion with all kinds of neato stuff, and at gov’t expense those guys flew all over the country, finding this valuable mineral stuff for the Afghanis.
You know what the Afghanis did with all that data? They sold the mineral rights to CHINA. I’m serious.
LINK: USGS finds Afghani minerals, Afghans sell rights to china
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/usgs/