International Space Station (ISS)
Price: $160,000,000,000 (and rising)
The United States government has spent over $100,000,000,000 on ISS, and the partner nations added a few billions here and there. It costs approximately $3,000,000,000 per year to keep this giant science machine afloat. You might think that it’s a lot of money but if you only knew how much the US is wasting on their military and bringing democracy to oil-rich countries, you’d understand how cheap the ISS really is.
Most Expensive Substance:
Antimatter
Price: $62,500,000,000,000/gram
Technically speaking, the ISS is the most expensive thing, but let’s face it, if 1 gram of anything costs a third of that space goliath, it’s going to be a number freaking one. So, what is this elusive antimatter? Simply put it’s matter consisting of antiparticles: same mass, but opposite charge, quantum spin, and a bunch of other physics black magic. It’s been already “produced” in infinitely small, yet detectable, amounts in a CERN experiment giving the scientists 38 whole anti-hydrogen atoms, for 1/10 of a second. Needless to say, 1 g of this stuff would take billions upon billions so let’s put it on kickstarter! Unraveling the mysteries of the universe one crowdfunding campaign at a time.