Realistic Criteria
Realistic Criteria
[Cueball and White Hat stand talking. White Hat is making a forward gesture with his hand.] White Hat: We shouldn't be exploring other planets until we've solved all our problems here on Earth. Cueball: Sounds reasonable. So, what's the timeline on "Solving all problems"? Ten years? Fifteen?

Many people are opposed to space exploration.  While the overall budget of NASA is not very large compared to the big spenders such as health, education, social services and the military, individual space missions seem very expensive to the general public (typically hundreds of millions of dollars) and the actual benefits derived from them can seem intangible. To put it simply, many people think that the money can be better spent on Earth, where there are real, serious problems that need to be addressed.
The decision on how to best allocate our money is not a simple one. White Hat believes we should not explore space until "we have solved all our problems here on Earth". This is unreasonable. It is vague, broad and near-impossible to achieve, at least within the span of a human life. The basic problems that face us all - war, disease, hunger, climate change, natural disasters, general malaise - have been with us since the dawn of humanity at least, and will certainly be around for much longer than ten or fifteen years; in fact, it is unclear if some of these problems will ever be solved. As of 2021, eight years after this comic, it seems humanity has rather created more problems than it solved, so it is very unlikely indeed that the goal of ten years could be reasonably achieved.
Cueball, however, is playing the naive engineer, thinking that everything is as easy and simple as the math problems he uses everyday. Alternatively, he could be replying sarcastically, knowing that there is no timeline for solving all of Earth's problems. This serves two purposes: First, it highlights the untenability of White Hat's statement by emphasizing their size, and second, it serves as a punchline, as anyone with a modicum of common sense knows nothing is that simple when humans are involved.
In the title text, Randall leans towards fifteen years, as ten doesn't seem sufficient, given all the problems. This also may be said by Cueball, or White Hat replying to Cueball.
[Cueball and White Hat stand talking. White Hat is making a forward gesture with his hand.] White Hat: We shouldn't be exploring other planets until we've solved all our problems here on Earth. Cueball: Sounds reasonable. So, what's the timeline on "Solving all problems"? Ten years? Fifteen?
