The government pumps about $20 billion into NASA each year to levitate mice and study crystals. Whatever. All most of us want from space are pictures. And some MIT students did that for a far cheaper fee. Math lesson, anyone?

In a move that should earn them national kudos, MIT-goer Oliver Yeh and his equally brainy friend, Justin Lee, grabbed these images of earth by putting a cell phone into a Styrofoam box, stuffing the box with disposable hand warmers and attaching it all to a helium balloon. The camera snapped a picture every 5 seconds for a journey 17 miles above the planet and back after the balloon popped. A GPS in the phone helped track it all down. And it only cost $150!

Meanwhile, NASA's over paid nerds are looking to build a base on the moon, which will serve as a stop-off station for missions to Mars, a trip that will itself make astronauts radioactive. To achieve all of their unnecessary and harebrained schemes, NASA would need another $3 billion a year. MIT costs about $48,000 a year — give or take a few grand.

Wouldn't the country be better off just sending kids to MIT and receiving these pictures in return, rather than sending red-blooded Americans into space to become the Fantastic Four? Who needs that dang universe, anyway?

Send an email to Andrew Belonsky, the author of this post, at .