Finding a use for snow. There has to be a way to turn that annoying shit into energy.
Ending malaria.
One of the biggest killers in the world, killing millions of children and causing billions of dollars of economic damage through lost productivity.
We have the tools to eliminate it. It just requires a concentrated effort.
It’s called DDT.
Cure for Cancer! Hurry…
Which is indeed being used.
The problem is that to clear an area of malaria you need an enormous attention to detail- you need to catch every puddle, bucket and elephant footprint. And it has to be done basically all at once across a region, on a house by house basis. It’s a problem of money, coordination and political will.
This is the brute force way…to conquer malaria, we need to breed new non-infective species of mosquito, to displace the disease-carrying ones. we also need to develop GM forms of malaria, which are harmless to humans, again, displacing the dangerous strains. We also need to breed better mosquito predators, which could eliminate the vectors. We cabnnot eliminate malaria the way Dr. Gorgas did in Panama-it is too costly and impossible to remove all the breeding sites.
It’s expensive and difficult. But I’ve been in DC and not had malaria once- the entire Southern US was rife with it. It’s not like it can’t be done.
IIRC it took about $1MM/yr and four years. That’s ~1950 dollars, so call it <$50MM total.
But DDT has fallen out of favor.
This is a common talking point, especially by anti-environmentalist, but it’s not particularly true. In 2007, about 4,000 tons of DDT were used for malaria control in Africa and Asia. It shouldn’t be the first line of defense, but it’s a tool in the toolbox.
Eradication would pay for itself almost immediately in increased worker productivity, better education, saved health care costs, and lowered fertility rates.
I don’t know why everyone is chasing the dragon of fusion. There are a bunch of interesting designs to make fission plants smaller, efficient, safe and with minimal waste. A Manhattan Project that perfects one of those designs has a much more concrete goal in sight compared to a hoped for fusion design. Istm.
adaher, I agree with points 1&2 but I don’t think #3 is a necessary requirement. But even if it was, if this project produced an expensive power plant that ran cleanly and cheaply, it would still be a benefit. The Western countries could just make that part of their foreign aid packages. One of the issues with controlling climate change is getting poorer countries on board. If we could just plop down a solution to their pollution output without stopping their economic viability it would go a long way.
A cure for Mental Illness, especially (somewhat selfishly) Major Depressive Disorder. 
I want fusion power as much as the next guy, but…
It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought. 
This^ and throw in a PR campaign to educate the public about the increase safety & the real need for Fission Power.
This too^. It would simplify my life and help other low income people.
That is a good list OP, but I would add health care affordability to the list. The entire world is going to struggle under the costs of health care soon, with places like China & the US (the 2nd & 1st largest economy on earth) being hit harder than most nations.
We need a research project to learn how to provide high quality healthcare on the cheap. This will probably involve a lot of automation and robotics, as well as innovations in chronic care.
Also a neuroscience research project. Considering that our cognition and emotions come from the brain, as well as many of the most expensive and debiliating illnesses, learning how the brain works should be a much higher priority. I was disappointed when I found out that Paul Allen was able to have a meaningful impact on the neuroscience community with a $500 million commitment. Americans alone spend that much pear year on chewing gum. It is disappointing how little the world prioritizes the field that spending less than the US alone spends on chewing gum is enough to impact the field.
Come on. You think a massive research project is going to solve the problem of efficient and effective health care? Like if we threw 2 billion at researchers they are going to figure it out in 5 years? And then what? Congress will pass that into law 2 weeks later?
That’s a problem we must simply grind through. Look at best practices, apply new technology and decide who must pay for what. I understand wanting to make that a priority, but there’s no way it’s a candidate for a "Manhattan Project " style of attacking a problem.
As far as the specifics in the OP, only space and climate/energy are worthy. Food can easily be met with current technology. Aging is the basic backdrop of human existence - if we solve that then fine, but it’s surely not some emergency project. Terrorism isn’t going to be solved with a research project - it’s politics and accepting there will always be fanatics. AI is on the edge- it could be earthshattering or just another way for people to make/save money. Not sure I want a full government press on that.
Innovations into how to provide cheaper MRIs and CTs, robotic surgeries, automated long term care, etc. will all save large amounts of money because they can provide the same quality/quantity of care for less cost. With medicine you can either provide fewer unneeded services or you can find a way to provide the same or nearly the same useful services for lower cost. Both would benefit from increased funding and research.
But this thread is about a Manhattan Project style program. You don’t think cheap MRIs, robot surgery and management of long term care really fall under the same umbrella of research do you? Yes they are all health care but they are wildly different fields of research- about as far apart as they could be.
So what? The actual Manhattan Project involved many different fields of research. The moon landing program had many more. If you want to do something more narrow, even something like curing cancer could involve dozens of different fields.
That’s why you would throw gazillions of dollars at big problem – at the start you don’t even know what you’ll need to learn in order to accomplish it.
I just think it’s just too much a hodge podge. If you don’t think refining uranium and turning it into a bomb is a lot more focused than making all of health care cheaper plus adding robot surgeons and “automated long term care” (whatever that is) then I don’t know what to say to change your mind.
I agree-a massive program to end adult obesity/diabetes would yield a huge return. And it is possible that a cure for obesity is in sight.
Looked it up. It’s basically medical database/information management? Sort of what I guessed.