If we had our national debt in one dollar bills, could we cover the face of the moon?

1.  Background Story:  

     My Fermi problem is: If we converted our national debt to 1 dollar bills, would they cover the face of the moon? Considering our country and our economic spending problem, I was sure this would be a lot of space? I picked this problem because I wanted to do something with dollar bills and how many it would take to do something. Mr. Wagner gave me the idea of covering the face of the moon and I thought it was a good idea so I made it my own idea by adding the money and debt.

2.  Ask Yourself This:  three questions that give me essential information to solve the problem

What is the surface area of the moon?

What is the surface area of a dollar bill?

What is our national debt?

3.  Helpful Hints:  

a. the answers to those essential questions

The surface area of the moon is approximately 14.6 million square miles. http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/moonfacts.html 

The surface area of a dollar bill is 22 square centimeters. (multiple sources)

Our national debt is about $16,000,000,000,000. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/why-is-the-national-debt-16-trillion/2013/01/03/e2a85386-55fc-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_blog.html 

b.  An estimation to help me get an idea of the kind of numbers i will try to find.

There are about 160000 cm in one mile. There are 22 cm in one dollar bill. 160000 divided by 22 is about 7000 dollar bills. 

4.  Construct a Formula:  how I will solve the problem

To get my answer it is pretty straight forward. I have to find how many 1 dollar bills fit in a square mile and then multiply that by how many square miles the surface area of the moon is. I would then see if I had any dollars left and if I did then our national debt is so big it can cover the face of the moon.

 

5.  Messy Math: 

 160,934 cm=1 mile     160,934 divided by 22~7.1 x 10^3 bills 

14,600,000miles=1.4x 10^7miles

 7.1 x 10^3bills x 1.4x 10^7miles=

7.1 x 1.4= 9.94

3+7=10              9.94 x 10^10bills x miles = 99,400,000,000bills=$99,400,000,000

6.  Answer:  

Since the total surface area of 16,000,000,000,000 dollar bills is greater than the total surface area of the moon,  the government really has a problem because the moon is like a small planet.  Pretty soon our debt will be so high that we will be able to cover the earth. Since 99.4 billion dollars can cover the moon then there is $15,900,600,000,000 left over. That hardly made a dent! That is like getting rid of Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg since their combined wealth can almost cover the moon too.