I say give them the money if and only if they have one family build it (everyone else thought Noah was nuts as I recall). Using only medieval hand tools and then can float it on the ocean for a year (the rain fell for 40 days and nights but he was at sea for a year). He has to feed all the animals with whatever they can take. And I could go on for ages.

It would be interesting to see if they can build an ark to just stand there without collapsing using medieval materials or if they are forced to compromise (due to the laws of physics) let alone make an ocean going vessel. I'd love to see the engineering reports. We should if they do it properly get some interesting data (could it float, could it withstand waves etc). That would be worth the subsidy.