I guess most people downvoting and commenting against you have never been to India.
I've travelled extensively, and I've spent a lot of time in India - nowhere else have I seen such an extreme juxtaposition of wealth with such abject poverty, squalor and misery.
On multiple occasions I've had (Western) colleagues travel with me to India (outsourcing...), who simply couldn't cope with what they saw; there were tears, a realisation of complete futility, and promises never to return.
I also have several Indian colleagues, some living temporarily in the west, some permanently, and some spread across India - every one I've asked about this is disgusted.
The money India spent on this pointless endeavour is beyond reason; I can only imagine it's somehow politically motivated, just as the "aid" money that several western nations send to India undoubtedly is.
Lets say I am a student in India, and I want to become an aerospace engineer and work with space. I get all the relevant education, and I want to increase my nation's tech capability in the sector I specialize in. There are a lot of people like me. As I understand it, you want us to squash our dreams until some other specialist destroy ALL poverty and ALL the other problems?
Why did the USA went to moon when they had not solved all their segregation and racism problems?
Also, ISRO is profitable. They make more money then they spend, IDK what the problem is?
> As I understand it, you want us to squash our dreams until some other specialist destroy ALL poverty and ALL the other problems?
No, that's not what I said at all.
It's all relative - the scale of poverty in India is simply staggering; so many people in India live below the poverty line in absolutely terrible conditions, lacking basic sanitation and access to education and health care.
India has far bigger problems than having a space program (which AFAICS isn't even breaking new ground - what is even the point apart from reinventing the wheel?!). If you're lucky enough to train as an autospace engineer in India, is it somehow your right that you would expect your government to spend a fortune on a space program, while millions live in abject squalor and misery?
The chairman of ISRO was a poor farmer's son. Now he is an intellectual. I can attest that lot of people who were poor in India have chosen the path of science because of such endeavors. 900Cr is actually peanuts against a lot of projects involving social upliftment projects that Indian Government invests in. And it is a long term investment.
I spent about 10 years of my life in a social home, where we did not even had 10 rs to buy medicine, and now almost everyone in my extended family in my generation is an privileged Engineer. A lot of inspiration came from our home grown and cheap space program.
Why does the USA pursue the space program when they still haven't solved cancer and there are a lot of creationists there, and a large amount of gun violence. It should not pursue the space program until it solves these things by your logic.
India will spend about 33 Trillion rupees total in various social upliftment, subsidy, transport and energy sector this year. The Chandrayan-2 is about decimal percentage of it.
> Why does the USA pursue the space program when they still haven't solved cancer and there are a lot of creationists there, and a large amount of gun violence. It should not pursue the space program until it solves these things by your logic.
No, that really doesn't follow from my argument; as I said, it's all relative, and the extent and scale of poverty in India goes far beyond that I've seen anywhere.
Anyway my initial reactive to this article was disgust, because of the terrible things I've seen first hand across India - a level of poverty, squalor and abuse that you truely cannot begin to comprehend unless you see it for yourself in India.
It's difficult to separate my emotions here from logical reasoning, but I've rethought my position on this; perhaps it's not such a bad thing after all. It is a relatively small sum of money, and could be a source of hope and aspiration for many.
>> The money India spent on this pointless endeavour is beyond reason
The Government of India spends orders of magnitude more money on safety nets for poor people each year. I'm not making claims about whether its enough, or about its effectiveness. It's also not true that the poor people have no hope. India's growing economy has lifted millions out of poverty each year for about 3 decades now, and it continues to grow at a faster pace than other emerging economies. To call a spend of $150m (which is peanuts compared to how much India spends directly on its people) on a scientific mission, which benefits the scientific community and is positively an inspiration to the nation's population, a waste of money seems misguided to me.
It doesn't seem misguided to me - what is this space program even meant to achieve? It seems to me that it's doing little more than reinventing the wheel.
140M may be small in the grand scheme of things, but that helps demonstrate the scale of the problem. And let's not forget the money India receives in foreign aid.
Now, the country can't of course give up everything until poverty is "solved"; it's far from that simple, and of course the nation must work for the rest of the populace. But a trip to the moon seems like the ultimate political vanity project.
I am an Indian, lived in Western Europe for 2.5 years and recently moved back, and you have no idea what you are talking about. You are wrongly assuming the state of a nation as big and diverse as India, by the perspective of handful of people who chose to leave the country.
I didn't say I based my words on only those opinions of my colleagues - as I mentioned, I've spent a lot of time in India, and travelled through a fair bit of it. I also volunteered at various charity projects in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi, so I've seen first hand how desperate things can get.
Yes, India is a huge and diverse country, yet in every area I went to there was a significant segment of the population living in truely horrifying conditions.
>Every day some 3,000 Indian children die from illnesses related to malnutrition, and yet countless heaps of rodent-infested wheat and rice are rotting in fields across the north of their own country.
It barely requires any money to solve the worst problems India has. Or much of the third world.
I've travelled extensively, and I've spent a lot of time in India - nowhere else have I seen such an extreme juxtaposition of wealth with such abject poverty, squalor and misery.
On multiple occasions I've had (Western) colleagues travel with me to India (outsourcing...), who simply couldn't cope with what they saw; there were tears, a realisation of complete futility, and promises never to return.
I also have several Indian colleagues, some living temporarily in the west, some permanently, and some spread across India - every one I've asked about this is disgusted.
The money India spent on this pointless endeavour is beyond reason; I can only imagine it's somehow politically motivated, just as the "aid" money that several western nations send to India undoubtedly is.