India's Mars Orbiter Mission is expected to cost INR 4.54 billion (US$69 million). Are we investing too much instead of thinking how to cope with the falling Indian economy?
No.The Rs. 4.54 billion can be used to give Rs. 4.54 to each one of us - a billion Indians, and that might (hypothetically) feed us all a single meal for a day (it wouldn't). But after that single meal has been consumed and excreted out, we are back to square one.But expenditures in these kinds of science has long-term benefits. It builds infrastructure and knowledge-base to carry out more complex experiments in the future. In these missions, we don't just buy stuffs from a store and courier them to Mars through DTDC. We have to actually invent stuffs. These inventions impact our day-to-day life here on Earth and have the prospects of introducing entirely new industries.Water purifiers, safe flight maneuver systems, several medicines and robotics systems are by-products of space research. Remember... we don't always need to stay behind Westerners in every field. We too can produce things. We can sell products that we invent and earn money through it. But in order to earn money we need to invest money.And to put matters into perspective, we spent Rs. 11500 crore (US$ 1.8 billion) on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. We have nuclear bombs worth more than Rs. 10000 billion (US$ 150 billion) at our disposal.If we can spend that kind of money on sports and fun, or for procuring weapons that can wipe out civilizations, then we can sure as fuck spend the Rs. 4.54 billion (US$ 69 million) for science, education and exploration of the Universe.Jai Hind and DFTBA.