[Kaiyou]

At the end of the day what is needed is to create wealth, not to spend it. Spending wealth while lots of people in the country are living in poverty in a way, that doesn't directly address this problem may come off as having the wrong priorities. This is about perception.

[sidcool]

Space is an excellent opportunity to create wealth and provide employment. So your argument is still wrong.

[rronalddas]

Also I would like to add, the govt has now a made a private corp called New Space India Limited, which will help in commercialization of tech developed by ISRO

[Kaiyou]

How would you use space to create wealth?

[sidcool]

Many long term investments. Space tourism, satellite launches for other countries (which India does), asteroid mining, tech innovation, SCIENCE!!!

[Kaiyou]

Sounds like a pipe dream. I wouldn't lend you money for your wild fantasies.

[sidcool]

I respect your opinion and would respect your decision. Although would not stop looking for funding elsewhere. Even a failure in such endeavors gives a great return on investment. Many modern tech wonders are a direct result of space research. Humanity has to be a space faring civilization, else our future generations will go extinct. Imagine if our ancestors had stopped exploring the oceans until all of humanity's problems were solved.

[Kaiyou]

I agree with your general point, I just think that it doesn't make sense to pump money into this endeavour until there's clean drinking water for everyone. Once there's wealth to spend, space is a nice goal. On the other hand I do not personally care about the fate of millions impoverished Indians and wouldn't mind sacrificing their lives towards the goal of space exploration. All I'm saying is that the priorities here may be perceived as being wrong.

[Tialco]

Are you joking? Have you seen the amount of space ventures that have gone bankrupt? Try and start a rocket company and go look for funding. It's a terrible opportunity to create wealth in the short term (10/20/30 year timespan). However, in the 30-50 year timespan, it seems like a terrific opportunity to create wealth (perhaps rivaled only by nuclear fusion) if we can work our way up to sustainable/reusable rockets and colonies on Mars/Moons. If we can get asteroid operations set up and start exploring the rest of the solar system (and eventually the galaxy) then we can have a society without scarcity.

The main problem is, we will all probably die before we see the benefit (instead we'll see losses). So, how do we value the lives of posterity in comparison today.

I find it ironic how the same people who use the "think of the children" argument the most are also the most against investing in space exploration.

My bias is also that we should value posterity the same as we value humans alive today. But then again, we still can't even agree on the basic question of whether a life in Africa is worth the same as a life in the United States.

[sidcool]

I am glad our fathers and grandfathers and ancestors before that had the ability to see beyond their own shadows.

[Kaiyou]

Before you can do this you need to have accumulated wealth that you can spend. It's not a coincidence that the industrial revolution started where it did.