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Comment by vppstuart | Hacker News Reader

Getting these problems fixed will be money well spent. Trying to go to the moon is not an example of that.

Surprising to see comments like this on HN of all places.

1) It assumes the problem is due to lack of money - that India being poor is not spending enough and throwing money at the problem would make it go away.

2) It completely disregards that the government has multiple departments who can independently make progress in varying fields.

India's moon mission budget ($145 million) was 11 cents per Indian person (1.353 billion).

It was 0.02% of a single year's expenditure ($725 billion) by the Indian federal government-- spread out over multiple years.

It amounted to approximately 0.005% of India's GDP ($2.7 trillion).

And the money spent didn't disappear it went into infrastructure, manufacturing, and other mostly domestic pockets.

The only money that disappeared from the economy was the value of the fuel burned and materials not returned to earth from space.

Those 11 cents per person (well, let's call it 10 because the value of the craft on the moon in pieces) are floating around the economy, ready to be spent on water supplies.

Getting your Govt to fix all the US' crumbling infrastructure will be money well spent. Spending a crap load of money on your military is not an example of that.

There is waste surely --but if we don't "police" then people complain the US isn't keeping the peace and they let dictators do as they wish. People want it both ways, they want the US to stabilize the world but they also want the US to keep out of other countries' business.

Trust me, nobody wants you to police the whole world. UN was formed for that very reason. US has over the years weakened UN to expand its own reach. So please get the hell out of everywhere and let UN handle.

UN is toothless without the US. Alas, US populace is tired of being chastised for spending massively and making mistakes on Pax Americana[0]. So, the US will increasingly isolate and won’t have the will to stand up to Russia and China aggression, which they are aware of and increasingly taking advantage of in the last decade. UK, France, and India aren’t formidable; not that they’d be willing. As you wish, we’ll find out how effective the UN’s deterrence is in the next decade.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

The UN is not much of a mechanism to rein in China or Russia anyway considering the structure of the Security Council.

USA spends very little money on military as a percentage of GDP while being the most powerful force in history. I would argue that that money is very well spent.

Space research necessitates research into water recollection, purifying, and usage.

Going to the moon isn't just dumping money into getting from point A to B, like paying for gas during a daily commute. It's about advancing technology that improves life for everyone. Just look at this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

I’d argue that it also creates high-tech jobs. More skilled workers allows a country to go upmarket, rather than simply building cheap stuff in factories.

Hopefully, a few of these people become entrepreneurs.

If you want to save money - when I was India for 3 years, I saw same road being paved 3-4 times a year, nowhere else I had ever seen such a colossal waste of money due to improper planning.

Paving same road 3-4 times is not development.

It is not something that is planned. It is grass roots corruption. I will give you a crazier example. In a large taluka (like a town) in South India in a very poor water scarce area, money for a particular stretch of road (20 km) is given every year. The contract always goes to the company owned by the local MLA (member of state assembly). They deliberately make a weak road which washes away in a year. Some of my friends have seen this happen 11-12 times in a year. They say nowadays at least the contractor makes some roads, 10+ years back the road would not be constructed and the funds withdrawn.

This corruption is lower in centrally funded large scale expressways because lot of data logging, monitoring etc. is done nowadays. Having said that execution with < 10% money being pilfered means a highly successful project.

Indian bureaucracy always finds a way to slow down any expenditure on public infrastructure, unless they manage to get something of it for themselves. The system is so well evolved in all cases, e.g. agri subsidies are only given to farmers who pay middlemen 10% of the amount in cash (which is actually a progress !). The money transfers is handled by middlemen and not by the Govt. officials themselves.

The only slow solution to reducing this corruption has been technology, cashless digital transfers etc. It will take another 10 years to reduce to 'acceptable' levels.

Valuing short term goals over long term goals is how you get into a vicious cycle of poverty and stagnation. What people might not understand is that the long term goal isn't necessarily more expensive than the value you get out of it. Going to space sounds really "difficult" compared to something "basic" like solving water problems except it ignores that going to space might just be a matter of spending money whereas solving water would require solving political problems. The solution might be easy but it cannot be bought with money.

I'm pretty sure this is a troll, guys.

Stop with this stupid trope already; think before you post.

Learning to survive on the moon might translate into being able to survive in India one day.

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