http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Resources_in_India
"Water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India
"Over 300 million (300 million) people in India have no access to electricity. Of those who do, almost all find electricity supply intermittent and unreliable."
Why exactly is US spending so much of higher education when most of the public elementary education is good enough to mass produce kids whose only skill is flipping burgers ?
Large nations need to allocate money to all problems proportional to the seriousness of the problem. We have learned how to live with less. My classrooms did not have even a bulb. Did not prevent me from getting good education. My village did not have any water pipeline and we figured out how to survive.
India has 1/6th of world population and has very good reason to invest in space research. India is going to needs its own satellite guided missiles, ASAT, GPS and other systems down the line if those 1.2B people have to see a good future. Or these people will be held hostage to USA's Military Industrial Complex.
India was already one of the largest Shipbuilding nation and had more Aircraft maintenance centers than most other countries in 1950s. India did not invest well into these industries, today our defense imports are obscene. We cant even manufacture a reliable pistol leave alone mortar. Had we invested in those tech also we could have saved a lot more money today which could have helped the poor.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about 13 year olds, but I assure you I don't care what you have to say.
In the words of Carl Sagan: "Just now, there a great many matters that are pressing in on us that compete for the money it takes to send people to other worlds. Should we solve those problems first, or are they a reason for going? "
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/21/141510617/what-if-...
I'd like to challenge the notion that the national debt is undisputedly a bad thing. The majority of the U.S.'s debt is in the form of treasury bonds - widely considered the most secure form of financial instrument. If the treasury bond can't be paid by the U.S., there are much bigger problems (such as the government of the largest national economy in the world collapsing). The treasury bond is utilized worldwide for its stability. It is used to moderate economic growth, and to stimulate it when it slows.
I'm not convinced government debt is entirely good, but I'm also not convinced that things would be better by paying it off.
For the record, I actually think it's probably a good use of money. I just think this breed of response — "Shut up, because the West sucks!" — is singularly toxic.
"INR2 billion (US$33 million) provided for power reforms, INR5 billion (US$82 million) for water reforms in Delhi"
"10-year tax holiday to be extended to companies that start power generation by March 31, 2017"
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Union_budget_of_India
And yet, you complain about the mere $67 million spent on this mission.
The Internet, nominally the single biggest technology solution for the developing world ever, runs on compression and error correction algorithms that were first implemented for Voyager.
A manned mission to Mars must solve a the problem of a closed ecosystem. Think that might be important to developing countries who are polluting terribly (just like everybody did) in an effort to modernize?
You can't solve everything. There will always be some problems.
And, get enough good scientists together and those same scientists will start demanding that you make progress on domestic fronts as well.
There seems to be a strange idea that spending on space is inherently wasteful. In fact, India spent ~$75m on this, mostly locally, thus providing economic stimulus, and no doubt assisting education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Re...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Stat...
No personal attacks on Hacker News, please, regardless of how annoying another's comment may be.
The fallacy you are invoking, in fact, has a fancy Latin name; it may be this one: