> I am just unable to comprehend how a nation can at the same time fly to Mars and have a large part of their population live in slums.
It's a matter of priorities. Nations seem to want to spend money on looking impressive and technologically advanced to other nations and place that as a higher priority than their own citizens. Historically, space programs are also used to remind their neighbors that 'hey, we can put a robot in orbit of a rock millions of miles away, we can sure as hell put a bomb on your door step.' That's who they're trying to impress and what they're trying to drive home.
Fuck the poor seems to be something of a universal position.
by that logic, we indians should stop all progress wait for every poor person to reach at-least middle class and then bring technologies into our country. sounds to me pretty short sighted approach. What if instead of that we teach poor kids and create tomorrows "astronauts" and ISRO scientists.
Really? Suggesting that India not spend so much reminding Pakistan and China that they can drop a nuclear weapon on them anywhere they feel like it is the same as saying India should spend no money on anything except giving people money.
Sorry, I choose to ignore "war" rhetorics. If China wants to drop "nuclear" bomb it will. Our low-cost attempts at reaching "Mars" will not stop it . "MAD" policies have a limit as shown in "cold war", diplomacy has more merits :)
It's a matter of priorities. Nations seem to want to spend money on looking impressive and technologically advanced to other nations and place that as a higher priority than their own citizens. Historically, space programs are also used to remind their neighbors that 'hey, we can put a robot in orbit of a rock millions of miles away, we can sure as hell put a bomb on your door step.' That's who they're trying to impress and what they're trying to drive home.
Fuck the poor seems to be something of a universal position.