just like i said...more proof we never went to the moon...

[U4EA]

Close to half of all Indian children are malnourished, which is nearly double the rate of central Africa. (source) (another source)

5.6 million child deaths per year. (source)

80% of Indians live on less than $2 per day, compared to 84% of Rwandans, not much in it.

An exploding population in a poor country isn't something to be happy about, and it's the illiterate/uneducated folks that reproduce far more prolifically than the urban elite in countries like this.

A healthy economy has to feed back into the system wisely, which means focusing on basic sanitation, food, health care, education etc.

Wait, no .. I'm wrong. Fuck all that and let's send up more shitty satellites that stop working after 2 years

[o'dium]

Ghet yhur ahrse tu mhars.

[seremtan]

@U4EA

no doubt, but you're overlooking economic trends, which is what i was getting at -

india:

http://www85.wolframalpha.com/input/?i= ... apita+2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India#Economy

With an average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% for the past two decades, the economy is among the fastest growing in the world.

rwanda:

http://www85.wolframalpha.com/input/?i= ... apita+2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda#Economy

It has a low gross national product (GNP), and it has been identified as a Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC). In 2005, its economic performance and governance achievements prompted International Funding Institutions to cancel nearly all its debts.

trends make all the difference

[bitWISE]

Hopefully something like the space elevator becomes a reality once companies perfect practical carbon nano tube lengths.

and then make them approx. 100,000 miles long to allow for the counterweight

also, human spaceflight is important, for the positive reason that sending humans to other planets is a worthy challenge in its own right, and for the negative reason that we shouldn't just be handing over the things we should be doing to robots. as a corollary, supposed someone asked why should someone spend a lifetime perfecting the playing of chopin when a robo-pianist could be programmed to do the same? the human dimension matters

I totally support human spaceflight and the space program in general. I'm just saying what I see as the problem. And its a good problem to fix too. I think we should be focused on making other worlds habitable while robots can do much of the initial exploration.

[U4EA]

[...]

I'm not denying that the Indian economy is experiencing rapid growth, I'm saying that it's hideously irresponsible to spend on frivolities (like a space program) when half your country is living in filth and squalor.