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India – moon or poverty?

With the recent confirmation of readiness of India's moon probe, I can't help but wonder if this is the best application of money and scientific minds in a country plagued by poverty and inequality.

Over one-third of India's population, or around 456 million people (World Bank estimates based on 2005 data), live below the new international poverty line. This is a crazy statistic that has not significantly changed even with all the new wealth in India and the rise of the middle class. In many parts of the country new developments coming from local, in some cases fundamental-capitalist-minded, ministers and leaders has increased poverty through actions such as destroying slums to make new hotels (see In Search of Gandhi's India documentary).

I'm certainly not attacking development, progression and the rise of science. These things are especially important in a country where religious and caste divides have a long history of causing problems. But what if these scientists and the funding sources behind them who created this moon mission were able to direct their focus to some of the problems here and now on earth, in their own backyard.

This mission as well seems to have quite a bit of the "I'm in the space race now too, look at me!" type sentiment. The scientific goals of moon mineral testing etc. are very particular and seem (to me at least) to be relatively insignificant in comparison to, for example, a Hubble telescope mission.

One obvious point here is why don't we level the same argument against all space missions? Against projects such as the LHC particle accelerator at CERN? This seems to be a valid argument - i.e. shouldn't we concentrate on fixing our problems here before exploring space? How valuable is knowing obscure details about a distant solar system if thousands are dying daily of starvation? Tough questions.

I agree with something the head of the British Royal Society said recently in relation to these issues. He stated basically that we need to be increasingly aware and considerate of what our money and best scientific minds focus on and put in place more initiatives (such as grants etc.) to get people working towards issues more fundamental for humanity, such as inequality and health.