In a macho violation of common sense and the needs of hundreds of millions of people living in crushing poverty, the ruling elite of India (that’s the government and multinational corporations who own the country) recently launched a satellite that “after a journey of 300 days and 420 million miles… arrived to orbit around Mars”. The USD74 million “Mars mission” is “cheap by American (or Chinese) standards”, the Economist says, but amounts to a fraction of a much more expensive – not to say insane – space programme that drains USD1 billion a year from the national budget. This “is more than spare change, even for a near USD2 trillion economy”.
The “Mars Madness”, or Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), to give it its official title, makes India one of four (the US, the EU and Russia being the other three) that have ventured to our closest cosmic neighbour, and constitutes a conspicuously extravagant part of what economist-activist Jean Dreze accurately describes as “the Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status”.
Competition and nationalism drive such escapades, not the quest for knowledge and understanding. The space race between the US and the Soviet Union, for example, “was not an affordable luxury undertaken for the sake of knowledge, but intrinsically tied to the military-industrial complex”, the Guardian rightly states. India’s primary competitor in all things economic is that other mammoth nation, China. The Chinese space programme is advanced (in 2012 it put a Chinese woman in space and last year launched its first un-crewed lunar mission), and therefore intensely intimidating to the Indian nationalists psyche. Full story...
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The “Mars Madness”, or Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), to give it its official title, makes India one of four (the US, the EU and Russia being the other three) that have ventured to our closest cosmic neighbour, and constitutes a conspicuously extravagant part of what economist-activist Jean Dreze accurately describes as “the Indian elite’s delusional quest for superpower status”.
Competition and nationalism drive such escapades, not the quest for knowledge and understanding. The space race between the US and the Soviet Union, for example, “was not an affordable luxury undertaken for the sake of knowledge, but intrinsically tied to the military-industrial complex”, the Guardian rightly states. India’s primary competitor in all things economic is that other mammoth nation, China. The Chinese space programme is advanced (in 2012 it put a Chinese woman in space and last year launched its first un-crewed lunar mission), and therefore intensely intimidating to the Indian nationalists psyche. Full story...
Related posts:
- Can space-conquering India sort out its earthly toilet problem?
- Here’s why Western criticism to India’s Mars mission is blatant racism...
- India celebrates Mars mission 'cheaper than a movie'
- India's PM blasted after budgeting £20 million for statue...
- 100 million more Indians classed as poor...
- India world's biggest buyer of arms...
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