India's preposterous priorities

There is apparently great excitement among the scientists involved in India's first unmanned mission to the moon which is due to blast off in less than two weeks from Satish Dhawan Space Centre near the southern city of Madras.

Weather and the gods permitting, the launch of Chandrayaan-I is due to go ahead on 22 October and more than 1,000 scientists are involved in the effort to push forward India's space programme to the next stage.

While not wanting to pour cold water on the affair for the sake of it, I can't help wondering what on earth the point of all this is. In a country where perhaps half of young children suffer from malnutrition, where education in the rural areas is as basic as can be and where access to healthcare for the poor remains at best a very hit or miss affair, I have to conclude that the £47m the project is costing might be better spent on other things.

No-one doubts India is changing and who would not wish to celebrate as the country slowly throws off the shackles of famine and isolation. But for all the talk of a new India, one cannot ignore the reality that more than 800m of the population of 1.1bn live on around one pound a day. For hundreds of millions of people, wretched poverty is the only life they know and are ever likely to know.

It's been reported that defenders of the mission say it will actually make money because it is also carrying equipment for NASA and the European Space Agency. But it seems equally clear that India's motivation is much more about trying to catch up with China, which has been pushing ahead with its space programme and which last month carried out its first space walk.

I am not immune to the spectacle and wonder of such events but in terms of advancing science I am at a loss to see what benefits India's unmanned moon mission will bring. (In much the same way, the US's space science programme that requires the use of the outdated Shuttles to peform experiments that can be done just as easily on earth, also strikes me as a waste of time and resources.) If anyone can tell me what good this event will do India or the rest of humanity, I'd be glad to know.