Mars on a shoestring

[Bryanpoprobson]

Must congratulate the Indian Space program on successfully getting their "Mangalyaan" probe into orbit. As a first attempt and in the background of the many failures of other nations, it is a huge achievement. All this done on a budget of  4.5bn rupees ($74m), which, by Western standards, is staggeringly cheap.
When you compare the cost of NASA's Maven probe ($671m) the mission is remarkable. OK accepting the fact that the payloads are very light, does nothing to detract from what the Indians have achieved. That aside, even the Americans and Russians failed on their first attempts with similar payloads.

There is an ethical question regarding the spending of even these, relatively small sums, by an impoverished nation. But there could be some payback in terms of technology advance and perhaps selling launches at a later date.

[Zakalwe]

There is an ethical question regarding the spending of even these, relatively small sums, by an impoverished nation. But there could be some payback in terms of technology advance and perhaps selling launches at a later date.

I never quite understand this argument, to be honest. After all, every single rupee was spent on Earth, with presumably, a large chunk going on wages for the employees, into the industries that supplied the kit and so on. Isn't that the role of government...to upskill it's people and develop industries that provide jobs?

I remember seeing this article a while back and I was struck by the eloquence of the reply.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

[Bryanpoprobson]

I remember seeing this article a while back and I was struck by the eloquence of the reply.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

What a fantastic letter, thanks for posting that.

[Zakalwe]

What a fantastic letter, thanks for posting that.
[/quote]

You're welcome.

Regarding the budget, I thought that this image makes a good point....

[Echnaton]

Isn't that the role of government...to upskill it's people and develop industries that provide jobs?

It's called corporate welfare. 

[ka9q]

Yeah, and Gravity got all the physics wrong. Grrr.

Apparently the Indians got the physics right, and for less money. Congratulations to them.

[sts60]

I doubt many of the Indian engineers were paid as much as George Clooney or Sandra Bullock.

[gwiz]

I never quite understand this argument, to be honest. After all, every single rupee was spent on Earth, with presumably, a large chunk going on wages for the employees, into the industries that supplied the kit and so on.

Pretty well all Indian domestic industry, too, though some money may have gone to lease NASA tracking facilities.

[cjameshuff]

I never quite understand this argument, to be honest. After all, every single rupee was spent on Earth, with presumably, a large chunk going on wages for the employees, into the industries that supplied the kit and so on.

Pretty well all Indian domestic industry, too, though some money may have gone to lease NASA tracking facilities.

And developing capabilities that are likely to lead to increased investment from and business with other countries. It really is a stupid, shortsighted argument.

[ka9q]

Bingo. Judging from the number of Indians (and Chinese, and other non-US citizens) I saw and worked with every day at work, I'd say that those countries are doing quite well at turning out the engineers US industry needs but can't seem to find among the US population. It's not like the government makes it terribly easy to hire non-US citizens to work in the US.

[twik]

There is an ethical question regarding the spending of even these, relatively small sums, by an impoverished nation. But there could be some payback in terms of technology advance and perhaps selling launches at a later date.

I never quite understand this argument, to be honest. After all, every single rupee was spent on Earth, with presumably, a large chunk going on wages for the employees, into the industries that supplied the kit and so on. Isn't that the role of government...to upskill it's people and develop industries that provide jobs?

I remember seeing this article a while back and I was struck by the eloquence of the reply.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

This reminds me of a Canadian news report of a government building that required extensive cosmetic repairs, after some rather idiotic changes made to it. Repairs were about $500K, and mostly involved installing a new glass exterior.

The reporter did "man on the street" interviews, where the consensus was that "they should be spending the money on creating jobs instead." The fact that all the installation (and possibly the glass manufacture, I'm not sure) would be done by Canadians did not seem to count as "job creation".

[ka9q]

This is awfully close to the "broken window fallacy" in economics. It's described in the Wikipedia article.

The point is that not all economic activity is beneficial even though it employs local people. You have to look at the overall effect of the activity.

Now I do think that, unlike fixing a broken window, a space program has some very large side benefits: it creates a pool of skilled scientists, technicians and engineers and related educational institutions; it generates technology, much of which can be spun off into everyday uses; and (especially for human spaceflight) it inspires young people into STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) careers, it increases the country's standing and reputation in the world, and it can even create goods and services (particularly launch services) that other countries might be interested in buying.

All of these things are important to a country's general economic development.

[Peter B]

There is an ethical question regarding the spending of even these, relatively small sums, by an impoverished nation. But there could be some payback in terms of technology advance and perhaps selling launches at a later date.

I never quite understand this argument, to be honest. After all, every single rupee was spent on Earth, with presumably, a large chunk going on wages for the employees, into the industries that supplied the kit and so on. Isn't that the role of government...to upskill it's people and develop industries that provide jobs?

I remember seeing this article a while back and I was struck by the eloquence of the reply.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

I agree with your rejection of the argument, but I would respectfully disagree with the basis of your rejection.

Yes, all the money was spent here on Earth, but there's also the issue of where the constructed infrastructure is put to use. Instead of building a spacecraft, the government could have chosen to use the money to build infrastructure here on Earth which would have had a direct economic benefit to India, like new roads or hospitals. The salaries would still have gone into pockets here on Earth, but in addition there would have been the economic benefit.

Accordingly, I think this is a weak counter-argument to use against the point raised by Bryanpoprobson.

Personally, I think a better counter-argument is to ask why such savings should be made from the space exploration budget when it represents such a small part of the government's budget. Far bigger savings could be made in all sorts of other areas of government expenditure, with defence being an obvious target.

People apparently massively over-estimate the size of NASA's budget as a proportion of US Government spending (by a factor of 10 or more). So when people talk about what appears to be the massive cost of space missions, I prefer to compare it to some other piece of government spending (or, perhaps, non-government spending): the MAVEN mission cost less than one B-2 bomber, and LeBron James could have paid for the Mangalyaan mission out of his Nike contract alone.

In any case, when it comes to India, general inefficiency and corruption is probably a far bigger waste of money than a space mission: http://www.smh.com.au/world/yes-minister-our-empty-hospitals-in-new-delhi-are-world-class-20140717-zu8c4.html

[Bryanpoprobson]

Please be aware that I only raised the point, I don't agree with it. The issue that people have with this, especially in the UK is: The UK government has issues of its own, but still sends foreign aid to countries like India. Some "narrow minded" people see this as illogical. The issue of using part of their national GDP to finance space missions, sort of rubs their noses in it.
What they fail to realise, that with a country like India is; They spend 8-10% of their GDP on welfare, their spending on space probably accounts for .01% of their GDP and as others have pointed out, the majority of this sending is in house. There are gaps in developing countries welfare budget, hence foreign aid is needed, but some investment in tech is needed, otherwise these countries will continue to be reliant on aid.