How does it feel to be New Deli slum dweller? You should be proud; your nation has just launched a space rocket to the moon. Surely it is a proud day to be Indian?
But the launch could be a hoax for all you know. You don’t have a laptop, so you can’t check a collection of verifiable websites. You can’t watch the clip on Youtube. You can’t watch it on TV. You can budget so you can, maybe, afford a paper. You live on one pound a day, along with millions of your fellow countrymen. Luckily for you, that’s a good 80p above your Government’s national poverty threshold. One in three of your countrymen don’t even meet the threshold. To them, your middleclass. Your part of the elite, like the The Indian Space Research Organisation with it’s £1 billion budget. Maybe you discuss the launch with some friends. One vehemently argues in defence of the launch. He’s the smart arse of the group. Yes, ISRO has a thousand million pound budget in a country where a third of the world’s poor live, he says. But it has done so much good! ISRO satelittles provide vital data on water supplies, early warning systems to prepare for disasters and connects remote schools and hospitals with experts around the world! India has shown it’s potential; it even had the grace to take NASA and European Space Agency equipment along for the ride - free of charge!
But what good is to a New Delhi slum that a glorified computer is wheezing around a glorified lump of rock? Another friend argues. The only thing astronomical about India is it’s level of poverty. And NASA, with it’s $17 billion budget, getting a free ride is like a renowned explorer being carried up a mountain by a malnourished guide. Try using that line if you ever get in a Rickshaw: “Take me up the street, but don’t expect me to pay - you should feel privileged just to be in my company”.
But maybe your too tired to join the argument. You just watch the slum. Women carrying half dead babies. Men who haven’t moved for days - probably dead, or at least dying, in their own filth. Kids kicking up plastic trash in the street for lack of anything better to do. You may wonder how much money India could make as a rickshaw service to the moon. Enough to offset the £1 billion ISRO budget? Unlikely. But doesn’t the ISRO provide jobs, vital for India’s - you try not to laugh - ‘booming’ economy? Of course there’s no way for you to know ISRO provides only 20,000 jobs. Hardly anything in a country of one billion people. One billion people, millions in poverty. Women clutching half starved babies. You wonder what that looks like from space.