People who keep making the (nonsense) point of space vs. better roads keep harping on how the money will be better spent on infrastructure.
I looked up the Indian planning commission's budget for 2013-14 road development. Planning Commission provided an annual outlay of Rs.37,300.00 Crore for 2013-2014 for development in road sector[1]. That is more than 6 billion USD - just for improving roads, for a year.
The budget of the Mars Orbiter mission was around 75 million USD[2] i.e. less than 1.5% of [1].
I looked up the Indian planning commission's budget for 2013-14 road development. Planning Commission provided an annual outlay of Rs.37,300.00 Crore for 2013-2014 for development in road sector[1]. That is more than 6 billion USD - just for improving roads, for a year.
The budget of the Mars Orbiter mission was around 75 million USD[2] i.e. less than 1.5% of [1].
[1]: http://www.performance.gov.in/sites/default/files/department...
[2]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2013/11/07/how-indias...