Yeah, that's why I opened with "Not that it's the same scale". My point is just that arguing "don't spend money on X, Y is more important" only makes sense if

Yeah, that's why I opened with "Not that it's the same scale". My point is just that arguing "don't spend money on X, Y is more important" only makes sense if X is literally the least important thing. But as far as scale is concerned, it's worth noting that the US spends about .5% of its budget on NASA (again, IMO totally justified). The economist article doesn't mention how much Ethiopia plans to spend, but to get a super rough estimate, their current $3m investment [0] is only about .025% of national budget [1]. [0] http://www.sciencealert.com/ethiopia-has-launched-the-first-space-program-in-east-africa http://www.sciencealert.com/ethiopia-has-launched-the-first-... [1] http://www.ena.gov.et/en/index.php/politics/item/1435-council-of-ministers-approves-over-274-billion-birr-budget-for-upcoming-ethiopian-fiscal-year http://www.ena.gov.et/en/index.php/politics/item/1435-counci...