It's ironic seeing so much criticism from citizens of countries such as the USA which hasn't exactly solved its own poverty issues from the perspective of plent

It's ironic seeing so much criticism from citizens of countries such as the USA which hasn't exactly solved its own poverty issues from the perspective of plenty of other countries. So where do you draw that arbitrary line? Also, it seems incredibly short sighted not to see how development of a sophisticated space programme won't benefit the people of a nation (certainly if the engineers and policy makers were prescient they could just invest their time building only the space devices that would directly benefit their people but the real world of engineering is too complex for things to work that way). It's fortunate HN is full of people that mostly see the benefits, but it's clear a lot of people elsewhere aren't that thrilled. I for one am glad India made this step. If a bunch of people are going to demonstrate what can only be described as overt jealousy, maybe it will spurn their own nations into greater efforts in the space arena.