"Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet." You jest, but space is

"Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet." You jest, but space is the new way to show off your nation's military prowess. It not-so-subtly shows competency with ICBM technology. North Korea did just that when they attempted to display their latest ICBM tech to the world by "launching a satellite into space" a few years ago. A lot of people seem to be overlooking the military applications here. India has a shaky relationship with Pakistan and (like it or not) space superiority will become the next "air superiority" militarily in the coming decade or 2.