Why was India invested so early in space technology when at that time, India should have invested it in its infrastructure and the welfare of the people?

为什么印度早早投资太空技术？印度本该把这些资金投在基础设施和人民福利上?

Quora评论翻译：

Balaji Viswanathan, ran a fintech company in the past.

Why do poor people send children to school? Could they not spend just on food and essential items alone? Why do they invest in children “so early” when they are not going to get to work for a decade or more?

You cannot get to tomorrow by just doing things that keep you sustained for today. Unless you invest in tomorrow you are going to be stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty.

What India spends in space is a very small fraction of what India spends in social welfare programs. Even if you completely close down the space program it is not going make a big change in our welfare programs.

Thus, India has to invest in today [food security, healthcare] and tomorrow [space, energy]. And the hope of a better tomorrow will propel us forward today.

And the space technology is already paying off quite well as ISRO is making money launching satellites of other countries and also benefitting our defense and other ministries.

India is not a poor country. It is just a rich country that has gone through a temporary state of poverty and getting out of it.

为什么穷人要送孩子去上学?难道不能用来买吃的吗，不能用来买日用必需品吗?为什么他们“这么早”就对孩子进行投资，而孩子在未来10年甚至更长时间都不会去工作的?

你不能得过且过，做一天和尚撞一天钟。如果你不对未来进行投资，你将陷入贫穷的恶性循环。

印度在太空上的花费只占社会福利项目花费的很小一部分。即使你完全关闭了太空计划，我们的福利计划也不会有太大的改变。

因此，印度必须投资于当前(食品安全、医疗保健)和未来(太空、能源)。对更美好明天的期望是我们今天前进的动力。

太空技术已经有了很好的回报，ISRO也在通过发射其他国家的卫星赚钱，同时也使我们的国防和其他部门受益。

印度不是一个贫穷的国家，而是一个富裕的国家，只是经历了一段暂时的贫困时期。

来源：三泰虎 http://www.santaihu.com/46025.html     译者：Jessica.Wu

Chandru Pandian D, Commodities Trader

Recently, there was an article by Shekhar Gupta which detailed that many in India don’t get the difference between the pursuit of scientific inquiry and technology (could have been titled better). The article created a bit of a social media furor — obviously! (shocked that there was a social media backlash on an article?)

最近，Shekhar Gupta（印度知名记者）发表了一篇文章，描述了在印度，许多人并没有意识到追求科学探究和技术之间的区别(这个标题本可以写得更好)。这篇文章在社交媒体上引起了一阵骚动!(一篇文章在社交媒体上引起强烈反响，震惊吗？)

You could very well replace India with a placeholder name for anyone who makes this argument that India should have invested in the welfare of its people rather than on research and development. It was a good piece. Modi’s space dream: India still doesn’t know the difference between tech & science

这是一件好作品，莫迪的太空梦：印度仍然不知道科技和科学的区别。

But the crux of the opinion piece was today’s science is tomorrow’s technology and we tend to place a higher emphasis on technology, but not the pursuit of science that forms the basis of technological advancements.

但是这个观点的核心是今天的科学是明天的科技，我们倾向于更重视科技，而不追求作为科技进步基础的科学。

This kind of mentality will only ensure that India remains largely the hub of doing back-end support, admin and services work using our cheap labor and resources and reverse engineering exsting innovations at a low cost. This is how countries stagnate at the middle income, unable to break the barrier once they’ve exhausted their low cost options.

这种心态只会确保在很大程度上，印度仍然是利用廉价劳动力和资源从事后端支持、管理和服务工作的中心，并以低成本逆向工程进行创新。这就是各国在中等收入水平上停滞不前的原因，一旦他们用尽了低成本的选择，就无法突破这一障碍。

For the purposes of this argument, let’s forget about recent investments in space research. Let’s take the investments in ISRO at its inception when India was at a far worse off place than it is now in terms of literacy, poverty, mortality rates and life expectancy.

就这个论点而言，我们去切不论忘记最近在太空研究方面的投资，以ISRO在成立之初的投资为例，当时印度在识字率、贫困程度、死亡率和预期寿命方面比现在差得多。

It’s not difficult to see how those investments have paid off in very material terms in improving the lives of people.

不难看出，这些投资在改善人民生活方面取得了非常实质性的回报。

Agriculture has greatly benefited from better weather modeling thanks to the quality of data collected by our satellites.

由于我们的卫星收集的数据质量高，农业从更好的天气预报中获益良多。

We have the capability to generate large amounts of quality and accurate data about the environment, land, ocean and freshwater.

我们有能力生成大量关于环境、陆地、海洋和淡水的高质量和精确数据。

Aerial images provided by ISRO can be used to modernize the land records.

ISRO提供的航拍图像可用于更新土地记录。

Aerial topographical surveys aid in the exploration and development of natural resources on which we spend a fortune in terms of foreign reserves. Types of Land Surveying Utilized by Mining Operations

航测地形有助于勘探和开发自然资源，在这方面我们花费了大量外汇储备。采矿作业使用的土地测量类型

Take India’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), for example:

NRSC has created large scale 3D spatial at 1:1000 (including attribute information) for Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata from Aerial Photographs of 1:6000 for National Informatics Centre. A detailed floor level map was carried out using Photogrammetry techniques. Large Scale 3D spatial/nonspatial databases have become indispensable in Utility GIS applications like urban planning, water and sewerage management, transportation, revenue tax collection, garbage disposal, telecom services and other location based services in their day-to-day operations and in future planning and development.

以印度国家遥感中心(NRSC)为例:

NRSC已经为海得拉巴、班加罗尔和加尔各答从国家信息中心1:6000航拍照片中创建了1:1000大规模3D太空(数据包括属性信息)。使用摄影测量技术进行了详细的楼层地图绘制。大型三维太空/非太空数据库已成为地理信息系统应用比如，城市规划、水务和排污管理、交通、税收征管、垃圾处理、电信服务和其它基于位置的服务等在日常运营及未来规划和开发中不可或缺的数据。

You can read some more examples of their practical applications here. National Remote Sensing Centre

你可以在这里阅读更多的实际应用示例：国家遥感中心

What about contingencies like we have in Kerala in terms of rescuing people, coordinating rescue operations and knowing the terrain.

还有像我们在喀拉拉邦遇到的紧急情况，在人员救援，协调救援行动和了解地形方面发挥的作用。

There is also the small matter of prestigious organizations like ISRO inspiring people to take up the pursuit of scientific inquiry. Did anyone the benefit of determining the double helix structure of a DNA? You could have asked at that time what exactly are we going to gain by this, except that it ushered in a new age of healthcare.

有人知道确定DNA双螺旋结构的好处吗?当时你可能会问，我们究竟能从中得到什么，除了它开创了一个新的医疗保健时代。

As crude as it may sound, all expenses are not the same when it comes to return on investment. In the long run, expenses made on blue sky research, research and development in general, opportunity costs incurred by foregoing some high taxes, and infrastructure expenses bear a higher return in terms of improving the lives of vast swathes of people.

当涉及到投资回报时，所有的费用都是不一样的。从长远来看，由于放弃一些高税收和基础设施支出而产生的机会成本，在“蓝天研究”等研发上的花费在改善广大人民生活方面带来了更高的回报。

Welfare expenses, for all intents and purposes, are a stand-in while we work to make opportunities available for large masses of people. It should not never be the be all and end all.

无论出于何种目的，福利支出都是我们努力为广大人民提供机会时的临时替带品。它不代表全部，也不能结束一切。