India Planning Manned Space Mission?

According to this article here, ISRO, India's space agency is ready to send a manned space mission in another seven years if it gets the nod from the government. Critics have already been complaining that the lunar mission is itself outdated (been-there-done-that types) and India should focus on just launching satellites for better purposes.

Critics have called the mission outdated and complained that the agency is wasting the budget of 25 billion rupees, or $555 million, allotted by the government. They say cash-strapped India should restrict its space program to launching satellites. Nair defended the mission, saying it would encourage the Indian scientific community and would investigate the physical characteristics of the lunar surface in greater depth than previous missions by other nations. "It will explore its minerals, map the terrain and find out whether water and helium deposits exist," he said. "It will also give us a deeper understanding about the planet Earth itself or its origins. "Earlier missions did not come out with a full understanding of the moon, and that is the reason scientists are still interested."

I am not so sure about how much more useful a lunar mission will be given the history of the Apollo missions and the lack of returns on that. But I very much support space missions like this, if nothing, they will create more opportunities to other sectors of the economy. Investment in technologies that will create more opportunities and bring progress is never a bad thing. We wait until everyone in the country had their basic needs covered, progress in other areas would never happen. A few years from now, these will create jobs in much the same way that the IT industry has done.