India is well on its way to throw a metal cage buzzing with armoured circuitry and its own complete electronic ecosystem, into orbit around the moon. A place were barely a few people have walked, barren, stark, harsh and unforgiving. One mistake could mean crores of rupee in waste.

And yet, till now, we’ve kept it going. Faced with adversities, trade blockades, technology transfer held back, our country has actually gone ahead and taken a giant step. Putting a satellite around the moon requires great coordination and planning, after all!

But why do it? Thats actually my main question – was it really worth all that “Indian pride” that we get? Yet another statistic that would only land up as email forwards, just about bat a few eyelids before this great fact disappears into the vast pages of history? Or just simple, great, smart and effective business sense? The fact that India has geo-stationary payload delivery vehicles that have proved their worth twice than others and at half the price, is good enough. But its the key driver in earning money for ISRO, and in turn, the Indian government. So the PSLV and the GSLV are easily understandable as great investments by the government.

But a trip to the moon?

We get a few rock samples, great, then what? We discover what was already discovered earlier? Get a man on the moon, then what? Gain knowledge about space flights thats already known by the space-faring few? That actually brings us to the bigger question – who invests in scientific research? (Atleast scientific research that doesn’t directly mean huge amounts of savings for some business). Who invests in spending all those crores building that satellite to only get back some rock samples from the moon? The government, sure, pumps in the money – but you really need to have strong lobbies to be able to make the government machinery disperse large sums of money!

The museum? It would still take a few centuries of visitors paying the entry fee for that museum to get back its investment!

The underground mafia? So that finally that rock lands up at some uber-rich idiot’s house, so that he can show off to his friends that he actually got some moon-rock?

National Geographic? Yup, they’ve got money, but is there enough interest in moon-rock amongst the public that has been over-exposed to it during the Cold War proxy-fighting?

Certainly the moon-trip isnt a real instant RoI for the government. They’re thinking about the future – a future when this early headstart could make the difference between big or bust. No matter what you think is wrong with this nation – I somehow feel this was a timely investment, but a lock-in period of around a century or so!

After all, if you want some moon-rock, we’ve got it at half-price for you!

EDIT: I found this on their website: “This will lay the foundation for bigger missions and also open up new possibilities of international networking and support for planetary programmes … It would actually spur the Indian scientific community with the presence of India’s own moon-rock.”

Right …