Africa, Clooney, and an Unlikely Space Race 137
MightyMait writes "There's a plan underway to build a space agency run by African nations, and there is a (non-fictional) George Clooney connection. This BBC article details the history of space exploration in Africa as well as current efforts. Quoting: 'To Western eyes, it may seem rather inappropriate to launch space programs in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 70% of the population still lives on less $2 a day. Yet Joseph Akinyede, director of the African Regional Center for Space Science and Technology Education in Nigeria, an education center affiliated with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, says that the application of space science technology and research to "basic necessities" of life – health, education, energy, food security, environmental management – is critical for the development of the continent.'"
Re:Agreed with Akinyede (Score:5, Insightful)
More specifically where it can help is in job creation. Where do you spend those billions? If you import resources and labour it's not going to help you, but if it's all spent at home (and Africa has plenty of resources and labour awaiting training) you're pumping a lot of money into the market while pulling people out of poverty. Those people then have more to spend which means the rest of the economy gets a boost. The problem Africa has had until now is very little investment and what there is (mining etc) tends to be exploiting their resources for the gain of foreign companies, so they haven't seen that happen before. I don't know whether it'll work as well has they hope, but I can certainly follow their reasoning.
that adjustment is included. Rice 8 cents per serv (Score:4, Insightful)
You're mistaken, it really is $2 / day, exactly like if you lived on $2 / day. You THINK you'd starve. In fact, you'd find out rice is 8 cents per serving. Potatos are slightly more. You've probably bought ramen noodles at 12 cents. You can eat on 30 cents per day. You're not eating at Olive Garden or drinking Starbucks, but you're eating.
At that, some people in Africa DO starve because they don't jhave the 30 cents per day. You could live off three packs of ramen per day, so can they - it's exactly the same. The only difference is that you and I complain about overdone pizza, they would rejoice over the same pizza.
Re:send Clooney to space (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a triumph of the human spirit, or something.
Re: Agreed with Akinyede (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not the broken window fallicy. They don't have any windows to break.
It's not like they had functioning rockets and threw them out so they could fix them.
Re:Might sound racist.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would pointing out the corruption of African govts be racist? It is a testament to the degree of indoctrination suffered by many westerners that they feel the need to carefully examine any negative statement involving blacks in any context for possible racial insensitivity. A crook is a crook. Africa didn't invent (well, maybe Africa did, depending on human origins) and doesn't have a monopoly on political corruption. The white countries of the west are wealthy and function well because they developed the cultures and institutions that create wealth and provide security in body and property for the individuals in those countries. There is no reason to feel guilty about coming from a well-functioning society and no reason to feel guilty about pointing out how screwed up other countries are. Such attitudes of excessive self-examination can lead to self-loathing which will inevitably result in Detroit.
Only to the fools (Score:4, Insightful)
" it may seem rather inappropriate to launch space programs in sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 70% of the population still lives on less $2 a day"
Only to the fools.
A space program creates jobs, develops technology and gives people somethig to be proud of and aspire towards. It will always be easy to count the money that goes into any space program but the benefits and money coming out will outweigh the cost. It's harder to count that though so the fools will always be around holding manking back.
I don't care what you are working towards, wherever you set your goals you will almost always fall a little short. If their goal is just to provide everyone the minimal basics, food, clean water and shelter then they will fail to do even that. If their goal is to make continual progress and achieve great things the outcome will still be less than the goal but the basics will be more than covered.
We don't need to convert populations living off of $2 into populations living off of $3. We need to convert them to healthy, prosperous and advancing communities everywhere and in every way.