Sod healthcare, fly me to the moon instead

So China’s first moon expedition is underway. The front pages of today’s papers featured the Chang’e 1 rocket blasting off from southern Sichuan province. Now I’m not normally one to play party pooper and I did use to be a bit of a space enthusiast when I was a kid - if sticking glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom ceiling and dreaming of being an astronaut qualifies, at least - but I can’t help feeling that China’s space obsession is, well, a little bit of a waste of time and a colossal waste of money.

What exactly is this latest moon probe going to achieve? Will it reveal some vital secrets about our solar system? Unlikely; it’s not as if the moon is uncharted territory. No, it’s just a colossally expensive way of China demonstrating its new world power status. Is it merely a coincidence that Chang’e 1’s blast-off comes just a month after Japan sent a space probe to orbit the moon? And it’s not surprising either that India is also keen to join this new Asian space race. I’m all for exploring and pushing the boundaries of science, and if China’s space mission inspires a whole generation of kids to go to bed at night dreaming of bouncing around on the surface of the moon, who am I to deny them their fun?

But surely, in the list of priorities, space exploration comes pretty low down in a country without a proper healthcare or pensions system and where 130 million people still live below the poverty line. China has made massive strides in eradicating poverty, but inequality is growing by the day and, with a rapidly aging population and traditional family welfare ties rapidly breaking down as only sons and daughters migrate to the cities for work, the billions of dollars being lavished on China’s space mission is, if you pardon the terrible pun, sheer lunar-cy.

Matthew Plowright