The education system is broken, with capitalist, money hungry schools make it impossible for a majority of the population to receive a respectable standard of education. Building a space port, sure go ahead. But doesn't solve the endemic problem of pathetic standard of education, which isn't standardized, where majority of the children have zero access to climb the intellectual ladder due to lack of money. And even when you have money, the standard of education is hopelessly bouncing off one wall to another. It's what happens when Pakistan has been ruled by a bunch of Jahils, in turn churning out further Jahil mentality into the population.
Go ahead with your glorified space port, brushing the reality under the carpet. It's vain, without mass segment of Pakistani youngsters expected to somehow fly up to the requirements in order to be hired for jobs at your sparkling little space port.
Without a solid foundation in education, you have a future full of j@ck@$$es like bilawal, sharif sons and little diesel'ets running around like frenzied bacteria, contaminating Pakistan's intellectual pool.
While I understand and agree with your frustration over our education systems, I disagree that we should not pursue high-tech endeavors. I have raised several practical reservations about the idea of this spaceport and how it will be managed but this post is about the general principle of spending money on space when you have hunger in the nation. I will try to reason my point coherently.
1. Space can and should be viewed like any other industry on some level. You can invest money into it, which will create jobs and bring profit. Some countries produce cars, some countries produce TVs, some countries produce satellites. We can view a space industry in the same vein. Few people argue against investment in steel or oil or automotive until we've finished corruption and hunger. On the contrary, investment in industry is a way to create economic progress and fight hunger.
2. We actually have more specialist human resource in space (and its allied tech) than we can efficiently employ. I personally know way too many under-employed or unemployed engineers in these fields. Now you can blame our bad higher-education planning for this but at this point this is just a fact we must deal with. For a long time the government has tried to remedy this situation by hiring like crazy in places like SUPARCO, whose 80% workforce sits on their butts or is kept busy with pointless tasks. However, even that option is now running out as there's only so many sarkari naukris the government can hand out. The point is that we have no shortage of good engineers. And we will actually help the cause of under- and unemployment by investing in the space industry.
3. There are a some Indian things that I wish Pakistanis could replicate. One of these is ISRO. It makes money for the Indian government while providing jobs to thousands of engineers. Yes it's a profitable enterprise now. Why shouldn't we have a thing (space program in this case) that creates jobs and brings in profit?
4. One might argue that the return on investment can be higher by investing in other industries like perhaps agriculture. But to this I say that space industry actually brings you benefits that do not show up on a balance sheet. To bring in ISRO's example once again, the satellites launched by ISRO helped augment India's agriculture industry among other things. I am sure the technologies developed at ISRO feed into the India's military industrial complex (albeit indirectly), which is yet another reason to invest in these things.
With all that being said, I have seen how we invest into these endevaours, and we are interested more in "feeta kaatna" and sarkari prado main ghoomna, so I don't have optimistic views about what this current investment can achieve. But a course correction is needed, not a course termination.
Course correction will have to be in the shape of a high-tech industry and military industry policy developed through consensus between SPD, civillian government, business people.
