Botswana launches first satellite BOTSAT-1 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

… this does not seem like their best use of resources.

Botswana is actually reasonably well developed and stable. It seems fine, and I applaud them.

Can you expand on this? I'm curious how you think these resources should be better allocated.

Make sure the same argument doesn't apply to any of the other countries with space assets!

Politically stable, relatively low corruption and economical acceptable. They are doing many things well relative to the rest of Africa. On the other hand, 30% of their women have HIV.

Who are you to make such a judgement? What is your expertise on Botswana?

> This initiative will enable BIUST to build a sustainable pipeline of space technology projects while facilitating hands-on learning opportunities for students and researchers

Having been part of a student satellite program, and having subsequently built my career on it, I can tell you that there is nothing more efficient at teaching students than giving them a bunch of money and telling them to build a satellite.

This satellite will be operated for many years by many students who will learn practical knowledge about satellites.

Botswana is a stable democracy, with a pretty good HDI. Satellite tech is extremely important for public safety and agriculture. Seems fine to me.

It is very difficult to change mass culture.

Need to work on both high tech and low wage opportunities at the same time. Without having high tech there will be a bigger brain drain, many people that gets educated or starts a business with higher ambitions will leave as soon as they can. Having high tech opportunities slows down the brain drain and increases the potential to create different industries that support the country. Also as there will be many first in the country such as building a satellite there will be more potential to grow for anyone wanting to enter that industry even if the current economic benefit is lower than say other countries. For instance USA can grow mostly from developing new technology and their population growth (traditionally from immigration), A country like Botswana can grow from improving their current infrastructure (education, catching up in technology etc) AND new technology and population growth. First movers will get a bigger piece of the pie an have long term benefit. This is a bit simplified but should give a picture of how this would benefit Botswana.

You'd be surprised how little a 3U Endurosat bus and a rideshare costs...

Not sure exactly how essential indigenous Earth Observation capabilities are for Botswana, but Botswanan engineers who worked on it and their university would actually be pretty well placed for future collaboration with low cost satellite component manufacturers in South Africa...

It's amazing to see the stark difference when crossing the border from Zimbabwe into Botswana.

24% of the country is malnourished and 4% of children die before their 5th birthday. This feels like misaligned priorities...

https://www.globalhungerindex.org/botswana.html

How are satellite engineers supposed to address malnourished children?

> Botswana is a stable democracy, with a pretty good HDI.

The USA has almost a million homeless people, no practical healthcare system for its population, yet spends humongous amounts on its military industrial complex every year. You can do many things at a time. Technology can actually solve the hunger problem by making their agriculture more efficient. Also these local engineers who worked on this will go on and do great things for their country down the line.

With the current generation of HIV drugs, most of those women should live into their 60s (at least). Also, the latest generation can get HIV virus counts to below testable densities. I expect their HIV issues to be resolved over the next 30-50 years, where the number of new cases will fall dramatically, and almost no one will die from AIDS-related causes.

Botswana is one of the few countries that focused little on revenge politics, and they are a shining example of forgiveness and tolerance (relatively speaking, they do have problems - as does every place on Earth). South Africa was doing well, but sadly Mandela couldn't stay in power forever. Africa isn't the only place where you see it, why we've just witnessed a cousin of that political style come into power in a country that has significantly further to fall. They even started with spending money and bureaucracy on renaming places, which is my personal canary.

Source: Zimbabwean-South African-American

How does a country move out of poverty without engineering and education? If Botswana had a moon program or its own rocket program, I could see the argument, but launching a small sat. Doesn't seem that wrong.

With adherence to the drug regimen the current prognosis is even better than that at 75 years of life expectancy. The problem is adherence to the regimen is hard and lack of adherence means you’re a potential spreader again. That being said I believe Botswana has 90%+ of its hiv positive population on ART drugs.

what is the best use of resources?