> Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India

This does not take into account what the money would have done otherwise. Since we can not know what the money otherwise would have been spent on its hard or impossilble to say it it is better for india.

> A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domestic scientists and engineers in India.

The money would alternativly also have been spent on thing bought in india, also gone into the pockets of shops and other things. This money would also have been taxed, just the same as it is now.

You are completly ignoring the counterfactual, you only look at the things that did happen, and not at the things that did not happen because of this.

So its not a win win win. It might be a win win lost. Or maybe a win lost lost. Again, im not against spending on space programmes, but your economic analysis is completly flawed. People who want taxes to build sport statums make much the same case and also ignore the counterfactual.

The spending of taxes should be done on the merits of the direct effects you want to achive and not some nebulus things that money will do later.