Poverty or no poverty, blue sky research is also necessary for an ancient civilization with over 1 billion people. They can't expect to depend on the rest of the world for all their technological needs.
Again the material resources for poverty reduction exists and I don't think those resources required for space exploration don't diminish them.
Financial or monetary allocation isn't quite the same as material resource allocation. In most of the world material resources are deployed by financial resources and the allocation of these is wholly arbitrary. Such as in America where trillions have allocated for the payment of odious and criminal bank debts and war in Afghanistan and Iraq, when health and housing provision is woefully inadequate.
Do homeless people in America have good access to clean water, electricity and antibiotics?
