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India and US to Cooperate in Space Exploration

Posted by Zonk on Sat Feb 02, 2008 08:27 PM
from the friends-offworld-and-on dept.
Space NASA Science
p1234 writes "India and the US plan to cooperate in the exploration and use of outer space. India's first mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, is scheduled to be launched later this year. This is the culmination of long-term planning on both sides of the Atlantic. Apart from India's moon mission, Nair said a probe of Mars by India was very much on the agenda.'Our scientific community would like to see what new things we can find. It is not just for the sake of sending a probe to Mars. Yes, we have an agenda by 2012, by then we should have a Mars mission.'"
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[+] India Plans Moon Mission by 2008 400 comments
LPetrazickis writes "According to the Tribune, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has announced today that India will send a spacecraft to the moon by 2008. The Chandrayaan-I mission will showcase Indian achievements in science and technology to the world. Both European and Canadian Space Agencies have shown interest in the mission. SifyNews reports that 2008 was initially mispronounced as 1908. Today is the 56th anniversary of India's independence." Previous talk about this has come from the Indian space agency; this announcement from the Prime Minister seems to have more weight.
[+] India and NASA to Explore Moon Together 208 comments
hotsauce writes "NASA administrator Griffin on a visit to Indian space facilities in Bangalore has signed an agreement to explore the moon with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This agreement will see NASA instruments on a 2008 Indian moon mission, and further cooperation is being explored. An Indian paper has a different take on the visit. Interesting answer by Griffin on NASA outsourcing to ISRO."
Submission: India and US to cooperate in space exploration by p1234 (1231904)
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  • Cooperation? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Brian Gordon (987471) on Saturday February 02 2008, @08:30PM (#22278186)
    India gets permission to use our moon landing sets in the American desert far from prying eyes :)

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      India gets permission to use our moon landing sets in the American desert far from prying eyes :)
      Yep you know the one, right next to the secret government weather control complex and the Roswell flying saucer testing facility.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Indian version will be a musical.

  • Call centers in space... (Score:5, Funny)

    by owlnation (858981) on Saturday February 02 2008, @08:31PM (#22278198)
    Now we are outsourcing NASA?

    • Re:Call centers in space... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joaz Banbeck (1105839) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:03PM (#22278482)
      No, we are cooperating with the Indians because they are the natural opponents of two of our probable future oppoenents: China and Pakistan. Pakistan is most likely to be the source of an islamic nuclear bomb, and China is on track to become a true superpower to contest the US like Russia did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
      This is Machiavellian geopolitics. Having a friend on the Asian continent will be useful much like having Israel for a friend in the Mid-east.

      • Re:Call centers in space... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) on Saturday February 02 2008, @11:37PM (#22279530)

        Having a friend on the Asian continent will be useful much like having Israel for a friend in the Mid-east.
        Gee, I sure hope not.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by PHPfanboy (841183)
          Yeah, you're right.

          Stick with the Saudi's, they make a good market for your multi-billion dollar defense deals and keep your dollar high. Unfortunately they don't tend to show off the fireworks for your enemies' buddies to covet and last time they publicly demonstrated the capabilities of American industrial technology, you got a few thousand dead civilians in New York and a recession.

          Better luck with poverty-stricken Egypt, Baathist Syria, little poor Jordan, crumbly Lebanon and war-torn Iraq.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Nemilar (173603)
        Pakistan is most likely to be the source of an islamic nuclear bomb,

        They are islamic and they do have a bomb already.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by TheRaven64 (641858)
          Maybe he meant a bomb which works by compressing Muslims until they reach critical mass? Do they then split into a Jew and a polytheist and emit a high-energy atheist (which then collides with another Muslim causing a chain reaction)?

        • Re:Call centers in space... (Score:4, Informative)

          by XchristX (839963) on Sunday February 03 2008, @04:21AM (#22280726)

          Even at the peak of anti-American sentiments after the invasion of Afghanistan, the hard-liner Islamic political parties never got more than 11% of the popular vote.
          The Muttahida Majilis-i-Amal and their Islamic brownshirts, Jamaat-e-Islami, control enough arms, ammunition and al-Qaeda/Hizb-ut-Tahrir/Tablighi-whatever-whatever-glorious-Fidayeen-Lashkar-Hizbul support to stage a nationwide coup very soon. Even 11% supporters is enough for a sufficiently fanatic bunch to gain power by force.

          Most political parties in Pakistan are moderate, and the nukes are buried deep in the military chain of command, which is secular.
          No, large sections of Pakistan army, as well as the ISI (Pakistani secret police) are controlled by generals covertly sympathetic to Islamic fanatics. Pakistan is an Islamist ticking time bomb. Add to that serious grievances raised by Pakistan's Muhajir Urdu and Baluch minorities being discriminated against and systematically marginalized by the Punjabi majority, full blown sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims (the Shilpa-e-Shahaba is not dead), as well as full blown civil war from independence activists in Balochistan and Waziristan (so what really happened to Nawab Akbar Bugti?) , and we have a dangerously volatile situation there. And not everyone has forgotten 1971 Bangladesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_atrocities [wikipedia.org] ).

        • Re:Call centers in space... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by khallow (566160) on Sunday February 03 2008, @06:17AM (#22281182)

          Seriously, I don't think anyone on either side of the Atlantic is considering the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.

          If that is true, then there are a lot of government officials being grossly negligent in their duties. If I were the US president, I'd already have a military strategy for destroying or smuggling out those Pakistani nukes in case their government were replaced with a radical islamic government.

          Even at the peak of anti-American sentiments after the invasion of Afghanistan, the hard-liner Islamic political parties never got more than 11% of the popular vote. Most political parties in Pakistan are moderate, and the nukes are buried deep in the military chain of command, which is secular.

          11% is more than enough. And we don't know how secular the military chain of command will remain. Given what has happened in the past with the Pakistani nulcear program, this isn't something that I'd rely on.

          Pakistan remains firmly in the pocket of the United States. And there's enough inertia from both Pakistan and the United States to make sure that these traditional allies remain that way.

          Pakistan isn't firmly in anyone's pocket. And given how shaky (and illegitimate) their government is right now, you're whistling in the dark.

    • NASA's just planning for when the shuttles wear-out completely and any replacement vehicles have been lost in the cracks.

      Buying rides in India won't be as embarrassing as begging ones in Russia.

      • Re:Call centers in space... (Score:5, Funny)

        by flyingsquid (813711) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:53PM (#22278826)
        "Bangalore, we have a problem..."

        • ...and YES, we already tried rebooting it!

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yet another propagation of the misquoted phrase.. It was never "Houston, we have a problem;" it was:

          Houston, we've had a problem.

          </pedant>

        • Re:GOD DAMNIT (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Tablizer (95088) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:31PM (#22278672) Homepage Journal
          Stop being a racist! You ass hole!

          I think the anti-offshoring sentiment is more an anti-corporation movement than an anti-Indian movement. I've seen in detail how corporate lobbyists manipulate the facts to create a "shortage". The bad guys are really the corporate lobbyists who hype free-trade and bribe politicians with campaign donations. We are not a democracy if lobbyists control politicians to such a degree.
                   
    • They expect their employers to train them, then they expect these huge salaries starting from their first day in outer space.

      NASA really had no choice. Either NASA had to get around the H1-B laws, or hire illegal alian astronuts. And Sigourney Weaver advised against that.
  • Not trying to troll here, but it would seem that India could use our already sizable knowledge of space exploration, and we can use cheap engineers. I wonder if this has anything to do with the general decline in engineering enrollment at US Universities?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tablizer (95088)
      and we can use cheap engineers.

      You must not be a US engineer.
         
      • More to the point, enrollment in engineering and scientific curriculae is not exactly down in the U.S. ... it's enrollment by American citizens that is down. China and India are packing our schools, especially China. What's going to happen once they've sucked us dry of whatever knowledge they feel they need is another story.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Tablizer (95088)
          Studies by the Rand institute and other research organizations have shown there is NO "engineer/sci shortage". Thus, it is a corporate myth that the US is not graduating enough. However, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if offshoring drives down wages in those fields.
             

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Have you ever seen what kind of mathematics is teached in American colleges?

          Math110 has less content than most math classes in the first year of high school in Europe!

          Maybe there are enough US engeeners around, but are they good for anything?

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by maxume (22995)
            Correctin spalling on /./
          • Well, it's true the the primary education system in the U.S. is deficient, but that just means colleges have to provide remedial training.

            Besides, good engineers are the ones that don't depend upon what they learn in school for everything anyways.
        • I guess the answer to your final question depends on whether we let them stay in the country and work for our economy or deny them H1Bs and send them home to set up outsourcing businesses and improve China's economy.

        • Re:mutual benefit? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by MillionthMonkey (240664) on Saturday February 02 2008, @11:59PM (#22279654)
          I have a sweet job at a small biotech startup in Silicon Valley. I was born in Philadelphia and I'm as white as white guys come. So who else works at this company?

          The CEO, the CFO, and one of our principal investors are all from Iran. The CTO, the DBA, and my supervisor are from India. (The CTO is writing a tech book for a well-known publisher; I expect it will be reviewed here in a few months.) The principal database curator, the statistician, and three people on the dev team are Chinese nationals. The product manager is from the former Soviet Union; so is one of the UI devs and our street-smart IT guy. The head of tech support is Indian (OK, technically Canadian); she manages an offshore team of scientists in South America who import data into the system all day. We also just hired two additional Indian employees whom I haven't really met yet.

          And then there are three white guys including me- AFAIK the only U.S. citizens. Maybe a few others are too (I've never really thought about it). Half of the people where I work came from a company that was originally started by another white guy. He lost faith in the future of the United States a few years ago, sold his business to a Fortune 500 corporation here (which promptly mismanaged it into oblivion), and took something like 10 or 20 million dollars back home to Australia.

          I read threads like this one, I watch the news, and I listen to all the bloviating over Iran, over India and China, and it all just seems surreal to me. I wonder what the future holds for this place.

    • Re:mutual benefit? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by protobion (870000) on Saturday February 02 2008, @10:36PM (#22279136) Homepage
      I propose a different perspective. Have any of you actually thought, that all instances of cooperation of the US with China or India may not necessarily involve the other two countries supplying the "cheap labour". If you RTFA, NASA is actually providing 11 instruments to be on board the moon vehicle. No doubt , it will provide its knowledgebase as well. ISRO and NASA have a long history of co-operation.

      Satellites are not launched everyday, moon missions still more infrequently. The usual way to obtain access to space for whatever reasons is often to provide some payload to a party who's going to launch a vehicle anyway. Not too long ago, India launched a military satellite for Israel. What India is providing here, is the excellent satellite launching infrastructure it has due to an active space program. The US space program was always geared towards manned-missions.

      Let me end this rant by saying that developments in all fields do not have to reflect the trends in IT (where India does provide a cheap back-office). It's time people got off the idea that the US always provides the money, the knowledge, while other countries are sources of cheap brainless workers. Appreciate the achievements of others.

  • If India buys some technology and know how from USA, it will help reduce the trade deficit USA has with India. But if NASA sells some of the technology to India, where will it set up the tech support center?

  • This is geopolitics 101 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miletus (552448) on Saturday February 02 2008, @08:45PM (#22278330)
    Like the previous deals on nuclear power, this is an attempt to bribe India away from getting too friendly with China and Iran, and buying U.S. arms instead of Russian. Science has nothing to do with it.
    • Something which makes the US a nicer partner for India is that English is a fairly widely understood language in India, whereas neither Russian nor Mandarin are. Beats me how much of a factor that would be, though.

    • Re:This is geopolitics 101 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by evilviper (135110) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:53PM (#22278814) Journal

      Like the previous deals on nuclear power, this is an attempt to bribe India away from getting too friendly with China and Iran, and buying U.S. arms instead of Russian.

      China and India are likely to be very serious rivals, rather than friends. Both have huge populations, and are developing countries trying to break into high-tech. Being right next to each hurts rather than helps.

      Iran seems an extremely unlikely partner as well. India is an open democracy, with a far freer society, and are not predominately Muslim. I also don't see much that Iran could offer India to begin with, as India is technologically much further along.

      Russia... Maybe... Though India has much stronger economic ties with the English speaking western world than it does with Russia. Are Indian car makers trying to buy the Range Rover and Jaguar brands so that they can sell such branded vehicles to Russia? China? Iran? Not likely.

      • Re:This is geopolitics 101 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by XchristX (839963) on Saturday February 02 2008, @10:15PM (#22278974)

        Iran seems an extremely unlikely partner as well. India is an open democracy, with a far freer society, and are not predominately Muslim. I also don't see much that Iran could offer India to begin with, as India is technologically much further along.

        India's greatest strength over Iran is it's liberal education, particularly in colleges and universities. That is why the technocrat generation in India is much larger and better trained than the ones in Iran.
        Interestingly, a lot of Iranian students are now interested in pursuing higher education in India, particularly after Ahmadinejad expelled liberal professors from Iranian Universities, and Iranians have a harder time getting into western universities because of political problems. I spent a summer in the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India and there were several Iranian students with very progressive and liberal outlook , unlike the Ayatollahs (they got me hooked on Dariush Mehrjui http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/iranian_cinema_2595.jsp [opendemocracy.net] films) who were all cursing the Islamic theocracy in Iran.

      • Re:This is geopolitics 101 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by miletus (552448) on Saturday February 02 2008, @11:00PM (#22279290)
        Iran has gas, India needs gas, and there was a pipeline deal from Iran to India through Pakistan, which pretty muched got nixed because of U.S. pressure.

        Russia has historically strong ties with India and still sells it a lot of weaponry. With the rise of a the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an emerging military alliance between Russia, China, various Central Asian countries, and now Iran, India has to choose whether to ally with her neighbors or the U.S. The stakes are pretty high geopolitically.

    • China? (Score:3, Informative)

      by donutello (88309)
      If you're going to title your post geopolitics 101 you should know that there is no danger of India getting too chummy with China. The two countries have several issues including a long-standing border dispute. India is not going to get chummy with China anytime soon. It's more likely the US wants to build India up to be a stronger foil to China in the region.
      • I don't think Iran's in any position to bribe India at the moment.
            • Oil is a fungible resource. If Iran won't sell to them, someone else will.

              How dare you accuse other countries of infecting our oil with mold!
                 

  • Jokes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Teun (17872) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:07PM (#22278512) Homepage
    I see several jokes about cheap engineers or bad education, the scariest example of the latter is probably the statement in the summary about 'both sides of the Atlantic'.
    It really makes me wonder where India borders the Atlantic...

    A likely indication the summary was done with some US-style geography classes :)
    • 'both sides of the Atlantic'. It really makes me wonder where India borders the Atlantic...

      The borders have been offshored too.
         
    • Thought that part was probably more likely written by an american than an indian.

      • If you start in Utah and move east long enough (including crossing the Atlantic) you eventually end up in Nevada. Therefore, Nevada and Utah are on opposite sides of the Atlantic, even though they border each other.

        -:sigma.SB

  • Sharing of knowledge will help US and India (Score:4, Informative)

    by mohanbabu (1097817) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:13PM (#22278566) Homepage

    This is a great opportunity for both countries to share the best scientists on both sides. This mission http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/about_chandrayaan.htm [isro.org] is very critical and challenging for Indian scientists. They need every help they can get to pull this. In the past, when US denied supercomputing facilities, Indian went and reinvented the wheel http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2906865.stm [bbc.co.uk] (although the effort was worth it).With relations improving between two countries, it will be foolish and immature not to accomplish.

    This effort will NOT face any opposition like the Nuclear deal. The nuclear deal went down the drain because the stupid "left" politicians played the "Indian congress government is surrendering to US" card. They also threatened to withdraw their support which would have collapsed the Congress ruling party http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/wm1688.cfm [heritage.org]. This time, they will make sure this deal is made and take the bragging rights for landing India on the moon. Yes, the Indian politics is screwed up. But they are not fools to let this deal go away.

    • Yes, the Indian politics is screwed up.

      Of Indian politics I know nothing, but if they're more screwed up than ours I'd be very impressed.

  • comments here remind me of blue collar miners (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sunilarjun (1232258) on Sunday February 03 2008, @12:40AM (#22279864)
    Sad to see the types of comments posted here---remuind me of blue collar miners etc...who would talk of "college educated" guys in the same way---because they were scared their way of living is being disrupted. If you're getting your butt kicked by India and China, learn to innovate---that's what America stands for---I don't hear Bill Gates or Steve Jobs whining like the pathetic folks here.

    • Re:Wrong country to learn from (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScrewMaster (602015) on Saturday February 02 2008, @09:49PM (#22278786)
      who gives a shit when we can waste billions on exploring space?

      Do you have any idea what you talking about, what the value of near-Earth space efforts have been? Billions upon billions in economic returns (hell, weather monitoring alone is worth the price of admission.) Space research is hardly wasted. Could all of us do better at managing our world? Sure. But shutting down space programs isn't the way to do that.

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