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Comments: 278 +-   Indian Moon Mission to Have Landing Component on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:02AM

Posted by michael on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:02AM
from the cosmic-curry dept.
space
Anil Kandangath writes "Last month, it was announced that the Indian moon mission Chandrayan I would have a component that would land on the moon to function as an impactor. For all those who complain about India spending big bucks on its space program, The Scientific Indian has a list of updates about the space program's plans for this year which includes two cartography satellites, a satellite based 'total disaster management system', a few communication satellites and a satellite launch for the European Union."
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  • Lies... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Allow me to translate:

    [...] which includes two spy satellites, a satellite based 'total spy management system', a few spy satellites and a spy satellite launch for the European Union."
  • by MrAsstastic (851637) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:11AM (#11518925)
    Hellooooo, the U.S. never landed on the moon. I strongly doubt India will ever have any success either.
  • Competition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nnnneedles (216864) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:12AM (#11518927)
    Why is EU paying india to do it when they could use the Arianne rockets in france and keep the money at home..

    • Re:Competition (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ciroknight (601098) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:25AM (#11518963)
      I think that ever since things have been sour between India and the European Union (specifically, UK), that now is the time for the two to make up and be friends again. Since India is one of the largest population groups on earth, it would do the European Union loads of good to have such a powerful ally on their hands. Plus, the Industrialization of India is far behind in some places, and this gives the chance for companies from the EU to come in, buy land, start producing things, and shipping them to the rest of the world. Kinda like the old colonization, but I think this time the European Union has good intentions on getting them back on their good side.

      Allies are a powerful weapon, even in peace time, and I think one thing that we need to remember is in order for their to be a lasting peace between us all, we need to all work together.
      • Huh? In what sense are things sour between India and the EU? The UK in particular has a good relationship with India and always has done despite a rocky patch after Independence.


        And if you think India is under-industrialised and that this is an opportunity for the EU to buy cheap. India has far more wealth than you realise.

      • Re:Competition (Score:5, Interesting)

        by meringuoid (568297) on Sunday January 30 2005, @08:09AM (#11519294)
        things have been sour between India and the European Union (specifically, UK)

        Not for a long time... India and the UK had a bit of a rocky divorce, true, especially with the whole partition thing, but they've got on very well since then. Have you seen how many fighter jets the Indians buy from the UK? And how many vindaloos the English devour?

        ESA is separate from Arianespace, so European missions fly on rockets of all nations. Mars Express was launched on a Russian rocket, Huygens piggybacked on an American probe... A lot of European satellites do fly on Ariane rockets, Ariane being a very cost-effective option, but there's no exclusive contract going on.

        You're probably right that the EU and India might be interested in closer cooperation, though... India wants to become rich, and an increase of trade with the EU would certainly help; meanwhile, the EU is already enormously rich, but doesn't have the global influence to go with it in the way the USA does. Alliance between Europe and India would certainly help both.

    • Re:Competition (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can't use Ariane rockets in France. No Ariane was ever launched in France ;)

      All Ariane rockets are launched in French Guyana, a french DOM (departement d'outre-mer, overseas district) on the coast of South America.
    • maybe they're overbooked.

      or it's just simply cheaper to use the indians for that particular launch. or it's a co-operative operation(indians footing part of the bill). or maybe just whatever.
  • by mikeophile (647318) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:16AM (#11518939)
    Even a failed mission can function as an impactor.
  • by millwall (622730) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:23AM (#11518960)
    I'm sure this is just the first step to outsource NASA to India.
    • And I'm sure you're gonna be modded up for saying something as silly as this. Never underestimate a good conspiracy theory to get karma here...

      NASA won't "outsource" anything, they'll partner with India perhaps, like they partnered with Russia to have access to Baikonur. That means the US would have access to more space facilities at comparatively little extra cost, and on the political scale, India would become a closer US ally.

      But does it mean people in Houston or Cape Canaveral would get sacked because
  • Problems (Score:4, Funny)

    by wertarbyte (811674) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:38AM (#11518990) Homepage
    "Bangalore, we have a problem..." - "Please describe your problem." - "We are leaking oxygen" - "Try restarting your landing computer" (Yes, I know this mission is not manned)
  • by AussieBastard (587090) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:48AM (#11519009)
    "How accurately the impactor will land could be a technological trial for future soft landings"
    In other words, the space equivalent of "thank you, come again"?
  • First it was the 2Mbit/s for $2.30USD now its the Moon landing Mission
  • This article [indianexpress.com] talks about plans to introduce telemedicine through satlellites. This move , if successful could have far-reaching effects in India , especially since even basic healthcare facilities are out of reach for many in rural India. What is also commendable is that organisations using this for social good would not be charged for the service
  • by anand78 (832850) on Sunday January 30 2005, @07:18AM (#11519190)
    Wait a second, this is 101% wrong. India does spend money on poor. But as you know for spending money you need to generate it first. And no indian satellite program is used for "educational" purposes unlike western countries.
    Now coming to Western countries, well in the name of free trade agreement all the western countries have done is to ensure that the latest technologies are so costly that developing countries are forced not to use it. The whole Drug patent thing that India had to subscribe to made our generic drugs costlier than what a person would earn in a whole months of work.
    In terms of technology transfers it is pathetic even mundane things like a microwave oven is a thing of luxury for many Indians.
    Talk about environment we have all the players like Mercedes, Chevvy, Hyundai, Toyota none of the companies give clean cars to India. If they do its cost is equal to 20 years of a common mans salary.
    Moral of the story If the western counrtries dont help us we help ourselves.
  • EUA has giving more attention to Brazil on the Satellite Vehicle Launching [iae.cta.br], because the base of Alcântara [spaceimaging.com] is so near the Equator line reducing the use of gas [globo.com] to launch the roquets.
  • ...to the oft heard comment, "Jeezus, where is your call center - on the MOON?!"
  • Once India has its space program up and running, we can outsource NASA to India. That'll save us a fortune! I'm sure those rocket scientists will be able to get work at their local Wal-Marts.

  • Indian priorities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by afarhan (199140) <farhan@ph o n e s t a c k . c om> on Sunday January 30 2005, @08:39AM (#11519420)
    I have had enough of crap about India.

    It is time you all woke up to and figured out that USA is as bad as any other country.

    We may have more illiterates than any other country in the world, but you forget that India also has the largest number of engineers. More Indians can speak English than there are people in the entire USA. Think about that.

    We are not poor due to our stupidity. We are poor by design. Just a 100 years ago, we were the richest nation on earth. Then we were split up into two countries and made to go at each other's throat. The Indo-Pak cold war has cost us an entire civilization.

    Our political system is bankrupt. Most politicians are plain goons. But we also have the vision to elect a woman to rule us. Every second President of India is from the minorities. How many black presidents, how many women presidents has USA had? How about a Jew for the Prez?

    I find it very surprising that most of the posts talk about Indian Poverty. It certainly points to the assumption that money according to American values is what defines a person. That is simply not a simple truth for many places in the world.

    • It is time you all woke up to and figured out that USA is as bad as any other country.

      Of course it is. Every country works in its best interest.

      We may have more illiterates than any other country in the world, but you forget that India also has the largest number of engineers. More Indians can speak English than there are people in the entire USA. Think about that.

      That's not a very big feat when you consider that India breeds out of control and has the 2nd largest population on Earth. It is nobody els
    • by Alomex (148003) on Sunday January 30 2005, @11:58AM (#11520610) Homepage
      We are not poor due to our stupidity.

      Of course, it is always someone else's fault: the jews, the immigrants, the bourgeois class, those cheap Indian laborers stealing our jobs, those prison camp Chinese working for free, the great satan, the Turks, the yankees.

      Oneself is always blameless, after all what control do we have over our own life and country?
  • Kudos India !!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gelfling (6534) on Sunday January 30 2005, @10:50AM (#11520108) Homepage Journal
    It's great news that India is developing the next stage of their space program beyond simple payload to orbit missions. Soon Iran, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea will cut the legs out of that sector of the business so NASA, the ESA, Japan, India and Russia will have to find new venues for their space programs. Scientific missions to the moon as proof of concept programs for new technology are a great first step.
    • How about putting the big bucks to help your own people?

      Plenty of people in the US have no job, no home and no health insurance. One could use a similar argument to advocate shutting down NASA until all US citizens reach a decent standard of living.

      Personally I think space exploration is a worthy cause for mankind and see no wrong in diverting a reasonable level of funding toward it.

      • Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)

        by talaphid (702911) on Sunday January 30 2005, @05:51AM (#11519015) Journal
        Bleh. Why do people always argue the "big picture" concept against the allegedly "small picture" argument? It'll never get traction - it isn't ignorance stopping people from agreeing with you, it's indifference. How tangible is the notion of a "better" society? Bleh.

        No, the argument is people starving and money spent on a space program being wasteful so address it as such. A NASA engineer requires a lot of expertise, and is employed, therefore the Indian equivelent very likely requires a lot of expertise and is employed. Said expertise requires higher education - you've just employed a professor or five. Said expert's income can go towards housing and food - you've just employed a carpenter and a farmer... yes. Noone is going to eat a space module, but the persons responsible for mining the materials to construct it are, as are the people who constructed it, support it...

        Great Depression in the US was at an impasse because economic thinking before then was the immature cognitive process that produces the fallacy of immediate needs spending. Sometimes you gotta borrow money to make money ("You gotta spend money to make money." well if you've got no money...) - and on the scale of an economy, borrowing money is national jobs no matter how "crazy" - artists on government payroll, eccet.
        • Re:Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)

          by eraserewind (446891) on Sunday January 30 2005, @09:40AM (#11519701)
          A NASA engineer requires a lot of expertise, and is employed, therefore the Indian equivelent very likely requires a lot of expertise and is employed. Said expertise requires higher education - you've just employed a professor or five. Said expert's income can go towards housing and food - you've just employed a carpenter and a farmer... yes. Noone is going to eat a space module, but the persons responsible for mining the materials to construct it are, as are the people who constructed it, support it...
          I'm sorry, regardless of whether the Indian Space project is a good idea, your argument is no good. Everything you have said could equally be applied to building enormous statues of elephants (white ones perhaps). If you pump enough money into anything it will of course create a local support economy, but ultimately if it lacks a tangible return on investment, it will bankrupt you in the long run.

          Whatever national benefits an Indian space program are going to generate they are not going to come from the simple fact of pumping in money to the program. They might come form increased national pride, or from increased technical or manufacturing skills that others are willing to buy, or breakthroughs in research that are valuable in the real world, and so on. However there is a perfectly valid case to be made that expertise and those resources ought to be applied in more sensible areas of the economy.
      • india has much much larger problems in those reguards then the USA.
        how about BASIC emenities and such as clean drinking water and waste treament. you can't use the arguemen t that the space project generates jobs either, because building waste treatment plants does the same job and benifits the whole community.
        but then again india has nuclear weapons to, so their government clearly rates it's peoples needs a distance 6th or 7th on it's list...
      • by Evil Pete (73279) on Sunday January 30 2005, @06:49AM (#11519140) Homepage

        Not sure if you pose this as a straw man or not. But if NASA was closed down etc ,,, it would make NO difference. I don't know why people persist with this delusional thinking. That is not the way the world works, if you close down NASA the money will not go to social programs, and even if it did they would almost certainly be poorly thought out and be effectively useless. One could argue that these claims of mine are just supposition, but if you look at the last 50 years you see that it is pretty much the typical outcome. BTW, remember at the end of the Cold War and all the talk of the Peace Dividend? So were the 90s a golden age? Was world poverty cured? Q.E.D.

      • by Aldric (642394) on Sunday January 30 2005, @06:52AM (#11519147)
        The real reason people from the US complain about this is that Americans think they own space.
      • Re:Wrong priorities (Score:5, Informative)

        by superyooser (100462) on Sunday January 30 2005, @07:04AM (#11519169) Homepage Journal
        I cannot believe you are comparing the richest country in the world to one of the poorest countries in the world.

        Unemployment in the U.S. holds at a steady 5% (give or take), which is far better than even in the EU. In India, by contrast about 300 million people, or 29% of the population, live on less than a dollar a day. (Note that the entire U.S. population is about 280 million.) These are the people who do have jobs. The government was able to count 40 million workers who cannot find jobs at all. While this makes for an impressive 3.8% unemployment rate, as mentioned above, many jobs pay very poorly. The conditions are so bad that as many as 3,000 Indian farmers in a single state (Andhra Pradesh) have killed themselves over the last six years because of debt and drought.

        This is not to say that India should not be building a space program. Indian universities produce more than 1.5 million graduates each year. There are nowhere near enough jobs to employ all these people entering the workforce. India's tech industry employs only 1 million people total. Industry and grand capitalistic vision will help to produce jobs.

        Capitalism is not a zero sum game. India's "pie" is increasing rapidly and will continue to get bigger. Its economy is forecast to grow 8 percent this year. India is already home to thousands of millionaires and nine of the world's richest billionaires. By the way, another name for rich people is "employers." That's good news for the lower classes.

        The sad reality is that there is no quick fix to India's massive poverty, space program or not. India has more people in poverty (we're talking literally dirt poor) than any other country. It's been that way a long time, and it's not going to get better by scrapping a space mission.

        If priorities are your concern, consider this: Indian teenagers spend $3 billion a year on fashion accessories. And you've heard of Bollywood, which churns out twice as many movies per year as Hollywood. But then again, if Indians were to restrain spending on fashion accessories and movies, those industries would shrink, and many Indians would lose their jobs. Consumerism is the engine of wealth.

        There are many things hindering India's progress. The people speak hundreds of languages; religions and customs also vary wildly by region. It is like several countries within a country. Its population of 1.07 billion is both a blessing and a curse; it is a reservoir of great potential, but right now, it is dragging the country down because most are uneducated (or undereducated) and poor.

        Source: "India Surprises [tconline.org]," The Commission, November 2004, pp. 30-35. (printed magazine article contains more information)

        • In India, by contrast about 300 million people, or 29% of the population, live on less than a dollar a day

          This kind of thing is often said, but I have a (genuine) quesiton about it? Aren't a lot of those people farmers, and don't a lot of those people have access to at least some farmable land? The value of the land alone would put their actual budget much higher, at least if we are fairly comparing it to western society, which I presume you are, since you quote their budget in dollar terms.

          Note, I'm not t

        • Man this rock around the ball of fire has gone to crap, invasions that make the Vicotrian era look like a bad 1980's video game. I am looking for the next Stargate out of here, what do you mean transport to Tatooine, I am looking for a wormhole, bet you that I will beat you to a Tatooine ( if there is one ) :) PS Star Wars is not real. but on the over all congrats to India and space exploration and landing on the moon. Maybe this will be a big step in moving sane/peaceful of this rock around the ball of
    • It's an interesting predicament: one of the things that makes America, America is the value we put on human life. For example, today, bridge building is so safe that to have a single life lost is considered hugely threatening to a project, and a huge tragety overall. Nary a hundred years ago, building a bridge could easily lose a hundred lives, and it would be considered "Average" or even "Expected".

      India is a country of billions of people, it's mostly pre-industrial, and can "afford" to expend lives o
      • on *american* life(life that has not been deemed a criminal).

        building the america wasn't that pretty(not that building any nation was..).

        statistics go a long way in showing the respect for human life... but pr doesn't have that much value in india as it does in usa where pr is everything and as such even a little tragedy can haunt projects if they make it to the social-porno news.

        havent lost a single life...? don't _going_ up there and coming down count? one of the reasons why usa took leaps in the moo
        • * Joint Project.
          * History of bad blood.

          When two people who have bad history's get together and agree to work on a project, it's embracing unity, even if it's on a very small level. Once we can overcome the past, the future is no longer such a hurdle.
        • Sorry to reply twice, but I felt the need to add something right as I hit submit; Think about the United States and Russia. We may be totally independent in space programs, but without each other, we are nowhere. Now we are very reliant on them in order to work with our astronauts on ISS, until the Shuttle fleet is back running. In our recent past, we haven't had a lot of trust of the Russians, but now, working together with them with to get to our people in space has really brought us together. More people
          • Maybe, or maybe the EU was the cheapest bidder for the 270,000 parts that made the vehicle. Let me tell you one thing,

            No EU country gives announce of pity/history/love/loyalty/or your momma's fried chicken to India. Maybe India is a 'pre-Industralized' nation so what. And ciroknight I think you got it wrong, I don't think the EU is trying to make it up to them. if they are they are saying, "Hey you Brits, remember India well looks like we got Ikea ( I don't think there are any in India) and we got there s

            • And India is not about wasting lives, there are far few executions in India than maybe the _state_of_Texas
              This is because The State Of Texas actually captures and tries criminals. This is a rarity in India.
          • The biggest risk of human life in the whole project is the development of the platform, which, from the sounds of it is pretty complete. We may never know how many lives were lost developing the hardware (mining the iron, making it steel, refining the chemicals used for propellants/oxidants, etc), but I can guarentee the process wasn't without its share of lost lives. Even our space program has lost its fair share of lives in development of the platform, and from failed launches/recoveries.

            The moot point
    • "How about putting the big bucks to help your own people?"

      How about looking ahead a few years?
      • Most of these people (the Grand Parent) dont seem to realise that Space rockets arent made from gold and loaded with bundles of cash that make up the projects budget. The money actually goes to the populous. Yeah, OK maybe not all of it, but it sure helps some of it.

        If India had spent the last 50 years spending all its budget on eliminating 'poor' or poverty from the populous by giving money to these people, it would still be doing it today, and it would STILL be exactly where it was 50 years ago. You
    • the USA sent men to the moon in the middle of one of the most tumultuous decades in our nation's history.
    • How about putting the big bucks to help your own people?
      I'm sure India can afford to do both thanks to all the money they've made from companies who have outsourced to India.
    • by Colonel Cholling (715787) on Sunday January 30 2005, @08:50AM (#11519455)
      Wow! All this concern for the welfare of the poor starving Indians on Slashdot! And yet, when an Indian programmer gets an outsourced tech job, supposedly "stealing" it from a good ol' American programmer who is thereby forced to live a slightly less affluent lifestyle, he's pure evil.
      • by Chris Burke (6130) on Sunday January 30 2005, @11:27AM (#11520359) Homepage
        And yet, when an Indian programmer gets an outsourced tech job, supposedly "stealing" it from a good ol' American programmer who is thereby forced to live a slightly less affluent lifestyle, he's pure evil.

        No, it is the executive who pockets the difference in salaries who is pure evil. The American gets to live the "slightly less affluent lifestyle" of being unemployed, an Indian gets a well paying for India but not so great paying for here job, and some person who is already wealthy beyond either employee's dreams gets another million dollar bonus for saving the company money.

        My problem with outsourcing has nothing to do with Indians getting tech jobs. My problem with outsourcing is that it is just another way for money to be siphoned away from the lower classes into the hands of the extremely rich.

        Concentration of wealth is what is hurting us, not offshoring. Offshoring is just the symptom of a system that we know is killing us but we can't seem to do anything about. Getting mad at the cheaper labour that replaces us is just misplaced anger.

      • I couldn't let this flamebait ride....

        he United States is not this big evil nation out to do everyone in and make itself godly. real people live there too, the same as you, they bleed, they work hard, they live life. we're just a nation working as a nation with a government that is working as it is, albeit not always as well as everyone hopes, but it still is the government we americans choose to use. if you truly believe that what a some people in a government, a very tiny percentage of a population, for

    • Who cares!!! We had PEOPLE on the moon 35 years ago!
      Yeah, and after a handful of missions you shut up shop and never went back because you were too busy arming yourselves to the teeth. I don't see your lot making much progress in getting back to the moon.
Nihilism should commence with oneself.