Indian Rocket Blasts into Space

Quacking Duck writes "Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched it's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) rocket from the Srikharikota launch-pad. The rocket carried 4 satellites into space, 2 Indian and one each from Argentina and Indonesia. Interestingly, one of ISRO's payloads, Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), expected to return to Earth 13 days after launch, will be the first test of its re-entry mechanism. This is a step towards ISRO's ambitious goal of designing and building a cheap reusable launch vehicle. ISRO is also planning a manned mission to the moon, Chandrayan-1, which is expected to use a modified PSLV rocket which was used for this launch. This successful launch comes close on the heels of the failed July 2006 GSLV lauch which had ended in an expensive fireworks display over the Bay of Bengal. Another GSLV launch is planned for later this year."

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[somersault]

Do you only think of other countries as threats or something? What have India, China or Pakistan ever done to you apart from invent awesome food and provide cheap labour due to their developing economies?

Though I do think they'll be dropping nukes faster than anyone can say Srikharikota. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue!

Space Race 2.0?

[Virtual_Raider]

I wonder if this would spur the USA and Russia to speed up their space programs. I'm not sure about Russia anymore but at least the US has stated that they want to go back to the moon and put some dude up in Mars sometime on this half of the century if memory serves.

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[freakxx]

well, let me tell you some facts why India or china haven't done anything substantial if u r comparing with USA. India or China were under the colonies until around 60 years ago and during those time, they were not able to produce even a nail by their own because they were not allowed to. After that, freedom came (thanks to Mahatma Gandhi for his excellent non-violent leadership against the Britons and also thanks to Japanese and Germans for initiating the WW2), these countries started everything of their own from very scratch and after a course of 60 years, India and China both are doing exceptionally well and will continue to do to in future as well. Look at China, they sent their guy to space without any help from outside (and USA has regretted of their decision not to include China in their International Space Station project). Very soon, China will be standing in front of USA in every aspect, including space technology. Time has come that few people like you should wake up. Similar to China, India is also doing too good. Indians have proved themselves that they have capabilities. They are launching their satellites by their own rockets with exceptional success rate. The failure of GSLV (to put the satellites in Geo-Synchronous orbit, 36000Km away from the Earth) six months ago also didn't go in vain. They learned many things from that failure and have pin-pointed what went wrong and you will see a successful GSLV launch by mid of this year. You talked about nukes....the devices what India detonated in 1998 (includes two thermo-nuclear devices) was developed completely by their own (after the 1st nuke test in 1974, India was put under sanctions forbidding any help on nuclear issue). India is also planning to launch their first unmanned moon mission until 2005 and manned mission until 2020. Again, I would like to remind that this is only after 60 years of independence. Can you remember what USA were doing after their 60 years?!! They were searching gold in California and killing each-other on the issue of racism and slavery. India and China are in much better position. As far as dropping nukes are concerned, India has already a policy of not-first-nuclear-attack. Also, history says who used first nuclear bomb....it's USA killing thousands of innocent people in Japan. You should be ashamed of suggesting others on nuclear things. Others are not going to be as arrogant and barbarous as USA were. One free suggestion at last....think a bit before speaking anything!!

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[somersault]

Actually I didn't first suggest nukes, I was replying to someone else. I also am not racist, I don't think that Indians or Chinese people are dumb, in fact all (well.. most :p ) humans have capacity for intelligence, and India and China really have people who are motivated, and also just plain a LOT of people, which helps to boost their productivity.

Note that India and China wouldn't have had rockets at the same time America was just growing, even if they had been free. That's entirely to do with how much knowledge and technology humanity as a whole has developed. Especially since the advent of the internet, anyone can build a nuclear reactor or send a rocket into space if they really wanted to (well, obviously only if they have access to the required resources and funding as well as the information on how to build a rocket, etc). In a day when kids are building nuclear reactors in their back yard, I'm not too surprised to hear that India and China are sending rockets into space! Not to say that it isn't quite an achievement in-and-of itself, even if it means diddly-squat to me. Congratulations India :)

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[tomalpha]

Space exploration is often cited as providing a country a tangible goal. Something to aim for, boost national pride, focus industry, provide technological spinoffs (whether product - Teflon etc.) or industrial capacity, and provide a sneaky way of subsidy through government contract. You can well imagine that India, looking to the US (and even some extent the USSR's program) would want in on that.

Of course, this leaves out the fact that any country that wants to launch satellites into orbit - whether for commercial, military or espionage reasons is at the mercy of the few nations with launch capability, both in terms of cost and possible political veto.

I, for one, can well understand why any nation might want a space program. (See the recent muttering about the UK's fairly timid [guardian.co.uk] approach to this.

Where the money is...

[Savage-Rabbit]

I'm not sure about Russia anymore but at least the US has stated that they want to go back to the moon and put some dude up in Mars sometime on this half of the century if memory serves.

Russia is and will remain competitive where it really counts (at the moment at least) which is the business of getting big loads into orbit as cheaply and reliably as possible. That's where the money is at the moment. Just because Russia can't afford to indulge in high profile prestige projects doesn't mean they aren't advancing their space program. Doing well with cargo rockets may not be glamorous but it is valuable work. The Mir space station for example was less glamorous than the American Moon missions but the research work done on Mir concerning for example the effects that spending long periods of time in weightlessness has on the human body was no less valuable. In the long term Russia will probably benefit more from pouring the majority of it's resources into it's commercial cargo-rocket operations than India, China and the USA will benefit from diverting their space program resources into sending more manned missions to the moon or being the first to have one of their citizens leave a footprint on the surface of Mars.

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[freakxx]

Especially since the advent of the internet, anyone can build a nuclear reactor or send a rocket into space if they really wanted to (well, obviously only if they have access to the required resources and funding as well as the information on how to build a rocket, etc). In a day when kids are building nuclear reactors in their back yard, I'm not too surprised to hear that India and China are sending rockets into space!

well, if u r talking about firecrackers and those stupid Gilbert U-238 toys [strangefunkidz.com], u r correct....but not otherwise, otherwise Osama Bin Laden would have used some nuke rather than air-planes to strike the twin-tower. It is same as you know every thing how to make, say, a petrol engine from book....but when u start putting things together to achieve a real engine, u need to have a lot of expertise and book-knowledge simply doesn't help beyond an extent. Same thing with weapon grade uranium...even a kid knows that U235 can be obtained after processing U238 in centrifuges but how many countries are able to get U235....I would say, very few!

Don't forget to use capital letters when congratulating India next time on the occasion of successful launch of GSLV scheduled after 6-7 months ;)

Re:About time

[khakipuce]

Why is everyone having a dig at the Indians over telemarketing and Call Centres? The Indians are only providing the service that is paid for by Western companies, in other words we only have ourselves to blame.

People were patronising and cynical about Japanese attempts to industrialise and develop technologies in the 1950's and 60's, say no more ...

Re:A great example for the world

[SpooForBrains]

"I wish more countries would do this, even though it would result in the US ultimately having less influence in the world"

"even though"? I think the less influence the US has over the world the better off we'll all be. That goes for the UK, by the way, IMO.

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[SpooForBrains]

I'm sorry, I have to take issue with some of this. Firstly, India did not start everything from scratch after the British left. Anyone who has attempted to negotiate the beaurocracy (for example negotiating the release of a container from customs or getting a telephone line installed) can see the shadows of the British establishment that were left behind. The entire Indian system of Government is a very close mirror of the British system - the dual house system for starters.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean to belittle the accomplishments of the Indian people since Independence, far from it, but to impy that they threw everything away and started again from scratch is just nonsense, and devalues the efforts of all the political leaders who worked so hard to make sure a country so large and chaotic CAN be effectively governed.

And as for "Others are not going to be as arrogant and barbarous as USA were" are you intending to gloss over the recent period of BJP-dominated politics which was, in my opinion, one of the darkest moments of Indian political history and saw aggression against Pakistan increase SIGNIFICANTLY? Fortunately, unlike the USA, the voting public in your country realised their mistake and voted them the hell out. By the way, that very creative piece of political manouvering by Congress/Sonia Gandhi and associates was quite a joy to watch.

Re:Another Former British Colony

[aquatone282]

Nothing against Britannia, but I am not happy with the modern world and I am sure many would concur with me on this.

Good - you shouldn't be. There's always room for improvement. What are you doing to improve Mankind's lot?

The world of today is a much better place to live than the world of 400, 100, or even 10 years ago. I don't know how old you are, but in my 44 years I've seen a considerable amount of progress in all areas of human endeavor. It's the optimists who moved us forward, and it's the optimists that will keep us moving forward.

Are you an optimist? I am.

Re:Come on people!

[BigGerman]

Every nation on earth does not WANT to start nuclear war. Every nation on earth wants to be ABLE to start nuclear war. Nuclear deterrence is one of the very few basic things that are proven to work in the international relationships. If Saddam actually had operational nukes he would still be in power. That is why Iran wants them so badly and NK exploded the first thing they could. Just basic logic. Sometimes in the future we will actually cooperate, but for now, just respect your neighbour with a big stick.

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[The Cydonian]

The mods seem to think yours was an attempt at levity, but I'll give you a serious response.

kuttaa in Hindi certainly means 'dog'. That's 'ku' as in "Kumar" as in "Kumar's at No 42", that rather popular British sitcom with British-Indian characters. The 't' here is a soft 'th', as in 'thalidomine'. Additionally, it is actually a conjunct-consonant; meaning, two 'th's combine together to form an extended 'thth' sound. Finally, the vowel at the end is a long 'a', and is pronounced as in 'fake', thus forming the word, 'kuttaa'.

The word kooTa, on the other hand, comes from a completely different language altogether. It is from Telugu, the predominant tongue in the region around the launch site. To a native South/South East Asian speaker, 'kuttaa' and 'kooTa' are quite distinct, not just for the first vowel-sound ('u' versus an elongated 'oo'), but also for the second consonant ('th' versus a hard 'T', as in 'Tango') and for the second vowel-sound (an elongated 'aa' versus a shorter 'a').

Greetings from your friendly vyákaraNa nazi. :-)

Re:Re-entry capsule = ICBM

[asliarun]

"Firstly, India did not start everything from scratch after the British left. Anyone who has attempted to negotiate the beaurocracy (for example negotiating the release of a container from customs or getting a telephone line installed) can see the shadows of the British establishment that were left behind."

Yes, but bureaucracy is not exactly progress, is it? The real and meaningful progress that India has made has been in the last 10 odd years, after the economy was opened up and a lot of government controlled industries were privatized. Since then, India's economy has been growing by 8-10%. Before this, India was placidly chugging along at a 3-4% growth rate (and they called it the Hindu growth rate) which was taking the country nowhere. The only reason why China is way ahead of India today is that they had the foresight to liberalize and open up their economy a few decades before India has done.

"are you intending to gloss over the recent period of BJP-dominated politics which was, in my opinion, one of the darkest moments of Indian political history and saw aggression against Pakistan increase SIGNIFICANTLY?"

You're correct in the fact that the Gujrat riots were a blot on the country and more so on the party. However, "aggression against Pakistan" should be reworded "firm against Pakistan". Pakistan sends and funds hardcore terrorists, and their intelligence wing, the dreaded ISI (along with their armed forces) completely work hand in hand with the Al Qaeda. They train thousands of terrorists along the border areas and these terrorists camps are well documented and imaged. Most of these terrorists land up in India, and these terrorists kill more people in India every year than the 9/11 attacks.

Unfortunately, the leadership in India has been too weak to take a firm stand on this issue and the USA turns a blind eye on this issue, as these terrorists do not kill americans (yet) and because they need Pakistan to gain access to neighbouring Afghanistan. Note that these terrorists almost fomented an India-Pakistan war a few years ago and when the Indian army retaliated, the terrorists captured or killed were roughly 50% Pakistani soldiers and 50% terrorists.

Oh, by the way, what I've said is not a biased point of view, and can very easily be verified on the internet, if you dig around for facts and impartial writings on the India-Pakistan situation.

So, the BJP was not exactly aggressive against Pakistan but was simply being firm. In fact, BJP went out of its way to mend relationships with Pakistan and introduced bus services between the two countries. Some of the good things about the BJP are their firm leadership, liberal and capitalistic economic policies, and good external affairs. The only reason why they lost the previous election was because their campaign (so-called India Shining campaign) did not connect with the poor Indian at all. Their campaign ended up alienating the poor farmer and poor labourer, who are the ones that actually vote in India, and instead focused on the middle and rich class who like to crib more and rarely vote. Their election loss had no other reason. So many people die in India every year that the average Indian stopped giving a shit about the Gujrat riots after a year or so, even though a few thousands died. Heck, more farmers commit suicide every year because of chronic indebtedness and because of hunger. And see, religion (and casteism and what not) IS the opiate of the masses, especially when the masses are chronically hungry and stare at despair every night.