India's Successful Commercial Satellite Launch 168
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday India successfully launched an Italian astronomical satellite. A BBC article (view video clip) notes that the launch grants India membership in the exclusive group of nations that can sustain commercial satellite launches. India's launch vehicle has less overall capacity than the competition — up to 1,500 kg to orbit — but the country plans to sweep the low end of the market by offering the lowest cost per launched kilogram for smaller payloads."
W00T! (Score:1, Insightful)
YEIGH! (Score:1, Insightful)
Or, for ICBMs... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, at least use the rockets for ICBMs to mess up the lives of the average Chinese/Pakistani citizen. Remember, one of the goals of the original space race was to show the enemy that anything could be dropped on them at any time.
I wonder if the U.S. will turn a blind eye to such things (like we did with our recent fissionable materials agreements) because India is currently our friend...
list please? (Score:4, Insightful)
Racism acceptable on /. where India is concerned (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Next superpowers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if indiscriminately nuking these countries (all of them reportedly with nuclear capabilities) would not ensure Mutual Assured Destruction, the aftermath of this unlikely event would be disastrous for U.S. and worldwide economy in general, and the current politic of alliances would pit the world in another World War, but this time involving the southern hemisphere too. Just think about it: any of these 3 countries mentioned above are bigger than the whole Europe (minus Russia).
Re:Next superpowers... (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't mentioned the current top dogs because then can't go higher, they are already at the top. But Brasil, India, China, Australia, South Africa, all these countries still have an unfulfilled potential, and I hope that in the next decades they will get their act straight and rise to the place they are supposed to be.
Re:Racism acceptable on /. where India is concerne (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:can you blame them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:can you blame them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the news. There's a big bad world out there and it's got COMPETITION for you. If you don't compete, you get eliminated. So you either do it right (i.e. do a better job than the Indians) or get out of the heat of the kitchen and do something else. It's very simple.
And in the meantime, you might also want to think about fixing that little racism problem.
Re:can you blame them? (Score:3, Insightful)
You guys have had a good time for the past few hundred years. The rest of the world (the 'South') hasn't. Arguments for free-trade have been made and have been accepted both by China and India. And now that BRIC are competing with the Europeans and the US on an equal footing, suddenly free-trade isn't what you want. And a closed economy is what you want. Sorry guys, your corporates aren't listening to you any more.
And we're not going to stay quiet about 5% of the people taking 25% of the resources for much longer. We want our share to be reasonable too.
Learn to 'innovate'. Learn to be more efficient. Or we will take your jobs and your resources, and then you'll have no choice but to be more efficient.