Chandrayaan Enters Lunar Orbit 111
William Robinson writes "After an 18-day journey, Chandrayaan-1, the moon mission of India, has entered Lunar orbit. The maneuver was described as crucial and critical by scientists, who pointed out that at least 30 per cent of similar moon missions had failed at this juncture, resulting in spacecraft lost to outer space. The lunar orbit insertion placed Chandrayaan-1 in an elliptical orbit with its nearest point 400 to 500 kilometers away from the moon, and the farthest, 7,500 kilometers. By November 15, the spacecraft is expected to be orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 kilometers and sending back data and images (the camera was tested with shots looking back at Earth). The Chandrayaan-1 is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon's surface."
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, India is one of the most cutting edge countries in a lot research fields. Glaring back at the USA do we not having starving and homeless? Just because we trade their tribal suffering for urban suffering doesn't mean either countries don't have the same problems. Even more so I'd say China is hardly a third world country. It's economic growth will soon put it on top of the USA. You just see culturally different nations as "third world" Is Sweeden third world too with all their socialism?
Awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from the troll, he has sort of a point. India has massive inequality problems, is still haunted by the caste system (perhaps the only advantage of Mao was he got rid of equivalent crap from China, at quite steep a cost).
Its possible space technology will filter down and help the poorest people, but somehow I doubt it. If you want to look beyond the western media fawning over India's neoliberal development, look up the 'Naxalite' and 'Salwa Judum'. It isn't all roses and tech support over there.
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're having a hard time making out the image, it might be because the image is flipped, as though looking at it in a mirror. Emily Lakdawalla over at the Planetary Society blog figured this out and has flipped the image for us (see below). Why is the original image backwards? Emily explains, "Data doesn't come down from spacecraft in familiar formats like JPEG or TIFF; it's a stream of ones and zeroes, with a format unique to the science instrument, and scientists and engineers write their own software for translating that into raw image data. There are varying conventions for whether bits are written right or left, and if you take that raw image data and open it up in a piece of off-the-shelf image processing software, the image might be backwards." As Emily says, the error is not really important.
Wow, who fucking cares. Just flip it, who cares how their internal format represents the image. The BMP format is vertically flipped, does anyone care or convert BMP images so that they appear flipped vertically? No, nobody cares, god damnit, so why make half of the bloody article about it?
Re:Nobody is starving in the US (Score:2, Insightful)
Except people do still starve to death, only it is the socially ignored old man who sleeps in the park because he is too proud to go to a shelter. This demographic often freezes to death.
Re:Nobody is starving in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
it has nothing to do with being too proud. a large portion of the homeless population in the U.S. are mentally ill. we just aren't willing to fund the social programs and mental health infrastructure to take care of these people, so they end up in the streets. and not all cities with a homeless population have shelters. in my area there are neither homeless shelters nor facilities for the mentally disabled. this has been known for quite some time but little has been done about it.
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:5, Insightful)
then perhaps the U.S. should shelf all fundamental research until we get our poverty level down to at least as low as Eastern Europe. it helps no one to point fingers at others whiles our own domestic problems continue to go ignored.
also, if we get rid of all fundamental research, where do you recommend scientists & researchers go for employment? are they all going to be re-trained in order to find a place in a society without fundamental scientific research? or should they start a mass exodus of intellectual/scientific talent out of the U.S.?
what effect do you think abolishing public research will have on a society? if people are discouraged from going into the sciences & exploratory research, what effect will that have on our national culture? we already live in society rife with anti-intellectualism and reactionary attitudes. do you really think cutting all funding for fundamental science & public research is going to have a positive social effect on either the U.S. or India?
we fund public research in fundamental science not because it strokes our national ego, or as part of some lofty abstract idealistic goal, but because public research is vital to societal progress. it not only drives a society forward technologically, but it also fosters an intellectual culture and encourages rational thought. when you do away with fundamental research, you're killing the pursuit of knowledge, and that will simply invite intellectual & cultural stagnation.
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:4, Insightful)
You only read about the rich in china and the communist govt's facade of "how good things have become" to the rest of the world.
Did you watch too much of the farce of an olympics this year to think that everything is fine and dandy in China? Probably. Wake up.
Re:WOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it was outspaced to a robotic probe.
It's funny - 30 years ago, everyone in manufacturing was scared they were going to lose their jobs to Japanese robots. Now everyone is scared they are going to lose their jobs to Indian workers.
Re:Does it too smell of curry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Discount 2 billion people trading with each other at your own peril.