India Plans Mars Mission in 2013 171
New submitter susmit writes with news of India's new goal for launching a satellite to Mars in 2013. From the article: "India plans to launch a mission to Mars next year, putting an orbital probe around the red planet to study its climate and geology, top space department officials said on Thursday. ... A 320-tonne Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket will be used to carry the orbiter spaceship, blasting off from the ISRO launch site at Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Another senior official at ISRO, requesting anonymity, estimated the cost of the mission at 4.0-5.0 billion rupees ($70-90 million dollars)."
Re:Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budge (Score:5, Insightful)
I refuse to believe they can deliver a mars orbiter for 80 million USD.
I'm skeptical as well. I'd love to see them succeed, but I think it's more likely this will turn out like the $45 Aakash tablet computer [slashdot.org] did. Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is.
Re:not gonna happen (Score:3, Insightful)
India had the world's largest economy before the white racist bastards from the so-called-civilized world plundered and looted India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India [wikipedia.org]
Re:Lots of dead indians floating in space (Score:3, Insightful)
*achievement unlocked: the first to say curry in a thread about india*
other targets include saying
-rootkit in a sony thread
-you're holding it wrong in an apple thread
-flying chairs in a microsoft thread
Re:Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budge (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budget. Now I want to know why it costs 20-50 times more in our developed western nations.
Ah, because ours tend to actually make it to Mars. I can launch a Mars mission for a $1.98 it doesn't mean it'll actually reach Mars. The US spend billions reaching the Moon but other than one accident on the launch pad and one time we failed to land we made it there. It's one thing to say you are going to Mars but failing to achieve a lesser goal I have my doubts.
Re:Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budge (Score:5, Insightful)
A large part of the cost may be due to accounting.
They use an existing rocket; zero development cost there. While Nasa would probably either develop a new rocket just for that mission, and put all the cost of development on the Mars mission, so they could re-use the rocket later at much lower cost for projects they don't have budget for.
And there are probably many more places were just accounting cost to one project or the other (little is developed exclusively for one project) can make or break a budget.
And cue the usual comments (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does every post about India's space program always have the usual idiot posts?
1. The unfunny posts about call centers / 7-11 / curries.
2. The indignant posts about how the money could be better spent Helping the Poor.
3. The armchair economist posts about the corruption/filthy roads/electricity shortages.
Ok, we get it already. Indians are poor, corrupt and overstate their ambitions. You are all butt-hurt about your lost jobs. And ho, ho, they eat curries, and say "do the needful" when they answer your tech calls.
Why can't everyone just appreciate another human endeavor into learning more about the universe we live in, instead of all this pettiness?
Do we not all benefit from Chandrayaan's imagery?
Didn't we detect the recent warming over Greenland using data from India's Oceansat?
Why can't it just be about the science for once?