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Space

India To Become Aerospace Powerhouse? 126

Posted by Hemos from the working-towards-it dept.
jaydub99 writes: "It looks like India will continue to explore new markets for their low-cost, high-tech people. Their next arena could be deploying satellites in high-earth (geostationary) orbit. I wonder how much of the resistance from the U.S. is military-based and how much is economically motivated?"
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India to become Aerospace Powerhouse? More

India to become Aerospace Powerhouse?

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  • Re:Concentrate elsewhere (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ummm, India has a middle class of about 100 million people.

    Am I implying that India has no problems of poverty? Of course not. But, arguing that India shouldn't spend money on space is just plain patronizing.

    Imagine making the same argument to an American Republican: "We should cut funding to NASA and defense contractors until poverty in America is wiped out!"

    Commercial exploitation of space might be the first step in creating more wealth for India.

  • Re:Hmm.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    and they will start the first space taxi service too.

  • a plot! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is all a plot. Their rockets are designed to deliver poppodoms to the first world. Immagine calling india for a take away.
  • Wake me up when we have private launches working.

    And what happened to that project to launch from a barge in the Pacific?

  • Hey guys, I got big news for you. Don't even waste your time going to the Moon. We did it back in 1969 and boy.. there isn't shit there. It's just a bunch of rocks. The money would be better spent on condoms and sex education.
  • Private companies have already started to adopt towns/villages that were hit by the quake, and are currently working to help bring up the primary infrastructure capacities (simple things like cleaning up the roads so people can be more mobile and get to places, makeshift hospitals). Work for food programs are also being instituted. The government has already passed a plan to increase the income tax and also some sort of tax on corporations to help in the rebuilding effort. Some things I agree with, some things I dont.
  • "Mr. Duke has tremendous admiration for India"
    Oh ya?!:-7

    I can see him standing there with "tremendous admiration" for that little girl covered with pus and flies and using her as an example for what america could become if the americans don't stop non-white masses pouring in.

    Personally, I do believe america has the right to maintain its racial ratios - their immigration laws are based on this I believe (racial quotas). I'm all for it.

    What I feel totally stupid is how he claims Indian civilization has "declined"! and this so called "decline" happened because "races" mixed! We are healthier now than ever before. We have more freedom and more people enjoy the arts like no time before in India's history. And we are in a "decline"?

    But Duke isn't interested in that. He needs to show that mixing of "races" will cause "decline of civilization"s, so he has to pick out a slum to walk through.

    If he were really interested in seeing what half-breeds can do, he should visit Kerala which has possibly the highest ratio of Muslims to Hindus in India and see what they have been upto. It has had major racial and cultural infusion from Arabia and N India. And whats happened? They have the most radical democratic political system in the world and have reached levels of literacy and QLI rivalling the US state of Kansas at less than 1/50th the cost. They have a higher literacy rate than Great Britain.

    Why bother with Kerala, visit any village in N India and use that as an example. He chose to concentrate on a slum and a slum dweller to prove his stand - that he doesn't want other races mixing with his.

    Like I said, I sympathize with his cause, but he better come up with a better example than pointing at slum dwellers and bemoaning the decline of Indian civilization. What ever peak he seems to have seen for Indian civilization had as high a percentage of slum dwellers or people at that subsistence level as there are now.

    India is militarily and economically weak (or weaker than the US) at present. Period. We are not in any decline. And our racial heterogenity has nothing to do with anything, and is something a lot of us are proud of.

    Heck we have more cultural and "racial" diversity than most continents!

    veliath

  • Whats so fascinating about a white supremist walking through the slums of India and clucking in disgust?! He awakens from being a mere "racially conscious White person" to "the sacred purpose of all those who came before us, and those who will follow us in the unbroken spiral toward the heavens. I had become an Aryan", after walking through Delhi's slums.

    Sure if I were a Dravidian supremist (they do exist) and I wanted to point out what a fucked up place America is and how the Aryans and Caucasians in general fuck things up, I would visit some slum in New York or LA and point at the violence and drugs and what not and draw lessons for all mankind.

    I hate to break supremists bubbles but the dravidians of India and the Aryans belong to the Caucasoid family along with the Jews and Arabs. Ya Ya Ya, I was disappointed too.

    I have noticed that everytime Slashdot mentions something about Indian aerospace, its clubbed under "the utter lunacy department" or some such thing by the moderator and almost a third of the posts are sneers.

    I wonder if slashdot is representative of American nerds or just its loud minority.

    As an aside they ought to change the title of this website to - "Slashdot: Gossip for nerds, stuff that might matter"

  • I hope (Score:1)

    by jjr ( 6873 )
    This even outs more fire under NASA to thier butts in gear. We might see another great space race coming. China or India might become next great giant in space.
  • Both the US and USSR deployed liquid-fuelled ICBM's.
  • The article suggests that the capability to launche a satellite in geostationary orbit is currently restricted to the US, Russia and China. Actually most of the launches in geostationary orbit, most of which are launches of commercial satellites, are currently done by European Ariane 4/Ariane 5 rockets, with 10 to 15 launches a year for the past 15 years. Arianespace [arianespace.com] currently captures about 60% of the "open" market, i.e. the non-government launches market.

    Japan also have an ambitious booster program, even though they have been rather unlucky with it. (the H-2 rockets).

  • The only thing is that it is pointless. It didn't symbolicaly extend the reach of human beings into space like a trip to Mars would. It didn't put anything into orbit that a booster couldn't. It didn't lower the cost of putting things into orbit. The Russians prooved that it was not useful for operating a space station. Pointless. Time and money wasted.
  • Well now...whitetrash racist fucks? Hmm...who's the racist?

    TheCaptain -
  • Oh, China knows the rocks. We published what is in the rocks [permanent.com]. The head of the China space agency said they intend to use what is on the Moon.
  • Can I help with that link [isro.org]?
  • Pathetic.
  • I think a good deal of the resistance has to do with US government officials being uneasy with the idea of more countries having both advanced rockets and nukes. India has made gains in both fields, and the more countries there are with both, the more nervous the big boys get.

    It's not about the satallites, it the rockets.

  • The circumference of geosync is roughly 302,000 km. If 10 km is a "close call" in space, then you can "fit" 30,000 satellites up there. It is not necessarily the physical space that is clogged, though, but the space for bandwidth. The communication signals are just straight lines from the satellite to Earth, they spread out as the distance grows. At geosync distance, they spread a fair deal. If two satellites communicating on the same frequency band (X, K, Ku, S, etc) are too close, their signals will interfere with each other.

    What type of satellite can be in which area of geosync has to be tightly regulated or everyone would be wanting to put the same type of high bandwidth comm sat in the most popular areas for their customers. Geosync orbits only work at 0 inclination (equatorial), and most of the equator is water or low population countries. That cuts down the useful space for geosync position by a good deal. For India, they wouldn't want space over the US, so that isn't really an issue. But they will want space that conflicts with those many, many countries of Eur-Asia. There is probably space, but they would have to be willing to work with the regulation agencies to make sure nobody is going to be interfering with anyone else's signals. My original point (maybe made badly) was that it was probably the cooperation issue that made the US and others a little wary about this.

  • I wish you could get a 6. That's the funniest goddamn thing I've read this month! ;)

    siri

  • I used to think how great NASA was and how we should fund NASA more, until I read a couple articles arguing that NASA actually hinders aerospace development. Which makes sense considering that NASA has a total monopoly on Space. In fact, a certain company started to transport payloads into space for cheaper when NASA promptly undercut them (sorry, don't remember any specific details).

    Not knowing a whole lot about the private sector in aerospace technology, I wouldn't mind seeing NASA slowly get out of the buisness aspect and focus more on entirely pure science research. Unless the technology is already there for buisness to make a decent profit.

    -AU
  • Too bad, of course, that they don't spend the time and effort using these 'low cost-high tech' folks on creating and enforcing building codes in earthquake hazard regions.

    Instead they'll just kill a zillion of them in unreinforced masonry buildings. The first world banned such construction in hazard areas over 50 years ago.

    I'm all for space (don't make me out to be a crazy 1960s US liberal), but a country needs to be out of the third-world mindset before it has delivery mechanisims for nuclear weapons. Life in the third world is just way too cheap. That cheapness combined with a means of mass destruction is not a good recipe for any life on the planet.

    --Multics

  • Are you a native American?
  • If they have the capability to put a 4,000 lb payload into high earth orbit, they certainly have the ability to place one of their new warheads anywhere on the globe.

    I say "Congrats India!"

    Welcome to the club...

  • Interesting how Americans want their government to stay out of their business, but would like to see OTHER countries' governments more involved in people's lives. Hmm...

  • I'm curious. I live in California and I don't remember any recent earthquake killing thousands and thousands of people; could you enlighten me?
  • If america thinks only it has the right to push into the cosmos, on the tiny budget allotted to NASA by its government...
    I wouldn't call the NASA budget tiny. It is adequate for a much larger program of exploration and research than the USA is now doing. The problem is that money is being used to feed a stable of established aerospace companies pursuing high-cost, low-risk options. Examples:
    1. Continued use of the Space Shuttle at $15,000/lb to orbit instead of buying ELV's.
    2. Cancellation of the Delta Clipper research program (inherited from SDIO).
    3. Sponsorship of the X-33 VentureStar (a vastly more expensive and riskier program) instead of proceeding to the DC-Y.
    4. Outright rejection of the LLNL "Community Spacesuit" inflatable space station (more space than the ISS, launched in one shot of a Titan IV, and with artificial gravity to boot).
    5. Continued sponsorship of the vastly more expensive and less timely International Space Station.
    Much as I love space research and exploration, I have to face facts: these programs in the USA are driven by pork-barrel spending and political log-rolling. The ugly truth is that the tail is wagging the dog and has been since 1969 (when Nixon took office and the pursuit of Kennedy's lunar initiative became a priority that [once] belonged to the other guy's party).
    --
    Knowledge is power
    Power corrupts
    Study hard
  • ... the threat of a suitcase nuke is hundreds of times more likely than a nation being stupid enough to lob one at us via ICBM....
    I don't think so, for several reasons. Suitcase nukes are rather advanced devices. A uranium bomb can be done easily with a mortar-type imploder. A plutonium bomb requires a spherical shell implosion to assemble the supercritical mass, else it doesn't come together fast enough to avoid a fizzle. Suitcase nukes are even more compact, and require more extreme compression (to reduce the critical mass), tampers, neutron reflectors and neutron sources to start the reaction at the proper time. I don't know all the details, but they may also require plutonium of superior purity. I'm not at all worried about any of the freshly-nuclear nations of the world being able to hide a testing program well enough to be able to develop a working suitcase nuke; seismometry and inspection programs are already a serious obstacle and are unlikely to get any easier to evade.

    I'm not worried about Saddam Hussein doing this either. He's got a lot of the world tired of keeping sanctions against him, but the instant he blew a nuke there would be armies rolling through his country again and this time they wouldn't stop until they could bring his head back on a spear.
    --
    Knowledge is power
    Power corrupts
    Study hard

  • (from where I'm from that the equivilent of 1.5 Oregon's).
    But where they're from that's the equivalent of one apartment building ;-)


    ---CONFLICT!!---
  • That is absolutely false. IITs do a large amount of research. They have Masters programs. The Wireless Linked Loop technology was pioneered by IIT Madras. Please try to be a bit more informed.

  • Is this where I get to say something really rude about stupid Americans?

    Come on, this topic is very interesting and thought provoking. I am sure you can think of more intelligent things to say. Not suprising you posted anonymously.

    Come on moderators, knock some points off this guy's posting

  • And what happened to that project to launch from a barge in the Pacific?

    Sea Launch [sea-launch.com]?

    It's working quite well. There was a show on The Discovery Channell or TLC about it. They took an old oil rig and converted it into a self propelled launch platform.

  • While the fueling time problem may be non-trivial, detection of fueling is easily prevented. Most land-based ICBMs are stored in underground silos, that are typically part of a large launch complex. The fuel and oxidizer would be stored on site, so transfer of the fuel and oxidizer would most likely be difficult to observe.
  • I get your point but the terms "first world", "second world" and "third world" don't (or at least didn't originally) mean what you think they mean. The first world was the democracys of the west, the second world was the soviet union, and the third world was the non-aligned developing countires (this is all AFAIK - please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure you will anyway). So to say that the USSR was a collective of third world countires makes no sense, they WERE the second world. I don't know where they fit in now that the USSR has collapsed, just a bit of history for y'all.
  • Am I? or are you?
    I'm going right to the top here but the dictionary [dictionary.com] defines the first world as The industrialized non-Communist countries of the world.
    It defines the second world as The Communist nations of the world, especially as an economic and political bloc.
    And it defines the third world as 1. Underdeveloped or developing countries, especially those not allied with Communist countries. or 2. Minority groups as a whole within a larger prevailing culture.
    So the dictionary would seem to take my side of the story.
  • ICBM? who needs intercontinental when the country you want to bomb back to the stone age shares a border with you? I guess you'd want to make sure you could hit EVERY part of pakistan.
  • The GSLV has been delayed for a very long time esp. dues to the unavailability of the cryogenic engines. And it's still only a test. For what it's worth - good luck to the folks at ISRO. Here's ISRO [isro.org]'s page for the GSLV [isro.org].
  • Sorry! Bad link. Should be http://www.isro.org/gslv.htm
  • Not a chance. Atleast if ISRO and the Indian Govt. are honest to Vikram Sarabhai's statement [isro.org].
  • Personally, I don't see a reason for there to be resistance from the USA at all. There's little that someone can do with a GSO orbit satellite that one cannot do with a GPS or LEO satellite.

    Beyond a macho "We're the only ones allowed to do cool stuff!" type attitude, what does anyone have to fear?
  • I don't think slashdot is a good place
    to be expecting respect for MS programmers..

    cheers,
    metric
  • The highest priorities for THAAD I believe are Taiwan and Israel. And Israel (with or w/out American help, I remember not) tested a laser capable of taking down missiles. Whether or not that's related to NMD is beyond me. We are planning to share it though.
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • There's a huge difference between being PC and being a stereotypical jackass. The joke was racist, bigotted, and completely uncalled for. Had the poster said such to my face, my fist would have sailed through his face before he had a chance to add, "j/k!" Had someone else objected and you given your response in my presence, I would be the one apologizing as I removed my foot from your nutsack.

    I do believe we were discussing new developments in India's aerospace industry's direction. Racist jokes had no place in it. Political Correctness has nothing to do with it. Grow up.
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • it sounds to me like you need to start taking those anger management classes again, butch.

    wanna hear a irish joke?


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • that's not funny because it's an inflamed response at something that actually was funny. plus, it expected. that's a humor killer if ever there was one.

    nice try though, apu.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Actually, if they can send all their people into space, then earthquakes wouldn't really be a problem...
  • You are right that there is no social obligation. However, it is those people who voluntarily use their talents to improve the society that are the true heroes. For example, the founding fathers of US. MLK, and the likes.

    The fact the India is in such a sad state and the fact that all the talents needed to make it a better country are all there, but doing nothing, makes it really really sad.
  • A couple of ways to look at this.

    On one level I disagree cause I want to see more space exploration.

    On another level I agree because basic infrastructure should come first. While we're not perfect about this in America, the recent earthquake drives home that they really have a lot of things at home that need improving. That same earthquake in CA wouldn't have killed thousands. It'd have killed a few, but not the mass-destruction we're seeing over there.

    on yet another level, though, think of it this way: India isn't looking to spend money onspace, they're looking to INVEST money in space. Note that they are targeting areas where they can make a profit. So they're attempting to boost their economy to the point where the basic infrastructure things you're talking about will be very affordable. Sounds right to me.

    jim
  • Coming up with a cheap and re-usable method to go to the International Space Station

    While we keep cutting NASA's budget? Roughly nil.

    building a space elevator

    With today's technologies, this would require diverting all production of the entire planet for a significant period of time. During this time, our needs would not be cared for. So perhaps this is not a working solution.

    Advances in materials science could make a space elevator feasible, but not today.


    --
    ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

  • WHAT HAS INDIA EVER DONE TO YOU?

    I had to sit next to a particularly stinky H1B holder while working at Cisco. I do not mean to imply that all H1B holders from India are smelly, but this one was. I don't know whether he bathed or not, but he wore some especially offensively cloying perfume which made me gag.

    We gave the world Yoga, Buddhism (yes!) and Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence.

    I'm more interested in Chicken Mahkanwala. Now THAT is something that came from India which I appreciate.


    --
    ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US

  • Does anyone beside me remember Star Trek: First Contact? Wasn't it the Indians who bombed the US into a second stone age? That was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the headline. I actually laughed out loud at this. The same as I did last night when watching the local news (Sacramento) and they announced that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be running for state governor. (The reference is to Demolition Man).

    This is /. You'd think someone else would have noticed that? I'd be surprisied if some of the people featured on Trekkies weren't slashdotters.
  • I don't think anyone realises what India's major problem is ... it is population. India has an astounding rate of growth of population because of which all it's economic progress in the last 50 years is made to look like zilch. What's worse is that the government eats up a lot of the money. A lot of ministries have post which have become redundant because of computerisation. The amount of money spent on the government is staggering. This is why India has to turn it's attention to new technologies like IT and Space technology. It's very easy for you to say "Help the poor" but where is the money going to come from. India did miss out on the Industrial revolution which is why it can't afford to do so in the case of the information revolution and the space revolution. Once it does acquire enough expertise in the space technology it could prove to be a valuable source of revenue. I have my reservations about their IT policy though... they spend money on building fancy software company offices and green IT parks. What the government really ought to be doing is improving the telecom and power infrastructure so that IT cos. here can be more productive. In essence what I'm trying to say is that... if you think in the short term India should not be spending all this money on space and information technology. And yes, they can stop spending on IT and space technolgy .But in the long term it is important for India to get a foothold in these critical areas. Didn't England have poor people before the Industrial Revolution ?
  • From a business point of view, this seems like a profitable way for india to spend thier money. First, they have enough people, second, the revenue generated by launching satelites into space for private companies will result in a high gnp, which would benifit everyone in india, in the long run. Remember the trickle down economics of the early 80's? We had all given up on it until it just started to work.
  • What if India uses all thir dirty, dirty, technology to send strong cryptography into space? Quick, quick, outlaw rockets!
  • Yeah. Welcome to the "You have now been targeted by NORAD" club.

    [PLINK!] India almost dodged U.S.A's rocket.
  • I agree. Lockheed Martin does not want any more competition in the rocket arena.
  • You know, right now India has one of the worst poverty situations in the world, the second largest population in the world, and was just hit by a tremoundous earthquake. They should really try to build up their infrastructure.
    I agree that my country has one of the worst poverty situations in the world and we are still reeling under the impact of an earthquake.
    But, who gave you the impression that "5 km outside of Delhi and it doesn't look like a civilised city!!"? How many places in India have you been that you can generalise about the whole country like this?

    U tend to forget that India has one of the largest pools of trained technical manpower in the country. The Indian space programme is completely indigenous and has been going on for nearly 25 years and we have already been to space using our *own* rockets!

    And, I wonder whether one can really say that stop building spaceships because of other problems. Sure, we may need funds for the reconstruction of Gujarat, but we also need those satellites. In a country as large and divesre as this, we need satellites for remote-sensing, meteorolgy and communications. India can ill-afford the enormous amounts of hard-cash it takes to borrow transponders on other satellites. And, why should we, when we can do it ourselves at a fraction of the cost. The space programme is just not about satellites and rockets, its about pervasive technology. The spinoffs from such a programme are massive.

  • I've forgotten, who is the most obese country in the world?
    Oh, and speaking of rich countries ... enjoy the forthcoming recession.
  • And Americans are noisy obese hamburger-eating arrogant greedy obsessed corporate murderous badly-dressed warmongering sheep. So what?
  • I've never read such a lot of arrogant SHIT in all my life as the reponses to this article. What a pack of patronising morons. If you don't believe me go and count the number of

    - racist Indian jokes

    - 'they ought to be spending money on other things' comments

    -

    Oh fuck it, I can't be bothered to continue this posting, you disgust me. (If you feel implicated then the "you" means "you - yes you").

  • Last I heard American military cargo planes touched down on monday to distribute goods. And the US isn't alone in that aid.
    In times of natural calamity, all civilised countries assist each other. When the wildfires in the western parts of the US became widespread, fire-fighting teams from Australia and Canada (among others) came over to help out. IIRC, there were a few counties in Montana which were totally under Canadian firefighters' control, a first for the US.
  • Here is something that most of the posters in this thread probably don't know.
    Space Imaging [spaceimaging.com] is the only (major?) company out there that is commercializing satellite imagery. You can buy satellite images of any spot on the earth for a small chunk'a change. Now, did you know that 4 out of 7 satellites used by SapceImaging to take these shots are Indian ? Checkout the Satellite Constellation [spaceimaging.com] page for more details; the IRS* satellites are all Indian.
    During the Gulf War, all of the space imagery that you saw on the networks and newspapers was from Indian satellites.
  • ICBM? who needs intercontinental when the country you want to bomb back to the stone age shares a border with you? I guess you'd want to make sure you could hit EVERY part of pakistan.
    What do you mean, back to the stone age? Stone age would be a step forward for Pakistan!
  • I mean, 5 km outside of Delhi and it doesn't look like a civilised city!!
    I mean, 5 km inside Detroit and it doesn't look like a civilised city.
    Your point is...?
  • OK, "You're wrong"

    My understanding of the terms are that "first world" describes the "developed countries", the US, Europe, and Japan being obvious examples. Technology, education, and obesity are all widely available. Think happy babies rolling around on carpets.

    Second world nations are developing. Many South American nations fall into this area -- they possess, for instance, excellent colleges and hospitals, but also must cope with rural illiteracy and urban slums that make Watts look like Beverly Hills. Think of sturdy peasant farmers, at least in a good year.

    Third world nations don't have a pot to piss in. Medical care is atrocious (by first-world standards), famines common, and technology primitive (except for AK-47's). Think swollen bellies and stick-thin arms.

    Classing the USSR as "third-world" is probably too strong, but second-world seems reasonable. (Although toward the end there longevity was actually declining, which isn't exactly "developing").

    It's true that third world countries have often been neutral in the democracy / communism conflict, but I suspect that reflects a hope of gaining support from both sides in a bidding war rather than any inherent political alignment -- most third world countries are run by Colonels in RayBans anyway.

  • Another player in the business of satellite launches is good for everyone. A lot of services are enabled by satellites, the failures of Iridium notwithstanding. I think that the current waiting list for satellite launches is quite long, and colored with political favoritism. More capacity would make it easier for new and innovative ideas to get their chance to shoot for the stars.

    I only hope that India will not let the environment take a beating on the way up.
  • First off - It's expensive or impractical to do alot of things with LEO's that people do today with Geosynchronous satellites. Example - Satellite TV? Any sort of broadcast media doesn't work real well with the current LEO system (it could -but it is MUCH more expensive.)

    For instance - Iridium had 60 some odd satellites to get world wide coverage. You would probably have to have a similar number to give a single location 24 hour coverage....(not cheap...)

    Now to the issue of India having this technology. What if Pakistan and India decide to have an arm's race. That is just one de-stabalizing possibility.
    Maybe it'll be with China?

    Then there is the issue of other technologies like weapons of mass distruction that always come along with this path. Will India sell these to third world countries.

    Yes - the US is probably worried - along with all of India's neighbors (that includes Russia, Pakistan, and China for starters...)
  • Besides the SILLY numbers you chose to include for CA (low 60's for number killed each time in the last three major quakes in CA..) CA's infrastructure is stretched to the breaking point.

    India has nearly no infrastructure in some places to break! I was talking with an Indian friend today about this very subject. He worked for a power company there before coming here. His story was that power was only on part of the day EVERY day as the rule. They had just completed a plant that would double the area's power capacity and it was insufficient for current needs.

    CA has plenty of issues - but these have to do with aging infrastructure, lack of investment in same, a population that refuses to stop growing. (From 19 million in around 79 to 33 million at the end of the 90's.) (Doesn't compare to India's 1 billion though..)

  • You missed MY point...

    The fact that WE did it gives the unique perspective that it might be a STUPID idea to go down the same path to the logical conclusion it gets too. (3..2..1.....BOOM)

  • 1) Ditto everything Alien54 said.
    2) An effective antimissile system would significantly reduce the value of the military hardware and technology that Russia would like to sell.
    3) China's plans to invade Taiwan depend on softening up the islands defenses with a ballistic missile barrage. The missile batteries have been built, tho I suppose they could augment them. If we can build an antimissile system in Taiwan, it would make invasion considerably more difficult.
    4) When piss-poor countries like North Korea are building ICBM's (they lobbed a three stage missile over northern Japan a couple of years ago), it's obvious that they consider them pretty damn useful, and America really ought to have a defense against them less drastic than turning their nation into a glass parking lot.

    You really shouldn't take the word of the butchers of Tiennemen Square at face value, much less a couple of has-beens.
  • Brian! Where have you been since the old days of M-Net?

    Still in town, send me an email? (Show yourself, o Anonymous Coward from my past! :-)

  • It should be obvious to everyone here, but a rocket that's big enough to launch a satellite is more than big enough to act as an ICBM. The US military doesn't like ICBM's, unless they belong to it.
  • I read Aviation Week and Space Technology religiously; even though it's wretchedly conservative and pro-weapons (as you might expect) because occasionally they have remarkable images and articles.

    There was one, a few years ago, taken by a guy in Houston of the night sky. He pointed the camera up, opened the shutter, and left it for a couple of hours. Of course, the image was dominated by star trails; caused by the earth's rotation.

    But, dramatically, there was a string of pearls across the center of the frame, which were the geosynchronous satellites which don't move with respect to the earth. While they are way to dim to see normally, integrated over a few hours on film they showed up quite brightly indeed. One of those really amazing pictures that makes AvWeek worthwhile.

    thad

  • with the kind of engineering brainpower that India has been exporting over the last few years, they'll have no problem developing their own technology fast.

    Industrialization depends a lot more on having the right institutions than any other factor. Unfortunately India has a long history of stifling their private sector with a layers of inefficient bureaucracy.

  • China is going to land men on the Moon. Suppose India will get in a race?
  • I agree that national missile defense (due to technological restrictions) is a massive waste of money at this time, but you have a lousy way of making your case.

    Could it be officials here are disturbed because India could jeapordize the US' intentions of getting their Star Wars program back on the map?

    It could be more probable that President George W Bush & co. want to push through on their campaign pledge, and reward the defense industry with a multibillion dollar contract. I doubt that a missile capacity that we've known India to be developing for the past decade really sets our schedules.

    "The officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said test preparations are going ahead in the absence of orders to the contrary from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld."

    So Mr. Rumsfeld has himself denounced this but they are still going ahead with it.

    If you bothered to read the sentence you noticed more carefully, DefSec Rumsfeld allowed the BMDO to proceed with more testing by not ordering it to stop. The BMDO, because it hasn't received orders to stop, assumes that everything's A-OK and continues with its schedule. No conspiracy here.

    In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi warned that American missile defense "will have a far-reaching and extensive negative impact on the global and regional strategic balance and stability."

    Duh! Why would Beijing not list 20 million bad reasons against a missile defense? Any successful national missile defense, no matter how small, would in all probability negate China's small (20 count) intercontinental nuclear arsenal, forcing them to spend tens of billions of dollars to modernize / expand it. I'll let you put 2 + 2 together.

    In Moscow, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev asserted that a U.S. missile defense could easily be defeated by technologies the former Soviet Union developed in the 1980s in response to President Reagan's Star Wars plan that was a more ambitious attempt to defend against all-out missile attacks.

    "We had three mighty programs to asymmetrically counteract U.S. national missile defenses during Reagan's 'Star Wars,"' Sergeyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. He gave no details. Although the programs were halted, "We still have them and can take them up again," he said.

    This is the same Igor Sergeyev that predicted the Kosovo War would start World War III, and said that Chechnya would be cleared of terrorists in a bloodless, precision campaign. And now he says 1) we have ways to neutralize the missile defense (aside from the 6,000 warheads they now have) and 2) but we're not going to tell you anything. O-kay. If you believe anything he says at face value, I've got some nice oceanfront property in Oklahoma you might be interested in.

    On one hand, yes, the threat of a suitcase nuke is hundreds of times more likely than a nation being stupid enough to lob one at us via ICBM, and yes, kinetic kill interceptor technology is just too unreliable to be workable right now. But making hysterical arguments (or worse, just repeating those hysterical arguments) against it isn't helping the anti-NMD position.

  • And I don't mean hybrid fuel rockets either.

    Most of the search-engine hits on my rocket engine patent disclosure page [geocities.com] have been from SIFYSEARCH [sify.com] -- a web portal in India.

  • One main reason the US (and others) may have a problem with this is that the communications bands in Geosync are already extremely clogged. You can look at a picture of the satellites up there and see that there just isn't much more room up there.
    I am no specialist, but are you sure it is so crowded out there? It is so much bigger in high-orbit than on Earth and there are not billions of satellites, are there?

  • qw {
    Does this mean they'll be assuming responsibility for the 7-11 module on the International Space Station?
    }

    resp {
    It's not just 7-11, you forgeting about (taxi-drivers, circle-k, and 70% of contract programmers
    , a good deal of which work at MS}

    sig {
    -Jon
    }


    Streamripper [sourceforge.net]

  • What hope on someone doing either of the following:
    • Coming up with a cheap and re-usable method to go to the International Space Station
    • building a space elevator
    Seriously, we need to expand and not by simply sending probes. The first step to any advancement beyond the level we reached with the Manned Moon landings was the shuttle program but it was just a miniscule step along the path to riches. It makes far more sense for a miniscule amount of money to be spent on rockets and the vast bulk to be spent on R&D work to come up with a way to lower the dry/wet ratio of a "shuttle", preferably losing the disposable rockets. Then when we can start thinking about housing a few thousand people in space (first station, then craft, then moon, then planet, once the first is broken I cannot imagine the others will take any significant amount of time and that each will fuel and develop the next) we can really start to exploit it (both commercially so the R&D guys can recoup and scientifically/socialogically etc.).
    Anyone working on the first "non-atmospheric" space craft i.e. one that flys from spacestation to space station?
    These damn self-serving corporate money grabbing bastards (and their political exploite[er]s) with their moral imperative to have the most money possible now instead of the best future are just making it harder and harder to dream....sigh
  • In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi warned that American missile defense "will have a far-reaching and extensive negative impact on the global and regional strategic balance and stability."

    Remember that the USA and the West outspent the Soviets, bankrupting them. It certainly disrupted the Soviet block, among other things.

    So just on this basis, I can see that China is not yet ready for an arms race vs the USA.

    It's economy is not big enough, yet.

    As far as the effectiveness of a missile defense goes, remember that it does not have to be 100% effective.

    Even if the defense was 50% effective you would have to spend at LEAST twice as much to get through, and a lot more than that if you want to ensure that you hit the targets you have chosen. You might have to put in four times as much to ensure that you take out your favorite heavily defended target.

    That by itself will put additional economic pressure on China. So of course, they would get nervous about this.

  • I know I'm going to get slandered as a racist for this.

    India is rife with corruption and TONS of bureaucracy in multiple languages (fill this out in Hindi, please fill this out in Gujarat, this in Punjabi, wait thirty years for a response, thank you, come again).

    If India was such a wonderful hotbed of amazing people, it wouldn't have such a problem with collapsing buildings and starvation.

    A lot of Indians are quite knowledgeable and cool, and more power to them. I don't have this strange idea that Indians are good for nothing but convenience stores and selling incredibly cheap knock-off fall-apart things.

    I **DO**, however, have a problem with that kind of bureaucracy getting involved with, and screwing up, what amounts to a giant ballistic missile, especially if they use fissile materials. Haree Jamset Ram Singh O-gasket merchants and hair oil, Inc. might have the lowest price on a bid for technology, but what's to stop them from passing off a gasket from a Ford Pinto as same? In a bureaucracy and "very cheap, sir, very cheap" emphasis, NOTHING. And when high explosives are involved, it makes me very nervous.

    Again: there is nothing to say that Gujarati buildings COULDN'T have withstood earthquakes: but due to *ahem* cost-cutting and corruption and people on the take, the buildings were slapped together as cheap as possible, risking human lives. This should not be allowed with respect to Space.
  • You know, right now India has one of the worst poverty situations in the world, the second largest population in the world, and was just hit by a tremoundous earthquake. They should really try to build up their infrastructure. I mean, 5 km outside of Delhi and it doesn't look like a civilised city!! I realize other countries also have issues, but India should really handle those before going to space.
    They just want to be able to say, look at us go we went to space, don't look at our bad side though, which we hid when Clinton came to visit (Delhi's streets were never that good as that day).
  • I look forward to going to space through a country which prioritizes space as something truly vital for its future. Maybe countries which are not in the "forefront" of the world economy, such as India, have more incentive in planning for the long term, and investing in things such as a space program.

    That said, I would like to hope that India, which claims self-sufficiency, would look over all its expenditures, including space, and see what it can divert to emergency aid for the earthquake and for general poverty.

    While space and tech development is a tide that lifts all boats, the poverty in India is a humanitarian catastrophe and should be addressed, first, before considering development investment. Otherwise, development in the long run becomes a greater priority than the alleviation of human suffering.
  • India is a both a democracy and a player in World Free Trade, a concept which is close to the hearts of many in the US. No-one will sell them UTD rocket technology, so they have to develop their own. US rocket development was kick started by captured Nazi technology post WWII, so it doesn't seem fair to criticise them for using existing technology as a base. Given their progress in other fields, I don't think it will be a rocket-backwater for long. If they can develop a space-economy, then there will be much more money to spend on rebuilding Gujarat. I wish them luck in modernising a nation of nearly 1bn souls.
  • I have only ONE question for people whose knee-jerk reaction is to put India down :

    WHAT HAS INDIA EVER DONE TO YOU?

    We have no history of slavery or foreign invasion. We have never harmed Americans or US interests -- rather we have actively sought friendship and offered to co-operate in matters of terrorism of which we too are targets. So what's your beef? And don't give me that "take care of your poor people first" -- we have made tremendous strides in that department which you clearly don't know about.

    It seems that every time someone posts something about India, everyone wants to join in and put India down. Pretty easy to do, huh? An easy target to vent your pent up anger.

    We gave the world Yoga, Buddhism (yes!) and Gandhi's doctrine of non-violence. Ever heard of a Hindu terrorist? Indians in America are one of the wealthiest immigrant groups -- we have VERY low levels of violent crime. Yet we are stereotyped by every movie and TV series that depicts an Indian. I'm sorry but this is MY breaking point.

    It is one thing to be un-appreciated but another matter entirely to be put down when you clearly don't deserve it!!

  • Considering that any true advances into space for mankind, beyond one international space station, will have to be achieved by the budgets and manpower of multiple nations, I cannot see why you wouldn't want another nation to become experienced in space based operations.

    It increases the global experience base, it increases the chances for technological breakthroughs, it increases the potential, numbers & extent for space based experiments.

    If america thinks only it has the right to push into the cosmos, on the tiny budget allotted to NASA by its government, then I would say it is mistaken, and we will be earth bound for longer if it puts up a fight.

    Sure India faces many domestic crisis, but every country does at one point, and given a new round of fuel crisis on the horizon, I might make the assumption that soon we might all have domestic crisis to deal with as nations.

    We don't need a space race, what we need is an ounce of cooperation across nations, more then ISS, a global effort mounted by as many nations as possible. It shouldn't be an indian space programme, or a US space programme, it should be a human space programme.


  • Thing is they are being aided. India has just suffered a massive earthquake that has left over 4 million people unhoused (from where I'm from that the equivilent of 1.5 Oregon's).

    Last I heard American military cargo planes touched down on monday to distribute goods. And the US isn't alone in that aid.

  • Hmm.. (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @05:18PM (#451023)
    Does this mean they'll be assuming responsibility for the 7-11 module on the International Space Station?

  • California Spending money (Score:3)

    by cpeterso ( 19082 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @05:40PM (#451024) Homepage
    As much as I like to see people putting more energy into the exploration and exploitation of space, doesn't California have a lot of infrastructure to work toward building up before worrying about the cosmos? They've just had an earthquake that killed thousands and thousands of people. How many of those people could have been saved by importing American building standards and restrictions and adding more support to the current buildings?

    It just seems that California has constant problems with nature as well as their difficulty in even maintaining basic power for their population makes me wary that they may best be spending their money elsewhere.

  • possible reasons (Score:3)

    by boarder ( 41071 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @06:30PM (#451025) Homepage
    One main reason the US (and others) may have a problem with this is that the communications bands in Geosync are already extremely clogged. You can look at a picture of the satellites up there and see that there just isn't much more room up there. Not that we have exclusive rights to it or anything, but maybe India isn't willing to cooperate with existing regulatory agencies.

    I'm not saying India is right or wrong or that our policies are, either; I just think that this is a major problem nowadays. Everyone wants the easy solution in geosync, instead of going with arrays. Of course, room in space wouldn't be as much of a problem if companies would just de-orbit their spacecraft after their designed life cycle (or when they are no longer useful, whichever is first).

    Other than maybe this reason of non-cooperation, I can't think of any other valid reason we should get upset with them finally joining the space industry. I would love to go over there and work if I got a typical US salary. Good food... mmmm...

  • thank you too (Score:3)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @06:47PM (#451026)
    if you look for racism and bigotry with too much vigor, you will find it everywhere.

    thanks for contributing to a world so PC, we're not even allowed to laugh at ourselves.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • Ever since I read Shadow of the Hegemon reviewed here [slashdot.org] on slashdot, it's been hard for me not to see the world as a giant Risk game waiting to happen
    -- and America, mighty as some of us are used to thinking of it -- not quite as powerful relative to some other nations as we think. Articles (and posts) like this one keep bringing that thought back.

    What I've wondered about, tho', as far as missile defense systems go, is why the United States doesn't simply develop the system and offer to share the technology. Alleviates politcal pressure, solves the "rogue state" problem that's our ostensible reaspon for developin it, and makes us all safer from nukes.

    Yeah, I know, it's really quite a naive idea. But I thought I'd mention it.

    --

  • Re:India Spending money (Score:3)

    by peacelife ( 228905 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @10:27PM (#451028)
    And yes yes, I realize that these claims might also be applicable to the United States, that we could best be spending the space money elsewhere, but at least we're theoretically on the cutting edge...

    I dont see your point. Do you mean to say that if a country is not on the cutting edge, it shouldn't start?

    When a society invests in science and technology it invests in its own future. India has been successful in using its satellites for long distance education, storm relief, weather forecasting, and resource mapping. I think this is commendable.

    The common attitude here seems to be, "How dare India invest in sci & tech when it isn't half as perfect as the US? Meanwhile, make way there for Uncle Sam to continue to rape nature"

  • Stran9er days (Score:3)

    by stigmatic ( 310472 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @05:38PM (#451029) Homepage
    Washington has, over the years, restricted access to technology that might have military applications and slapped significant sanctions on India after its nuclear tests in 1998.

    How typical of our country (USA), to place restrictions on others. Cuba, India, Iraq, etc., surely I can see some reasons for our countries motivations (terrorism), but if our politicians and enforcement agencies got it together they could save possibly billions farming out launches to India.

    Who knows maybe they won't be so unfortunate to lose "their" rockets when they send them to Mars. Its a nice thought to hear about space exploration, satellites, and how it can improve our lives in the long run however, its sad to see buearucrats feel the need to flaunt their political muscles for nonsense at times.

  • Re:No conflict (Score:4)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @06:44PM (#451030)
    The US developed and droped nuclear weapons because of a things called the Second World War. Might want to look that up. And remeber that dropping the Bomb saved lives there.

    The US, UK, China, Soviet Union, France, South Africa, Israel, and India have all done above ground testing. Not just the US.

    The US had an Arms Race with the Soviet Union...you can't race by yourself. French and Brits did pretty good there too. Let's not forget that Pakistan and India have also had a nice little arms race too. Again...not just the US.

    India has been launching satilites for years...since the 70s...this is nothing new. But it's not really far to do a US-Bash here.

  • India Spending money (Score:4)

    by DoorFrame ( 22108 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @05:28PM (#451031) Homepage
    As much as I like to see people putting more energy into the exploration and exploitation of space, doesn't India have a lot of infrastructure to work toward building up before worrying about the cosmos? They've just had an earthquake that killed thousands and thousands of people. How many of those people could have been saved by importing American building standards and restrictions and adding more support to the current buildings?

    It just seems that a country that has constant problems with nature as well as their difficulty in even maintaining basic power [cnn.com] for their population makes me wary that they may best be spending their money elsewhere.

    And yes yes, I realize that these claims might also be applicable to the United States, that we could best be spending the space money elsewhere, but at least we're theoretically on the cutting edge and any of our space development leads into new territory, whereas India is merely exploring territory that is twenty or even thirty years old.

    Do with this what you will.

  • Ironicy (Score:4)

    by stigmatic ( 310472 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @05:50PM (#451032) Homepage
    The Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization also is planning another attempt to shoot down a mock nuclear missile in space, probably in May or June, using the same technologies that produced a spectacular failure last July, the officials said. Two of the last three attempted missile intercepts failed.

    Could it be officials here are disturbed because India could jeapordize the US' intentions of getting their Star Wars program back on the map?

    The officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said test preparations are going ahead in the absence of orders to the contrary from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

    So Mr. Rumsfeld has himself denounced this but they are still going ahead with it.

    Rumsfeld has been briefed in recent days by Ronald Kadish, the Air Force general who runs the missile defense project office.

    Aside from the technical issues yet to be resolved, Russian and Chinese officials offered reminders Tuesday that whatever the design of a U.S. national missile defense, it will be controversial.

    In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi warned that American missile defense "will have a far-reaching and extensive negative impact on the global and regional strategic balance and stability."

    In Moscow, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev asserted that a U.S. missile defense could easily be defeated by technologies the former Soviet Union developed in the 1980s in response to President Reagan's Star Wars plan that was a more ambitious attempt to defend against all-out missile attacks.

    "We had three mighty programs to asymmetrically counteract U.S. national missile defenses during Reagan's 'Star Wars,"' Sergeyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. He gave no details. Although the programs were halted, "We still have them and can take them up again," he said.

    Just think about that for a second. Russia which has in reality little leadership, they'd have nothing to lose. See: Electro Magnetic Pulse [antioffline.com]. Russians have been using it for some time on a very low key basis.

    At a European security conference in Germany last Saturday, Rumsfeld said President Bush intends to deploy a national missile defense. But first Rumsfeld is reviewing the status of the project the Bush administration inherited from the Clinton administration and is considering how to fulfill Bush's pledge to provide a missile shield that would cover not only the United States but also its allies.

    This is a sham in order to make those who disapprove to think the US would actually give a rats ass in the event of a nuclear war. Its a way for politicians to waste tax dollars in order to get kickbacks. Old old old news.

    I could go on but its redundant isn't it ;)

    Oh well here are some hot chicks [antioffline.com] aren't you glad you read the whole thing through?

  • Re:India Spending money (Score:5)

    by MaximusTheGreat ( 248770 ) on Tuesday February 06, 2001 @06:12PM (#451033) Homepage
    Its's not that there are no building standards. Infact BIS(Beauru of India Standards) has pretty good standards. But, the problem is one of corruption due to which they are not enforced.
    Same goes for the power. It's the rampant stealing of the power which is causing problems.

    As, for doing things which are 20-30 years old. The reason is that because of geographical advantage(launch sites near the equator) and cheap research and labour cost they can do it at 1/2 the cost if not lower. They have to launch lots of communication setallites(Important for infrastructure) and remote sensing satellites(important for agriculture). So, you see in the end they save money and not spend it.

    Besides, this creates ancillary industries which creatres jobs and saves precious foriegn exchange. So, the money spent on these launches benefits Indian economy instead of some developed country.

    So, the short answer is that it actually costs less in the long term for India to develop these capabilities then to pay high prices for them to some other country.

    By the way the lower costs is the primary reason that US opposes Indian developing such capability not military applications which are a different ball game. After all US needs to protect it's launching market. Thuough IMHO India will not have enough capacity to take away more then a small but significant share of the launch market. It takes some time to develop that king of manufacturing capacity(note-- not capability)

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