India To Launch Mars Orbiter "Mangalyaan" Tuesday 109
sfcrazy writes "On Tuesday (Mangalwaar) the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) will launch the Mars orbiter Mangalyaan from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The spaceship will take over 10 months to reach Mars and, if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt, and would beat close rival China whose recent mission failed."
This just in from Martian Air Defence (Score:5, Funny)
if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt
"Challenge accepted."
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India will offshore their offshores to Mars.
First mission? (Score:1)
But after they are done, Mars will say "Thank you, come again," right?
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome now that India has their poverty and corruption issues finally solved.
Just like all the other slightly-spacefaring nations?
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Awesome now that India has their poverty and corruption issues finally solved.
Just like all the other slightly-spacefaring nations?
I live in the United States, a country that has sent many probes to Mars and beyond, and there's really no poverty here, we are an exceptional nation. Our biggest problem is all these people who live off food stamps. Once we stop the food stamps, we'll be even more exceptional.
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Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Science research and development, engineering, and technical progress is arguably more useful for moving societal issues forwards. The byproduct is better education, a smarter population, and better job opportunities. You can spend money trying to fix social problems all you want, but ultimately people need to know that their future is secure, their bellies can be filled, and they can support themselves beyond any one-off public spending not to be recovered. Claiming that poverty or corruption need be "solved" first is a recipe for disaster and not compatible with what happens in all of the developed world (which still has poverty and corruption to a small but significant extent).
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree in general but still sending a probe to Mars is a political stunt to show India is also coming up, not just China. There are million things India could be investing money into that would bring a better return in areas that you mention than this.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree in general but still sending a probe to Mars is a political stunt to show India is also coming up, not just China.
Politicians everywhere are largely useless at directing resources to where they need to go. Why complain here when it could have as easily gone into something less useful? Political stunt or not they are doing the right things.
There are million things India could be investing money into that would bring a better return in areas that you mention than this.
Well time and again physics has been shown to be the driver of much of our progress. Just have a look at how long it took biologists to make use of x-rays or scattering of electrons into a microscope, the chemists to see the value of quantum theory in understanding how molecules form and interact, how at CERN Tim Berners Lee invented HTML and how the next super fast cables that will replace gigabit ethernet have been made and tested there, or the origin of duct tape, and I could go on and on. India (and China) in my opinion understand that physics research in particular gives the best bang for the buck. Good on them for not cowering away from hard physics challenges.
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Last time I checked, NASA wasn't ever in the commercial launch business, LOL. An African country could certainly walk up to any of the commercial launch providers, such as SpaceX, ULA, Roskosmos, etc.
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Just out of curiosity, how do you think all those commercial satellites currently in orbit got there? Most of them got launched by NASA, especially the ones that have been there for more than five or six years.
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I agree in general but still sending a probe to Mars is a political stunt to show India is also coming up, not just China. There are million things India could be investing money into that would bring a better return in areas that you mention than this.
Actually, India has been developing its satellite industry and is looking to be the cheap way of getting communication satellites in orbit. From some articles I've read, their costs are 1/10th of what other countries are asking and so India can be major player in satellite technology. They have communication, weather and military satellites in orbit already.
The mars mission is just a natural extension of what they have been doing for years. Besides they do have scientific objectives as well. One article s
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The 2nd sentence applies to any and all countries. Oh, and you better had some hard numbers for the "better return" claim.
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not really.. one of the biggest problem India is facing is the huge and growing population. Now India cannot export them to other countries because of visa restrictions so they are planning to export Indians to Mars.
Oh India! (Score:2)
Initially on first pass I would agree. However I think it goes beyond simply a political stunt. True India has a number of basic problems to deal with, but this may be something that pushes that agenda forward.
With the US and NASA basically "outsourcing" their space program, it offers opportunities to others. The country that can land those space contracts (I can't believe I just wrote space contracts, what is this Firefly?), not only will get a big boost into their space program and associated technology a
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Well. Showing that they're capable of non-trivial engineering feats, like launching payload into Mars orbit, might create more international business for local industries. So it might be good for more than creating patriotic feelings in the populace.
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well yeah...
but there's still the issue of building plumbing to attend. plenty of science in that.
you can't buy a police that isn't corrupt but you can buy pipes that pipe shit - and you should if you have a populace with the attitude that "this is not a slum, open sewers are normal! how could _I_ live in a slum? so clearly it is not a slum!".
that is the GREAT engineering project any nation aspiring for greatness has gone through - dumping the resources, these same resources, on that would achieve real wond
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Yea a rocket to mars is more important than the disease, sanitation and starvation issues they have.
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I remember when Indira Gandhi declared that India was going to spend millions of dollars on universities and educational subsidies people said the very same thing, "They're wasting their money when there are people starving!"
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US made it on Second Attempt (Score:5, Informative)
In case anyone was wondering, the US succeeded on the country's second attempt to launch a mission to Mars. This was the Mariner 4 flyby launched Nov 28, 1964. The first US attempt, the identical Mariner 3, failed three weeks earlier when the shroud on the launch vehicle failed to open properly.
The second attempt by the US to orbit Mars was also successful; Mariner 9 in 1971 became the first (human) probe to orbit Mars (or any other planet), followed within a month by the Russian Mars 2 and Mars 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars [wikipedia.org]
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You apparently didn't live in Appalachia at the time. India at least has electricity and most of the country can read.
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You apparently didn't live in Appalachia at the time. India at least has electricity and most of the country can read.
But they don't have bluegrass. Just bollywood theme songs.
"if everything goes well" (Score:2)
No pressure. You only get one first.
It's not like hundreds of millions of Indian kids (Score:1)
Hey, it's not like there are hundreds of millions of Indian kids who don't have access to clean water and are therefore at risk of major infections.
Oh.
Wait.
It is.
I for one welcome our Martian Bollywood Overlords, but wish they followed Vishnu not Kali.
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Hey, it's not like there are hundreds of millions of Indian kids who don't have access to clean water ...
No problem. There's water on Mars.
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True, but what small percentage of the population in India gives a damn about them? I know my two best friends that are Indian don't even care about children that are dying where they're from. It's not that they are bad people. It's just that they have come to accept that many children will die. It's just a different society. When I went to our office near Chennai and there was a dead toddler on the street in front of the entrance and no one cared then I knew that their society was simply one that I, a
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No wonder they keep pumping out more kids then. If you can't support your current population, stop making so many new people.
Mighty big "IF" (Score:5, Informative)
if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt,
That's i really big "If".
The USSR failed on their first 8 attempts starting in 1960. They managed to get some our moon on the ninth attempt five years later, still not successful in getting to Mars though. They managed to make Mars orbit in 1971 after 11 failed attempts. Granted, this was very early in manned space flight. Even so, failure is still a very common outcome for any nation attempting it. The EU made it to orbit in 2004, but the lander did not make it. Between 1988 and 1999, the US had three Mars missions that failed, The USSR/Russia 3, and Japan had one as well. In that 11 year span only the US Mars Global Surveyor and Pathfinder missions were successful.
It's not easy to get there, but I certainly wish India the best of luck doing it on the first try. That would be quite a feat.
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They managed to get some our moon on the ninth attempt
I meant; "They managed to get some pictures of our moon..."
Re:Mighty big "IF" (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to underestimate the difficulty of sending a payload to Mars, but they *do* have the combined 40+ years of US and USSR experience upon which to draw. When the US and USSR were putting people into orbit, landing them on the moon, sending probes to Mars, etc., it had literally never been done before. The mere fact that something has been done before- and that data collected during the attempt is available- gives the Indian Space Research Organisation an advantage that literally no country has had before it.
Again, this is not to minimise the challenge, which will be enormous. It's only to point out that they're not flying blind, so to speak.
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And that is *precisely* why I emphasized not to underestimate the difficulty.
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A lot of hardcore engineering data from those space programs is either unavailable to foreigners, or still secret, or lost forever. Seriously. SpaceX can't hire foreigners, for example. India, or any other country, for that matter, can't really get any hard-core reusable engineering data from U.S. space programs, not without going through a drawn-out export licensing process at best.
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We're still talking about 40 years of technology and engineering process evolution. I think it's a great achievement, but even if they nail it on the first try, it's not remotely close to the challenge to the first probes. Add to that knowledge of the rigors of the trip and the Martian environment as well as several different landing models employed by NASA.
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Seeing as how I was the first to mention it in this , it's hardly as if *everyone* was saying this, the way you suggest. But, if the US + USSR aren't being forthcoming w/their expertise, then there is certainly less information on which to draw. I would note 2 things that may be available, though:
* Some aspects of failures are in the public record (such as the US experience w/conflict between Metric + US/Imperial measures)
* The scientists + engineers who worked on the past projects may be bought just as peo
It'll be late, over budget and won't work... (Score:2, Funny)
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From the hocus-pocus dept. (Score:1)
The scientists involved in the launch are praying to many gods to make the launch a success. Why am I feeling assured about the success now? http://www.financialexpress.com/news/indias-mars-mission-the-countdown-begins-for-isros-voyage-to-the-red-planet/1178892 [financialexpress.com]
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It is tradition. Like NASA's 'lucky peanuts'. Infact, NASA has sent some over to ISRO for passing around during the launch.
Outsourcing hunt, India not cheap enough (Score:2, Funny)
Martians allegedly work for 3% the wage rate of Americans. With 21 tentacles they can key in code like nobody's mama.
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Better, faster, cheaper. Pick two.
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What about tentaclier?
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That would be the Japanese space program, I think.
0.37% of the National Budget (Score:1, Interesting)
The entire Indian space program is 0.37% of the national budget. This Mars mission is even a smaller fraction of that.
So, no, you ain't going to solve poverty and hunger by allocating 0.37% of the budget to welfare schemes.
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0.34% is ISRO's budget. 0.08% of that is for the Mars payload. Roughly $20 million. I am sure the Jackasses here know how to solve poverty etc with that.
Will they... (Score:1)
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Will they be building the first Martian call center?
Judging by the time I spend on-hold with their phone support, one would think the call is being routed via Mars!
A different view of the event (Score:1)
Future Slashdot headline (Score:1)
"Indian Mars probe successfully completes mission as slashdot twits eat large quantities of Humble Pie!!"
Launched (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24729073
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Mars & Moon (Score:1)
a century of rocket science (Score:2)
For anyone who needs some perspective ... (Score:1)
Re: Spellcheck (Score:1)
Re: Spellcheck (Score:1)
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Re: Spellcheck (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Spellcheck (Score:4, Informative)
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While not a native speaker (mine is Malayalam, which has plenty of words originating in Sanskrit), I have heard yaan being used in both senses - journey and vehicle.
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AC is right.. everyone.. please don't miss-interpret the word "yaan" otherwise it will bring bad luck to India's mars mission.
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Rule 1 on the Internet: Don't correct someone else's spelling.