India Set To Launch Second Lunar Mission; Land Rover on the Moon (reuters.com) 93
India said on Wednesday it will launch its second lunar mission in mid-July, as it moves to consolidate its status as a leader in space technology by achieving a controlled landing on the moon. From a report: The mission, if successful, would make India only the fourth country behind the United States, Russia and China to perform a "soft" landing on the moon and put a rover on it. China successfully landed a lunar rover in January. The unmanned mission, called Chandrayaan-2, which means "moon vehicle" in Sanskrit, will involve an orbiter, a lander and a rover, which have been built by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The mission is scheduled to launch on July 15 aboard ISRO's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. It will cost about 10 billion rupees ($144 million), ISRO said. After a journey of more than 50 days, ISRO's lander will attempt a "soft," controlled landing on the lunar surface on around Sept. 6.
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I was going to tell you that idea is "full of crap", but then realized that's your very point.
Re:Spend it on toilets, not space. (Score:4, Interesting)
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This isn't just a problem in India, it's a problem everywhere you have lots of people with no access to bathrooms.
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Actually most villages have bathrooms but it is culturally considered unclean to shit under the same roof where you cook food. And from a scientific viewpoint it does make sense if you are talking of pit latrines instead of plumbing as it was in the past. Its better to have pit latrines away from homes if you have the space. In the cities everyone uses toilets (unlike San Francisco).
The Govt is trying massive education and propaganda programs to persuade people in the villages to use the indoor toilets they
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Actually, just as important, is washing of hands. .
who said so? the fear-mongering medicine n big pharma? monkeys don't do it; coakroaches don't do it; i guess the total mass of insects on earth is several times more than humans.
Re:Spend it on toilets, not space. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) India spends many, many times the ISRO budget on "rural development", which includes stuff like sanitation.
2) ISRO actually makes a fair bit of money doing commercial launches.
3) Having a space program with the high tech industry that supports it actually helps the country grow beyond toilets and subsustence farming. It is good for their economy
4) A space program is a great way to instill pride and inspire young people to pursue a scientific or engineering career.
In other words, diverting a tiny part of their budget towards their space program is good for the country.
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Bottom line rural development is the responsibility of the rural regions and the local governments.
The central government funds universities, the military and the space program.
A central government that would interfere with local development makes no real sense in a state as big as India (area and population).
Re: Spend it on toilets, not space. (Score:1)
What you're saying sounds good and all, but in reality it clearly isn't working.
Toilets and sanitation are among the very basic building blocks of modern society. A culture shouldn't even think about anything else, except acquiring food, until they have sanitation taken care of properly.
India is like a newborn trying to run a marathon before even being able to sit up.
Toilets before rockets. It's that simple.
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Rocket scientists are not good at building toilets you know....
Maybe we should ask Zuckerberg to work at Walmart till all their spills are cleaned up....
You'll make the same claims 150 years from now (Score:1)
This argument keeps coming up because what you're saying is bunk!
India still doesn't have proper toilets, decades after people like you started with your failed claims.
You sound like those offshore software project managers who, during every single conference call and status update, repeatedly claim that serious bugs will be fixed "with the utmost of haste". Yet these bugs never get fixed, no matter how many times it's claimed that they will be.
You, or more likely your great-grandchildren, will be making th
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You could get rid of ISRO along with all the good it does for the country, and add the rather small amount of money saved to the rural development budget. It would make pretty much no difference, and India is just as likely to be in th
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Sometimes you get crazy out of touch UAT folks who obsess about non-critical bugs. Debating the importance of the bug would derail the meeting so the easiest thing to do is humor them and move on to more important topics. And yes those bugs will never be fixed but that just part of dealing with Psycho one track obsessed QA. As they say at the Zoo "Dont feed the animals and UAT testers."
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Before any nation spends large sums of money imitating what the US and USSR did 60 years ago, this nation should at least ensure that functioning toilets are available for its entire population, and more importantly, make sure that the population actually uses them.
I'm sure the India will get right on that after the US shuts downs NASA to make sure the population actually vaccinates their kids first. We can cure ignorance with education, but not stupidity.
Re:No more foreign aid to India (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually if markets were really fair and open (e.g. No non tariff barriers like visa Quotas) there is no way the US standard of living would be so much higher than China or India - there is no difference in the average intelligence of folks in any of the 3 countries. Its the US non tariff barriers which preserves the high standard of living in the US.
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India stopped accepting foreign aid almost 10 years back. US made a lot of noise about it as it leads to unemployment of NGO workers who are mostly wives and children of US govt officials. I think it was branded as a freedom of speech issue that NGOs were not being allowed to accept foreign money.
Land Rover on the Moon (Score:1)
Hope it's electric.
And remember to let about 15 psi out of the tires...
Leader? (Score:1)
Um, I hate to break it to you India, but India is not a "leader". China, USA, Russia, and EU are currently ahead.
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That's not what I meant. India is perfectly capable of doing well in space. However, it takes time, money, and experience. They are merely newbies at space, NOT bad people.
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The comma there implies you are calling me 2 of those 3 insults. Was that intended?
Re:Leader? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also point about all the money being spent rather than on toilets... What bullshit!! (pun intended)
Toilets for billion people and such things don't get built out of magic pixie dust.. it requires industrial capability, process capability, management capability. And that gets built out of Organisations like ISRO giving jobs to people who take the higher education, finally revolutionizing all the other sectors with trickle down effects (other ways that can happen is declaring war and channelizing all your energies onto winning... but *ahem* nuclear detterant has ruled that out ;-) ).
Also heavy investment in science and technology has far more good implications to nation and society and is completely worthwhile and as important investment.
And lastly ISRO is poised to be quite a money maker for india, and its good marketing for the business wing.
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Well thats still 4 out of what 190+ nations... We may not be "The" leaders but sure can claim to be one of the leaders after this.
Heck, being "The" leaders doesn't require being the only participants...
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You do know that ISRO was founded before ESA and the Chinese Space Agency. India has been doing space longer than almost anyone besides the Russians and the Americans.
However the govt hasnt spent enough money on Space to really move fast due to India's socialist policies. In the last 20 years the govt has moved to a capitalist economy and realized spending a dollar on space gives 4-5 dollars back in economic development and things are moving faster.
Before SpaceX and reusability ISRO had the cheapest per KG
Tortoise and Hare (Score:2)
Meanwhile, the US has its feet kicked up, laughing at the late-arriving countries: "heh - moon landers are so 50 years ago". Then we'll wonder in 25 years why no one bothered to include us in their moon bases: the rest of the world will treat us like we treat Europe today.
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India is pretty multi-cultural with the big cities having a mix of Aryan, Dravidian and Mongoloid races of India with far fewer racial tensions than in US. If US wants to learn how to be a successful multicultural country it can take some lessons from India which has been absorbing immigrant races, cultures and religions for over 3000 years. The Hindu religion is very encompassing- it has the concept of multiple gods so whenever it encounters a religion with a new God they just absorb it as one more god - b
Re: Hate to break it to you ... (Score:2)
Found the Brit.
They'll bet shitting on lunar streets soon (Score:1)
We choose to shit on the Moon! ... We choose to shit on the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because our streets are already full of shit; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our shitting, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win
Wonder where they plan to rove (Score:4, Interesting)
I read the article but it didn't give any details on what India was planning to do on the moon - where they planned to land, where they planned to drive the rover.
Nice to see a renewed interest in the moon on many fronts, will be even cooler when we get people on Mars but I'd also love to see a real moon base before too many more years have passed!
Good luck to India, may the rover mission fare well!
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I'd also love to see a real moon base before too many more years have passed!
Didn't we just discover the location of the secret location of the Nazi base on the moon? [slashdot.org]
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Doesn't count unless they can get the women to wear purple page boy wigs and silver lame.
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Good luck to India but why is it going to take 50 days to get this to the moon?
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Good luck to India but why is it going to take 50 days to get this to the moon?
Because they're using a very small rocket to get there from Earth orbit. Israel's moon lander took about a month for the same reason (which technically was smaller still, but larger in comparison to its payload).
Very efficient rockets save a lot on fuel weight, but have very low thrust. It only helps to burn somewhere close to peirgee, and that gives you a limited time window. Fixed time window * low thrust = not enough change in orbit to get to the moon. So they'll do a burn once per orbit until they'v
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Oh, I see what they are doing. I should have put more thought into it. They are basically substituting time for power to get a payload to the moon with a more fuel efficient course.
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It says right in the headline that they plan to drive a Land Rover around. Not sure how well it would work with no atmosphere but it's probably good for climbing those dunes.
Good Luck to India (Score:3)
Once they stop manipulating their money and trying to dump this on foreign markets (esp. on the west), we should then allow them to compete here.
Likewise, we need to give them the specs on docking ports and allow them to add it to a human capsule, practice in space and finally become part of ISS.
At least it is not manned (Score:1)
Curry IN SPACE...... (Score:2)
So first Chiken Vindaloo in space?
Not speaking about the British (Score:2)
The British are in no shape to launch a mission to the moon. Too busy with Brexit. Let them enjoy their Vindaloo and CTM in peace. No knowing how much longer they can afford to eat once Europe stops subsidizing them
Land Rover (Score:2)
Has anyone pointed out that launching a Land Rover to the moon might not be a good idea? They're pretty heavy as they aren't optimized for weight and the ICE isn't going to work in vacuum. On the upside the 4x4 system could be quite useful, if it had something driving it I suppose.
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