Slashdot Mirror
India Plans Moon Mission In 2005
ghoul writes: "I just came across this article in which the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced plans for a moon mission. Considering that till now India has only launched geo-synchronous satellites, that's a big leap. But ISRO scientists claim by using a lightweight orbital vehicle they can use their existing PSLV (which launches 1-tonne missions into polar orbit) to send an orbiter to the moon.
The full article is available at India Today ." (No, not a manned mission, at least not yet.)
Its about time the US got some competition in the space arena
Duh ? Ever heard of the Russians ? The French ? They both have very good space infrastructure - hell, the French even have a bigger market share than the US in term of commercial space launch ! The Russians have always been better than Nasa for manned missions (you can laugh at Mir problems, yet it did more than Nasa ever did). Even the Japanese and Chinese have some kind of space industry (yet quite small right now). The US always had some competition in the space industry, from the first Spoutnik to the modern Ariane V.
Good. Its about time the US got some competition in the space arena. Nothing could be better to get us interested in space again.
This is not an article about a planned moon mission, this is an article about a planned proposal for a moon mission.
In the next six months the team will wrestle with the details of launching such a mission, including its cost-effectiveness and the areas in which Indian scientists can significantly add to the mountain of knowledge that has already been collected about the moon. It will form the basis of a project report that ISRO will submit to the Central Government for approval
They have no funding, no governmental support, no scientific sponsors and no plan. Hey if all you need is a "desire" to get press, hell, I'm planning a mission to mars!
In the next six months my team will wrestle with the details of launching such a mission, including its cost-effectiveness and the areas in which /. wannabe scientists can significantly add to the mountain of knowledge that has already been collected about the Mars. It will form the basis of a project report that 348 will submit to the Slashdot submission queue for approval.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Um, no. A crore is 100 lakh and a lakh is 100 000. So the estimated cost is 3.5 x 10^10 rupees, which is about $10^9.
This is either very cheap for a manned mission or very expensive for a probe.
Sure, NASA's budget may look massive by the standards of ONE INDIVIDUAL. But try comparing it to any of the MANY money pits the US dumps dollars into... and it's a (tiny) drop in the bucket.
Compare it to the money dumped into social security every year (thanks HEAPS.. F-ing FDR)
Compare it to the money dumped into national debt intrest every year (thanks HEAPS.. F-ing congress)
Sorry, but If *I* were appointed "budget root" and tasked with cutting wasteful government fat, NASA'd be nowhere NEAR the top of the list. In fact, it'd prolly get a budget INCREASE, even AFTER a tax cut, AND a faster repayment schedule for the national debt.
Want all of the gory details of where money is wasted? Go to:
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
From 1999 Country Reports on Economic Policy and Trade Practices:
India:
Labor Force (millions) 420.0
Unemployment Rate (pct)22.5
So compared to the US, things are all well and good... and that goes for the 1960s as well as now.
In the "new economy" India has an opportunity to cash in on the vast resource of mental power that their population provides, transforming the liability of overpopulation into the asset of a highly skilled work force.
Building nukes may help a little, going to the moon may help a lot, but either way, they have a long way to go before misery and the assault on human dignity ends in India.
And yes, that is even in comparison to the U.S., home of Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Simpson murders, and (the horror, the horror) Kiddieland in San Antonio, TX.
Then again, who knows... Maybe there entire program consists of hiring the crazy rocket guy and blasting him to the moon. After all, the guy is crazy, and he's already had some training. It'd save the Indian project much money!
---
seumas.com
pencil tips break. On earth, this isnt that big of a deal, but in space, these things could cause problems. Graphite dust or pencil tips getting sucked into the computers.. or facing the threat of getting a piece of it lodged in your eye or throat.
Admittedly, it may not be the most cost-effective thing in the world, but NASA doesnt like to take chances with its people.
It's history repeating itself. If you consider the political climate in India and the cold war they are caught in with Pakistan, the situation closely mirrors the one between the US and USSR in the late 60's. India has detonated it's first H-bomb in the past two years, and Pakistan still reserves the right to do the same. Both countries are scared of China, which is also engaged in an effort to build a nuclear arsenal. That region of the world is de-stabilizing. India needs to show they are technologically superior. Given the right incentive, you may see the Indian government get on board with this moon mission.
We went to the moon for the very same reasons.
One of NASA's major criticisms is that the American taxpayers basically pay to do a lot of very interesting but socially useless things when the money could better be spent on helping social programs like welfare and Medicare (whether or not you agree is beyond this argument; the fact that it is a criticism is fairly well known). With ISRO this is even /more/ so. If you think you've seen poverty in the Western world, wait til you see poverty in India, and then realize that there's a lot more of it. India is overpopulated, under-industrialized, in a state of almost constant conflict in Kashmir with Pakistan, and reeling from a set of natural disasters. ISRO would be better off, like the article says, commercializing and, like what the article doesn't say, solicity foreign investment and support for their mission. Unfortunately, their main reason for doing this isn't scientific (which, honestly, a proposal to orbit the moon for several years could actually be quite beneficial to understanding how the moon changes over time), but rather, for Indian pride, just like the nuclear weapons detonations two years ago and just like nearly every other major public undertaking.
A long time ago, the world learned that moon missions were like drinking after a bad day: they hid the problems, but they didn't fix them. We turned away from nuclear proliferation, wasteful manned missions, and 'just for the sake of doing it' public spending and instead focused on understanding and making our own world better. Maybe India needs to get over it's inferiority complex and utilize the vast social and economic resources it has squandered thus far, and think about doing things with the rest of the world that will benefit its people, not its image.
Of course, the space sation is already five years overdue and over budget by a factor of something like ten, without being more than a quarter completed. But the situation with that was politically and technically quite different.
Sure, the superpowers may say 'been there, done that', but one advance this mission might show us (as well as crazy rocket guy's mission) is how to do space travel cheaply and on short notice. If NASA could do missions this cheaply, they could just send up three at a time to boost their success rate. =)
Reliable, cheap, turn-key space travel is what will bring the future here. Like computers: moving from ENIAC to the Vaio laptop.
Despite the valid scientific reasons for sending a probe, it's clear that the real reason they're interested is prestige. India is an aspiring superpower, locked in a 3-way local arms-race with Pakistan and China. Gearing up their space program is one way of showing superiority over the Pakistanis, and keeping up with the Chinese (who are preparing for a manned launch with their Shen Zhou capsule). The science and technological spinoffs are just cream.
As for worries that this is just a cover for missile research, I think they're barking up the wrong tree. If the Indian PSLV can put a 1-ton satellite into 1000km polar orbit, it's perfectly capable of lobbing bombs at Washinton or Beijing. The reason the Indians aren't deploying it as an ICBM is almost certainly because they lack an adequete guidance system, not because they lack a decent booster. Throwing probes at the moon probably won't help the quest to get 500-meter accuracy with a warhead...
Idiot/Savant