India To Become Aerospace Powerhouse?

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?"

Comments

Re:No conflict

[Wyatt Earp]

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

[DoorFrame]

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 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.

Re:India Spending money

[MaximusTheGreat]

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)

Ironicy

[stigmatic]

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. 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 aren't you glad you read the whole thing through?