Slashdot Mirror
India Plans Its Own Moon Shot
anzha writes: "CNN is reporting that India is planning an unmanned mission to Luna in 2007. The US, Russia (when it was the USSR), and Japan are the only nations to have done so, or so they say. For some reason, I thought that ESA, the European Space Agency, had sent one also. At any rate, while I'd like to see the Stars and Stripes posted all over the galaxy, more competition is better! So, all I have to say is, 'Go, India! Go!'" I wonder if China is still on track for 2005.
I guess its better then nuclear escalation with Pakistan... notice how they seem to be mirroring the US-USSR cold war?
Now they will know for sure the moon isn't made of curry!
"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein," - Joe Theisman
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When I read the headline my first thought was that they planned on nuking the moon.
I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner. After all, it's incredibly rewarding for a nation to land on the moon. Look at all we got out of it. Like, ehh... That is to say, we obviously have the advantage of ... The benefits to us are... umm... Clearly, you could say that we...
Wait, no, we didn't get squat. Darn!
------
http://cooltech.org
If it ain't cool, it ain't coolt
Freeze-dried samosas and pakoras. Yum!
Those people are going to have it MADE.
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
Why? Are you proud of things like the DMCA?
Perhaps they're going there to open up a 7-11?!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
it had to be said. Seriously though, this is pretty neat stuff, IMO. India is an odd position - in a lot of ways they're first world (large democracy, good-when-present educational system, has nukes). At the same time they have horrible poverty, overpopulation, and religious strife. A moon mission is great. A good AIDs/population growth program would be too.
...the great India/Pakistan space race. Which Second World nation will get a man on the moon second? Only Allah/Vishnu knows!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Moon Shot as Poop Shoot? Must be hanging out with Cowboy Neal too much...
but wouldn't be of more value for us to work on acheiving some larger, rather then fighting with each other?
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
They need to put one up there for future visitors.
And something about 'harvesting minerals for the benefit of all mankind'.
Personally, I hope they set up the first take-out on the moon.
lets just shoot at it. things pisses me off
Personally, I think India is just trying to "curry" favour with the more developed nations.
--
Employing incompetence: $35/h
Fixing the resulting mistakes: $1000's
Employing me: Priceless
"...while I'd like to see the Stars and Stripes posted all over the galaxy,..."
Ya know, I never understood this. It seems to me the the "space race" should be humankind against itself, not each country against the other. Speaking as both a citizen of both the US and the world, If India or China or anyone else reaches Mars before the US, I'll be damn proud that my race made it to Mars.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
*Whew* that was close!
Granted, the real motivation is to demonstrate to Pakistan and China that they have missi^H^H^H^H^H launch vehicles capable of reaching escape velocity, and thus, any targe^H^H^H^H^Hlocation on the planet.
But that said - it was precisely the same showboating against the Soviets that got us to the moon.
And if the same showboating can get either India or China (or both!) to the moon, maybe they'll be able to send a few scientists along for the ride. It's Space Race, Mk. II!
I'm not naive enough to believe that this will result in a permanent manned lunar base, or any long-term exploration of the lunar surface and subsurface, but I'm at least optimistic that we [humanity] will be able to piggyback a few scientists along for the ride, and learn a few things that we couldn't easily learn with robotic missions.
It's depressing that we're still at the stage where a guy with a pick and shovel can accomplish more in five minutes on the moon's surface than any probe NASA is likely to launch in the next 50 years.
we're launching this missle, I mean rocket, to go to the... oh yeah, moon!
come on fhqwhgads
IANAI (I am not an Indian), but I'm going to have to agree that I just don't seem the point. The article claims it may foster more national pride and whatnot, but surely that $82.5 million could foster national pride by going more directly to the citizens. Granted it would amount to, what, 80 cents per person, but can't there be something done with that? Can't they show scientific and intellectual prowess by doing something that hasn't already been done and/or would directly benefit people?
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" -Ronald Reagan
- This was the quote at the bottom of the page when I read the comments. Heh.
I read about the situation in Kashmir and I think "man, they really need to get their shit together."
A week later I read that they're planning a moon shot and I think "well, they seem to be on a modern track."
Hopefully, with time and peace I'll be reading more of the latter than of the former.
I'm very happy to hear that India is willing to push itself to new heights. If there is any country that would want to colonize the moon (or mars), Its India. (well, china too). There you go. There's the space race..
- Tempestdata
Didn't the US get there first, plant a flag, claimed it for her king? Will the US shoot trespassers on sight?
Going to the moon is pretty much BFD these days, regardless of *who* does it.
What I want to see is a nation or a group of nations going to the moon for the purpose of DOING something. Not just collecting rocks or whatever the hell is usually done. Beginning mining operations, perhaps? Setting up a permanent lunar base? Off-world factories? ANYTHING!
I'd like to think we're beyond popping the hatch and poking our heads out the door, then flying back, or at least should be working that way.
Umm Yea..
Shooting for the "Moon".. thats why we are building this nuclea.. err.. rocket.. unmanned mission to the moon.. right.. those launching facilities.. really.. goin to the moon..
Cant wait till pakistan is gone and india's celebrating its "moon landing"
I'm a bit worried that with all this attention being paid to the Moon by other countries they might start to get the idea that they should be able to own a bit of it. One thing that most people don't realize is that the American flag placed on the Moon was more than purely symbolic; under U.S. law, they were actually staking a claim on the land for America. That's one of the reasons the commercial interest in fully exploiting the Moon's potential as a tourist site is based in our country -- corporations realize that our government is going to have the final say over whether or not businesses will exist on the Moon at all. There's even something in the U.S. Code to this effect.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Let's get the UN together and form an "Interplanetary Park Service." Then instead of simply sending a probe to the moon, we could send a manned mission to "Luna Interplanetary Park." Please don't take home any moon rocks - and no eating green cheese, either.
On a more serious note, though, I think that this is a good idea. Sometime in the future I'm sure we'll be figuring out how to colonize the moon (maybe not cause we have to, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who want to). Also, when countries spend more time and money on space programs and less on nuclear ones, that's always a good thing.
"Who am I" and "Why are we here" are not the problems.
The problem is when someone asks "Why are they here."
...when Belgium sends a manned mission to Venus. So long, Dirk!
India's moon shot will never beat this one. It's an advertising flyer from a 1981 video game called "Moon War".
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
that NASA is going to sue all the moon rocks they bring back.
I mean, come on this isn't some nation that's sitting fat on it's ass with more post 1950's clout and luxury than it needs looking for something to challenge it. This is a country that has serious problems regarding poverty and overpopulation. Going to the moon would be a wasteful stunt by a country that can't afford to waste anything.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
look, we proved it wasn't made of cheese. and unless they are sending mining robots, there's not a lot to see there. doing this for national pride seems a strange thing to do. they should pitch in and send up some parts for the space station. the plus side is you learn from every shot. also, how long before there is so much orbital debris that sending a ship into orbit is certain doom? more players in the space race means that near-space environmentalism maybe the new cause for students to cry about. just a thought
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge
The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
If you wanted to sell satellite launching services to neighboring countries, and you're competing with, say, China and Japan, showing you have an equivalent launching technology to the big guys would have significant public relations value.
Apparently the Indian government made a mistake in their CBA. Negative means lost money, people!
How on Earth (pun intended) can this be justified? While the US/USSR space race gave us lots of new technologies (was the microwave part of that? Tang?), there is nothing to be gained for India by doing the same at this late stage.
This is obviously part of their on-going dance with Pakistan. Kinda makes me hate politics...
Does this mean they will be recalling all their H1B's to work on it?
Table-ized A.I.
I'd like to see the Stars and Stripes posted all over the galaxy
:)
Well the British will probably colonise it soon enough
(Provided Blair is kicked out)
You were expecting a sig?
ESA is just preparing it's first trip to moon, it's project called SMART-1. It's going to travel to moon, but the key of the project is to test the new propulsion system, which is planned to be used for much longer trips.
Sounds like the first lunar base will be a 7-11 store!!!
What will be the Effect on the "power of cheese" advertisements?
This'll kill their "we thought the moon was made of cheese. We've never been back" argument.
"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race." One day, when we're tired of killing each other over borders, religion, and Michael Jordan running shoes, maybe we can get it together long enough to realize that accomplishments such as space travel are something that shouldn't be saddled with the burden of a flag.
I moderate "-1, Fool"
Why does the myth that we never landed on the moon persist?
Why do people still refuse to believe that humans have visited other celestial bodies?
I don't buy the assumption that big projects are somehow mutually exclusive; that launching a space probe somehow directly steals food from the mouth of an orphan.
It suggests, firstly, that the government is responsible for every facet of human existence. Perhaps this might be the case in a fairy-tale centrally planned economy where there's some giant spreadsheet with line items for every penny spent.
It also suggests that the great problems could be fought simply by ponying up a bit more cash. The reason poverty, strife, and AIDS are so tough to fight--particularly in a ethnically divisive, caste-ridden society like India--is that they are problems rooted in human nature; in ignorance, wishful thinking, prejudice, greed and so on. The logistical problems involved in, say, producing and distributing a billion condom, is nothing compared to the challenge of getting guys to use them. Or getting a mom to bring in her kid for a free vaccination when damn he sure cried like the dickens last time he got a shot.
Symbolic achievements like moon shots might concievably help by giving people something to feel proud about and a standard to live up to.
Or it could be a stunt to get some pol reelected.
Stefan "Neoliberal? Damn straight!" Jones
I guess it's better than the rampade poverty India faces, but hey, gotta find something to rag on the US about, right?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Wow, now you seem like a real stereotypical ugly American... I thought those only existed in movies. Are you for real?
We should sell them some of our moon rocks for about half the cost of sending the probe.
Or do they just want to advance their nuclear delivery system enough to nuke us back to Stonehinge?
Those Kids(China/India), when we went to the moon do you know what we would have given for a 386, hell a TI graphing calculator was a dream. You and your 'were going to the moon', We went uphill both ways..
Now lonely astronaut will have some company.n .asp?affil =mj
http://minibytes.mondominishows.com...i
how did i know this would end in prostitution, and a reference to chinese girls?
loser.
Does anybody have links to more information about the Japanese efforts? I don't recall hearing about them.
Has Japan actually sent something moonward? Can anyone supply links to information about that? (Beyond info on "Selene") Thanks.
Check out this article. Gee, that looks familiar.
I'm not saying that without the space program/race/etc. of the 60's we would never invent things like personal computers and the internet, but it gave modern technology a huge boost. Without the space program I suspect that right about now we'd be looking forward to the next generation of 300-baud modems.
I have heard too many debates on this go back and forth.
It seems that the bottom line is that nobody knows for sure what the benefits were because we have no "with" and "without" to compare side-by-side.
Yes, they did pump money into silicone chips, but just how much did that make a difference? A two-year differences? 6-months? Decade?
Nobody really knows. What if the moon money was pumped *directly* into technology research instead?
Perhaps we would have better chips because we would not have wasted it all at the dentist for drinking too much Tang.
Table-ized A.I.
Why do people still refuse to believe that humans have visited other celestial bodies?
Since they weren't "fooled" by the "fake" moon landings, and we were, that must make them smarter than we are.
Another factor is that people who are generally suspicious/disdainful of the US as a whole, or the federal government specifically, can support their beliefs with the claim that one of the US gov't's high profile acheivements was actually a fraud. I'm not claiming that these people are deliberately lying, just that human nature makes us more likely to believe claims that support our prejudices.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
It would probably make for some killer nachos
Apu: thank you, come again
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
News with the title "India plans to raise from poverty and have a middle class" would be more interesting.
By bouncing, of course!
example.org - powered by Linux!
One lunar squishy please!
I was actually quite disturbed that someone would write something like this until i realized its all bullshit.
Any competition is a good thing (IMO)...
SOMETHING needs to give the space program another kick in the pants. The Space Station has sucked away all of the money that might have been spent on more interesting projects, and it doesn't look like it's ever going to turn into the 'springboard to the solar system' some of us were hoping for...
Mostly a rant, here, but shouldn't the purpose of a Space Station / Moon Base be to further our reach to the rest of the area around the Earth? Where is the part on the space station that helps refuel the long-distance missions? Repair Bay for Satellites? Farm module to TRY to make it self-sustaining? It's like it's a big campout up there w/o the hunting/fishing going on...Just have mom bring out some more packs of pop-tarts every month. {GRIN}
First China, now India.
Is every country and their dog gonna do this now?
I guess it beats nuke fights, but poor countries are gonna bilk their starving citizens.
At least I hope they get creative after a few dozen, or it will just get boring. The British can land in a blue phone-booth-shaped craft, for example (Dr. Who reference). The U.S. lander was butt-ugly. It looks like they didn't bother to finish it.
What other interesting stereotypes can be turned into landing craft shapes? (Please, no giant wan-tan or burrito ideas.)
Table-ized A.I.
How on Earth (pun intended) can this be justified? While the US/USSR space race gave us lots of new technologies (was the microwave part of that? Tang?), there is nothing to be gained for India by doing the same at this late stage.
There's (allegedly) a huge black market for moon rock. CNN reported one going for $5M. If they could gather 20 small rocks and get them back to India, then the entire project would have been paid for!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Nope. Money transfer to space/defense contractors.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I am quite happy to see India making a shot at the moon perhaps then we can get rid of our corrupt
politicians by shipping them of to the moon.
to see stories you suggest get rejected and then end up on /. several hours later. Sheesh.
I think I'll go cry and whine in the corner for a while.
-slashwhiner
I mean after all, for a quickie-mart to prosper, there has to be a customer base. I must have missed something...
If America can put a man on the moon, why can't they find Osama bin Laden?
Ooops, my mistake, they can't do either!
I demand that GW Bush stops this terrorist act!
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
http://slashdot.jp
India has a thriving middle class, go there and see.
Yes there is widespread poverty, doesn't stop a country from dropping everything to get people out of it.
How many Americans are without health insurance?
How many Americans are in jail?
How many Americnas suffer from obesity?
These things don't stop America from pursuing research, sports, the arts etc., and it is the same thing FOR EVERY OTHER COUNTRY!
Will the rocket be curry-powered, or vindaloo-powered?
I think maybe India should worry about more pressing things, things closer to home, oh I don't know, FEEDING THEIR CITIZENS??!!
What's the point? What are they going to learn that hasn't been "learned" already? $90M down the tubes.
PS: How many hamburgers in $90M? Oh, wait... I forgot... Beef - It's what's for the after life.
Whatever...
For the cost of setting up a lunar base (billions at least, presumably, even if you just filled a cave with air and put a door on it) and then sent 1% of the population there (~9,000,000 people) (god only knows) you could just buy a large chunk of russia/saudi arabia/montana/etc., ship the people there and buy them food for the rest of their lives.
Obviously colonization woudln't be any sort of short-term solution, as no one's going to have the capability in the short term. It seems to me, however, that by the time it would actually be possible the population crisis will have already come to a head and we'll have either dealt with it or died trying. Or died ignoring it, for that matter, as would seem to be the current policy.
Recently, Kalam (considered to be father of indian missile technology) was elected=NOMINATED (india has different democrary system) as president of India. and now this news.. damn! they should have atleast got the timing right.
At least they are not wasting government money on the starving, malnourished, and dying.
I do think that, social problems aside, it's great that India is taking this step. Compromises have to be made in a society between progress and societal welfare and, indirectly, short-term and long-term benefits.
What I want to know, though, is why they're not doing something new and useful? How much will they actually get out of this, compared to what they could get out of another space mission that tries something nobody has done before, even if it's more likely to fail? And wouldn't the prestige and "social standing" of the country be all the better for pushing existing boundries?
Maybe if there were a few million moons orbitting our planet in such a manner that their behavior is only loosely predictable, we'd've had a hard time putting a man on the moon.
Please, go read some Heinlein (or Allan Steele, or John Varley).
There is a flaw to your reasoning - expecting nations or governments to accomplish what the market should do. Companies and individuals have given us all of the great things we have (with a few notable exceptions, yes). Governments give us tax, wasted resources, and genocide.
As soon as the US government removes their immoral monopoly on space travel, I expect we will see quite the renaissance of our silly little species. Until then, we are doomed to this rock, and to the company of people who expect "the government" to do great things, instead of expecting to be able to do great things themselves.
Donut,
ION
An Indian private company plans to send a boy to the moon climbing a magic carbon fiber rope. The unmentioned company says magic ropes are cool.
All that stuff out there belongs to me!
You dirty apes stay down on Earth or I'll call the cops.
Go India Go.
Aren't the objections to the space program always centered around what better use could be made of the money?
Are there not better uses for this money in India? Or is it ok for any country *other* than the U.S. to have a good space program?
We couldn't go to the moon now even if we wanted to anyway, which is a crying, tragic shame.
Maybe we could outsource the space program? </sarcasm>
>>At any rate, while I'd like to see the Stars and Stripes posted all over the galaxy, more competition is better! >>
I'm 45. I watched Americans WALK on the MOON when I was TWELVE!
Unmanned? Who cares? What I want to know is the same thing all my friends want to know: Why aren't we skiing on Mars? Where are the flying cars? Where are the android hookers? Who dropped the frigging ball and how can we fire them? Aaaarghh!
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
Does any body think these space programs are a colossal waste of public money? I mean exactly what do you gain from them? Cool, sure. Apart from that, what do these international space stations, and moon trips, etc. achieve? Do research in nuclear energy (and bombs, if you want to), medicines, computer science, food science, etc., but these mega billion dollar space programs are totally useless.
how the fuck can ANYONE say we didn't get anything out of it?
but isn't Lance Bass from N'Sync on the moon right now?
:)
This
Without which Al Bundy would be unable to make Tang sandwiches.....I actually prefer Tang to real orange juice....which of course drove my parents nuts...
These people refuse to use building machines. Everything is built and moved by hand. There are no power tools (at least where I visited last year).
They're methodology is that dump trucks and bull dozers cost people there jobs. So they'd rather have a line of 20 women with bricks stacked on their heads 4 feet tall walking ramps to their destination.
All building is done with hand tools (ie: manual saws and turn style drills).
This is a culture that doesn't use toilet paper or soap in it's bathrooms. The homes that even have indoor plumbing use a contraption that looks like a small shower head for cleaning their 'backside' after using the crouching toilet. Talk about getting your pants wet!
This is a very unevolved country.
I hate to be brutaly honest but the only way an Indian is getting into space would be if the US Government replaces the current NASA astronaughts with H1-B Visa workers.
I bet the BO will be _really_ bad... bad enough just standing next to them...
Why do geeks feel that they can change the name of the Moon? I personally feel that it is incredibly ignorant to call the Moon Luna or the Sun Sol. The Moon and The Sun are it`s names. It`s like people who insist on calling Israel Jewish-occupied-Palestine or something (NOT flamebait! Not getting into a I-P debate, just making an analogy!).
Does anyone else feel this way, or am I the only one? I understand that "The Moon" and "The Sun" are very Earth-centric terms, and obviously most planets and every solar system has their own "Moon" and "Sun," but I still feel that we have not come to a point where this name change is necessary. Any comments?
They learnt that from the U.S where space research is not wasting money on inner city poverty.
...(or easy) don't you think private industry would be flying there and setting up shop? If it was profitable, you'd see a conglomeration of Martin Marietta, 3M, and Lockhead Martin (or some other aerospace company) establishing a Lunar shuttle service with monthly flights to their off world research and mining facilities as you suggest.
The fact is that flying to the moon is really hard and expensive. Chances are fairly good that India won't succeed. I suspect, however, as one poster already suggested, India really only wants to prove that they can launch a large missle that can make it into space.
Ruger
Let's just hope ISRO (India's version of NASA) is better than their version of Hollywood:
m l
http://stomptokyo.com/movies/s/superman-indian.ht
I have the fortune to live near The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas. They are one of the leading space museums (in the same league as the Smithsonian), and their biggest claim to fame is the fact that they have the largest collection of Russian Space artifacts outside Russia. This is in large part due to their main exhibit, the Hall Of Space.
The Hall of Space shows the evolution of the Space Race, from World War II (including a fully restored V2 rocket) to the modern day. But rather than being a "rah rah rah, we beat you to the M-ooon! Nyah-Nyah!" it is a very balanced portrail of just how close the race was, and just how bad the Russians were kicking our asses at first. Thus, the Russians really like the Cosmosphere, and when they are looking for a place outside their own museums to house artifacts they call the Cosmosphere first.
In the Hall of Space they make a point I've not seen made anywhere else - they point out that JFK was trying to find a means of competition between the USSR and the USA that didn't involve building large amounts of weapons, so he started the space race to "drain off" some of the competition, hoping to keep both sides working on that rather than destroying the world.
And it seems to have worked.
So in a very real way the space race was "mankind racing against itself" - racing to mature away from the need to destroy itself.
Really, if you are ever to be anywhere within 200 miles of the Cosmosphere, I urge you to go there. If you are crossing the US on either I40 or I70, then you owe yourself the side trip.
(No, I neither work for the Cosmosphere nor own any interest in it.)
If you are interested, drop me a line in my journal, and I'll give you more detailed advise.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The chief scientist of Stupid Country gets an urgent summons one day to meet with the President.
The President is fuming. "Look at this news! India is getting ready to put a man on the Moon! Imagine the publicity they'll get. Surely we must have a way to get there first!"
"Not to worry, Your Excellency," says the Chief Scientist. "We are planning something much better! In fact, at this moment I have my most skilled rocket scientists working on a project to put a man on the Sun!"
"A man on the Sun?" says the President. "Praise be to Stupid Country Deity! That will be splendid! Only ... only ... isn't it terribly hot on the Sun?"
"Aha!" says the Chief Scientist. "And that is precisely why we are going to land there at night!"
Which reminds me...
The Moon is slowly getting a little bit further from Earth with each orbit (has to do with gravitational effects of tidal bulges, but I digress). Knowing the rate (carefully determined by measurments using the laser reflectors left on the Moon by the Apollo missions), we can extrapolate backwards to determine that, approximately 65 million years ago, the Moon orbited at a distance of about 35 feet.
Which explains the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Or at least, the tall ones.
-- Alastair
It's almost shocking for me to see this happening. If India has that much money to send a mission to the moon, maybe they should try to feed their population. Sure, those who are known as the brainless-CNN-types will say that India has had a food surplus but that doesn't mean that most of the population has food.
Poverty is unimaginably high in most of India. It has largely been the clever propoganda by the Indian government to show that they are better than their neighbors (mainly Pakistan) in terms of hunger and disease. Sure, GDP may be higher but their society lacks a middle class. The rich are extreme rich but very small in number and the poor amount to most of the population.
The class system in India has held the country down for a long time. Hindu religious and Indian cultural teaching have authorized the top classes to, for example, beat those of the lowest cast if even their two shadows two each other. Furthermore, India has been waging a war and occupying Kashmir for many decades. When the British left in the middle part of 20th century, they purposely left a Hindu Raj in charge of Kashmir which is predominantly a Muslim area. The Raj was a tyranical ruler that did the bidding of India and the population has been fighting against the oppression for many years now. Again, its clever Indian propoganda to paint the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists. India has repeatedly blocked the right of the Kashmiri people to decide their "nation's" fate by not allowing a referendum to occur. India also has almost half a million troops in Kashmir through its occupation.
I could go on and on about what International humanitarian orgs have said about human rights abuses in India and Kashmir. Women in Hindu/Indian society have no rights. If a woman tries to have a relationship with a man, she is burned alive. If a woman decides not to marry the man her parents have picked for her, then she is burned alive. Parents will often times pick men for marriage based upon how much money the man is willing to give for their daughter. Marriages can happen between middle-aged men (40 y/o) with under-18 girls. The examples are endless.
Now please, tell me something, why is it that they want to send someone to the moon? They need to work on their nation and their political system to bring it up to 21st century standards. The money they spend should go to benefit their popuation not a stupid "my-weewee-is-bigger-than-yours" contest. Until they do that, they will always be a third world nation attempting to hang with the big boys but in the end it is the largely poor masses who suffer.
Oh and before someone says that I don't know what I am talking about... I have lived in India as a humanitarian worker for a long time. I've seen it all.
India seems to be heading to become a big power. Just recently, I read that two Indian UNDERGRADS solved a problem which couldn't be solved by top mathematicians all around the world for centuries! And they seem to have got lot of inspiration from that fact.....Good job..........
First curry on the moon. Wow! Soon to be followed by renaming regions. Sea of Papadums, Tandoori Mare, and the unforgettable Dark Side of Ganoosh.
I didn't know magic carpets could go that high. Wonder how they'll keep from freezing to death.
Air Turban: Space Buda Rocket 1
(disclaimer: I'm an Indian)
About 10 years back while I was still in Engineering college we had a great "scandal" about Russia being arm twisted by the USA to not provide India with cryogenic rocket engine technology to launch remote sensing satellites. It was feared that India would develop missile technology and perhaps ICBMs.
So the problem is this. No engine. No rocket. No satelite aka no space program. And on top of that no Crays to model simulations etc. The man who said "screw this" was Dr. Kalam. The man that threw caution to wind and aligned the bureaucratic/lazy govt agencies to do this.
- Develop an indigenous super computer
- Develop a liquid fuel rocket
- Put a satelite in orbit
Some years later CDAC developed PARAM supercomputer followed by ANUPAM. These inexpensive machines were put to task to solve whole bunch of vibration related problems that used to send test rockets crashing into Bay of Bengal. Quote from a news item "Likewise, the PSLV too failed on its first ever launch on September 20, 1993. The then ISRO chairman, Dr U R Rao, said this was because of a software error in the pitch control loop of the on-board guidance and control processor." There were still more problems with the re-entry stage etc.
The supercomputers enabled some new materials research and first success was almost 10 years later
PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). India then proceeded to deploy remote sensing satellites in orbit without depending on the French Ariane program at 1/7th the cost.
Out of this came the four Indian missiles long-range Agni (fire), medium range Akash (sky), surface-to-surface Prithvi (earth) and anti-tank Nag (cobra) and the now infamous nukes.
The satellite deployment capability bothers EU and Australia because it is clearly the loss of some "easy money". India has not yet offered satellite launching services, but for those prices even Jamaica can put a bird in the sky. At the moment ISRO toils at the GSLV (Geo Synchronous Launch Vehicle). So far they have not had any success.
This new announcement of moon shot is exciting and a cause of concern. While India has put enough weather satellites it still is ransomed by abnormal weather patterns drought, floods et al Nonetheless it's a matter of pride or rather amazement for me to witness any govt dept doing anything straight over there. Dr. Kalam is now the president of India. President of India is as we call a ceremonious office quite like the Queen of England. So I am sure the Hindu fanatic party leading the govt now is not any progressive but I am optimistic that a secular govt will be elected soon and our rocket man is in the right place trying to crack a tougher cookie. Maybe it's time for the land of zero, decimal and exponent to earn some Karma.
...India Plans Its Own Money Shot...
Hmm.
I'd imagine that there's a lot of money to be made launching satellites. The south of India is only about 10 degrees north of the equator, so I'd have thought they'd be in a reasonable position to launch. A mission to the moon seems like a good way to get things going - getting a probe out there would probably give investors the confidence they need to trust their satellites to an Indian launch system.
People seem to be criticising India for doing such things when they still have many problems with poverty, but it seems to be that they are moving in the right direction - concentrating hard on getting an increasingly skilled workforce, and moving beyond doing just blue-collar work. Yes, they have poverty to address, but they need the economy, education and skilled jobs available to move people out of poverty.
What did she (it? he?) do this time??? :)
There are several links you could use to find this out. here is one.
"The Moon" is Earth's sattelite's common name, but Luna is perfectly appropriate. So with The Sun and "Sol".
The Earth is also called Terra, but it's much less common to see that anywhere.
I'm probably inviting major flames here, but could we stop the curry/7-11/etc. comments? They're getting extremely repetitive and could be considered quite offensive/racist. India, as a nation, has given the world many wonderful things, and these sorts of blinkered stereotypes do no-one any favours.
In the linked article for last year it said only USSR and USA, no Japan, so did Japan do it after that post or what?
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Err... when the government (through NASA) gives away what there was previously a market for (that is, launches), they destroy that market. Technically, that's not a monopoly, but that's the same kind of thing a monopoly does. Innovation is stifled because there's no point in selling what Uncle Sam gives away.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The Saturn V and the Soviet N-1 were developed to loft 150 megaton warheads as confirmed-kill weapons against superhardened bunkers.
How many Americans are without health insurance?
Less than 5%.
How many Americans are in jail?
Everyone who commits a crime.
How many Americnas suffer from obesity?
Huh? What difference does that make? If anything, obesity is a sign of a healthy society. In any case, obesity is a personal choice, not an attribute of a country.
I don't have anything to add, I just have a question: how about Brazil? I had the impression that Brazil had a huge domestic oil production, being that part of both the causes and the consequences of having the best submarine oil extraction technology in the world (afaik).
Does anyone have any information about that?
What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
American.
Stars and Stripes blasted all over the galaxy...didn't you?
That doesn't preclude the fact that your grammar sux0rs. The sentences you wrote in Spanish and French are incorrect as well.
Cheers!
E (who speaks, reads and writes in English, Spanish, Russian and French)
http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
These countries will all go and colonize other bodies in the solar system, and then the colonies will rebel and become sovereign nations. So the flag that was painted on the side of the rocket that got them there is pretty much irrelevant.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
again, i'm not pakistani, I am just giving my opinion based on how i see the facts
I'm sure being that you are an Indian will cause you to come to my comments defense. I don't blame you. However, just posting satistics and numbers without any sort of explaination is foolish. For example: 35% of the population below poverty line? That's 350 million people. With a middle class of a claimed 300 million by an indian site, I would wonder how they are defining such things.
In typical slashdot style, when a person's ideas do not jive with the moderators, they are marked as a troll. Go for it, keep moding it down for speaking how I see it.
Mod me down if what I said is wrong, so far no one has said jack.
Memo to Indian rocket scientists: You can't EAT national pride!
How about working to make sure the Indian population is adequately fed before striking out to plant flags elsewhere in the solar system?
If the Indian government funds this, they must have caught priorities-ass-backwardsitis from the US government.
~Philly
To: The USA
From: Satarnapayamana Guchanda [sat@hotmail.com]
Dear sir,
I am satarnam... sat, from bombay.india head of the Indian space programme. we hava this rokcett now and going on moon + orbit. pls, would u sent back all our java developers position as we r in dire straight need of J2EE expertises 4 flaight control softwares and codes.
thx!!1!!
respectully your,
sat.
India is a third-world country, or very close to it. It is a country where a large percent, perhaps a majority, of the people live in poverty and squalor; where diseases that have been irradicated in most other parts of the world run rampant; where even basic education is not available to all people; and where a hundred million dollars could go a long way towards helping people.
Countries like India, China, and Pakistan are pissing away money building nuclear weapons and moon-shot projects while their citizens are starving and wasting away from easily-treated diseases. This is beyond stupid, it's sinful and the respective governments should be ashamed of themselves.
I think that for every dollar these countries spend on these types of projects, a corresponding dollar should be removed from their foreign aid suppliments. Clearly they're getting too many of my tax dollars if they have the spare cash lying around for moon exploration.
Shame on them.
i am posting anonymously since i do not want any backlash from this. i also don't have mod point since i posted on this story already but the moderator did a very poor job. to equate Critical_'s post to that of a troll is stupid and is equal to censorship. i'm sure the moderator had an agenda and could not stand what was said. let's be fair here since every side deserves a chance to be heard. mod the parent post up please.
We have actually forgotten how to go back to the moon. Yes the procedures, techniques and designs were recorded but never passed down from one engineer to the next.
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
So first they take away all our programming jobs and now they're trying to show off in space. Bastards.
Let me ask you something, why have you not gone through and refuted every point I have made. The very fact you are Indian makes your comments suspect and biased. Sources, especially biased ones, are very typical of India's general propoganda to overstate its position. Just because they have a fledgling IT services sector exploited by western companies for cheap programming labor goes to show that India is still a nation of poverty. Do you refute that? Do you refute the fact that, accroding to your statistics, 350+ million people are below the poverty line? My original posts intent was to criticize India for focusing on going to the moon. If you are a person who has Indian pride, then I ask you what is more important: a space program targetting the moon, or a humanitarian package seeking the (over 350 million) below the poverty line?
"...while I'd like to see the Stars and Stripes posted all over the galaxy. Ha. Yet you seem dumbstruck why your country is in such a mess... or perhaps that's just common face.
fucking ignorant rednecks...
I think it's important to note that most nations would not do a Mars trip because they were altruistic, but because they know it would be a mighty display of technological, and yes military power. Especially India. If they do it, it will be nothing more than a display of military might, plain and simple
Excuse me for being so dense but why "especially India"? Why India in particular? Are Indians (or people with brown skin in general) particulary predisposed to using major scientific and technological advances as a means of promoting their "military might" and their strategic national intests?
Any more so than the US, the old USSR, or even China? Was the space race of the 50's, 60's and 70's an altruistic exercise? Or was it one giant propaganda exercise?
How much more did we advance our knowledge of the solar system, etc during the Apollo space programme? Did we learn anything significant that previous unmanned missions hadn't already told us? Anything that another series of unmanned missions could have taught us at a fraction of the cost of the manned missions? A: Scientifically, none whatsoever.
It's laughable that you label the future intentions of another nation as an unnecessary show of strength when, as an American (and I bet that you are indeed an American), you're a citizen of the only nation to ever drop a nuclear bomb. Twice. On a civilian population.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I want you to go through and tell me what is biased? You disagree on the population numbers? That's fine. You agree there is a lot of poverty? It sure seems like it. But please, before calling me a troll, go through and tell me how I am trolling point by point. I'm sorry for be blunt, but I don't think you could refute most of my post since you know its true (or can't prove its false)
Word of advice, just because it goes against what you believe and hold as an opinions does not make my post that of a troll. In the end, calling someone else "too biased" without backing up your opinions is not a very good rebutal. If you can't offer anything solid, then don't argue.
If I didn't make it clear, I'd love to hear your "unbiased" Indian-perspective on India. I'm sure we'll get the whole picture then since someone who is Indian will be able to tell us everything without any bias when it comes to their home country.
So tell me about womens rights in India?
Can you tell me about the Indian-occupation of Kashmir?
Can you tell me about the Indian-blocked Kashmiri self-determination referendum?
Can you tell me about human rights abuses in India?
Can you tell me about the poverty?
Can you tell me about the backwards caste system which allows higher classes to abuse the lower classes?
And finally, can you tell me why a nation like this should be focusing on going to the moon?
I'm waiting...
In an attempt to become only the second nation to land people on Earth's moon, India launched a rocket carrying a new breed of Indian explorers. Due to a navigational error, the rocket instead landed in Pakistan. The amazed Indian explorers stepped out of their spacecraft only to encounter what they believed to be residents of the Moon, whom the bewildered explorers took to calling "Lunarians", or "Lunies" for short. Fortunately for everyone invlolved, the nuclear energy-generator located at the tip of the rocket suffered a malfunction and exploded, generating a huge amount of energy (some estimates are in the range of the explosive output of several million tons of TNT), but unfortunately in an uncontrolled manner.
The Indian government has stated that it will try again next year, though noting in an aside to the Pakistani government that such navigational errors might be less likely to occur if only Pakistan would return full control of the Kashmir region to India so they might use it as a launching area.
The smell of curry and b.o. in that capsule by the time it reaches the moon will be awful. I just hope they dont meet any aliens.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Get some decent hospitials.
Make some clean water and keep it that way.
Deal with your flipping air pollution and energy problems.
Try not to nuke anyone this week.
WTF: is wrong with you people anyway, can't find anything else to do?
CC: China
the only moon shots will be india and pakistan mooning one another across the barbed wire. after some time of this paki asses shrivel and they go back home ...back to india.
what they need is vaccine shots for the kids and some food. and some pc's.
"Oh look, you can still see the US flag blowing in the lunar wind! Let's take it down!"
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Did Rush Limbaugh write that?
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Butthead:: Hehe, hey Beavis it say on /. that India's gonna "shoot the moon." hehe hehe.
Beavis:: Ya, hehe hehe. Who are they gonna "shoot the moon" at? Hehe
Butthead:: Uhhh, I think it says they're aiming for China or something then China's gonna moon them back in 2010.
Beavis:: Ya, Cool. Hehe. SHOOOOT DA MOOOON, hehe SHOOOOT DA MOOOON.
Butthead:: Beavis, you suck.
And on and on...
don't bother.. pakistan has neither the resources or infrastructure for a space-race.
they only threaten India's security much the way Iraq threaten's the US.
You may be an associate professor at UFl but you don't know how to clarify your points.
"This is false as India has a burgeoning middle class. We can quibble all we want
about numbers but India would not have a fledgling IT services sector without
this middle class. And it is this middle class and foreign investment which will
decide whether or not India can combat the crushing poverty, improve the
infrastructure etc."
So you agree that India has a massive chunk of the population that is under the poverty line. You also seem to agree with my original post that the middle class is relatively small. Okay, if you are agreeing, then how am I trolling?
Then you said:
"This is a half truth since it ignores Pakistan's role in Kashmir. The Kargil war
in 1999 (which took place in Kashmor) was conducted by Musharraf. Both India and
Pakistan have to take the blame for screwing up Kashmir which by any rights
ought to be allowed to flourish along the lines of Colorado."
Ummm, this is what we call "skirting the issue". Mr. Associate Professor, shouldn't you talk about the atrocities committed by the Hindu Raj who was in bed with the government of India? Do you also forget that any attempt at a UN resolution asking for the right of Kashmiri citizens to choose their future paths in terms of government in the general assembly has been fought against by India? Yes, you do forget Pakistan's role. Pakistan has been pushing diplomatic solutions in the world community (including the UN) that would allow for a referendum, why did you not talk about this? Are you scared that you'll torpedo any semblence of an argument? Again, you have stated half truths and fail to state the actual history of the conflict. Repeating again: How is what I wrote trolling when all you can do is point fingers at me?
Then you continue:
"This is a mixture of outright falsehoods and half truths. It is simply not true
to say that Hindu women have no rights since they have equal rights under Hindu
law. This would be like saying, "The US is a racist country and African
Americans have no rights there." As for women being burned alive, gimme a break.
This is hardly the norm and against the law."
Not true? Many womens rights organizations differ with your opinion. Just because it is "against the law" doesn't mean it doesn't happen. How much policing does the Indian government do in the largely "village-inhabiting" population on India? Please give numbers because if you can even find numbers, it'll prove that the lack of womens rights in India under the Hindu system of culture and religion is predominant. Making a plea that it can't be true is just opinion Mr. Associate Professor. How about giving some examples to refute my claims?
Its nice to know that a person in higher education has no clue what he is talking about. Please Mr. Associate Professor, check your Indo-centric biases at the door.
generally i dont have issues with them, but their superiority complex towards other asians is stupid. so if they succeed in this, I can see it now, they keep shouting at our face how great they are again and again. of course, there are exceptions, and those make great friends.
Of course this is nothing more than a clever rouge on the part of India to conquer Pakistan from SPACE!!!!
When did Japan go to the moon?
Actually first we had the Atlantians vs. everyone else. We Lost.
Can they really blow Pakistan that high?
I am eagerly awaiting the next moon landing. I am more than 20 years old, and there has not been a man on the moon in my lifetime. Interest in colonizing other worlds will drop if we don't start somewhere, and the moon makes a 1000 times more sense than Mars.
A moon base should be an international venture, but if they could send 3 people to the moon in '69 with the computing power of a GameBoy, imagine what we should be able to do now, with our "modern" technology. John
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
First, you're saying $82M is cheap for the moon, but we're spending the same amount going to Mars? Hello? I'll assume that was a typo, but in which direction, I have no idea. I'm also betting the final price will be way above $82M. They always are.
Second, I think the author was pointing out that some sort of public programs could be developed instead of dividing $82M by 1B people (the "scientific and intellectual prowess" comment). I know I'll be cashing that 8 cent check right away! And I have to agree here-- When a very large percentage of your populace is living in abject poverty, you better have bigger plans than just planting a flag on the moon as part of an international pissing contest.
Finally, I'm betting the only way they're planning to staying under $90M is by using existing off the shelf components, not making everything from scratch like the Apollo missions. Sure, the chassis and lander is going to have to be buildt from scratch, but the electronics? I find it hard to believe they're going to design new and revolutionary hardware like you described for the Minuteman. The Apollo missions cost damn near $10-20 billion. And that's in 1960s money. (Minuteman 3 cost around $10M from developement to launch as a comparison).
If they can do it (assuming they do it at all) for $83M, more power to em. They'll do something one of the most industrialized and successful nations (with an excellent average standard of living to boot) wasn't able to do in the 1960s, let alone today....
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And then let me remind them that the US owns the fucking moon. That's right bitches we own it and if you trespass on our shit we WILL nuke your gay whale asses!
who I called for my free shuttle ride myself.
KFG
Saying that they should not go ahead with space program if there are poors is like saying no American should take divorce if they have children.
Everybody has their priority set and a lot of time decisions seem odd at face, but they are good considering long term future of all.
> > How many Americans are without health insurance?
0 02/febreleases/georgia_healthcare.html, http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9811/13/no.health.insura nce/), among other places. Since finding this out took all of 50 seconds to type in "how many americans are without health insurance" into google, I don't see why you couldn't get the facts.
d f), meaning that many millions of Americans who commit crimes are not in jail.
g man.htm). Considering how notoriously difficult it is to have a case properly reviewed, even in the face of clear and easily-checkable evidence, the fraction of innocent people wrongly convicted is undoubtedly higher on death row, and higher yet in the general prison population. (Indeed, the article I link to suggests the error rate may be 25%.)
>
> Less than 5%.
Wrong - it's more like 15% (around 40 million), at least according to Stanford and CNN (http://mednews.stanford.edu/news_releases_html/2
> > How many Americans are in jail?
>
> Everyone who commits a crime.
Wrong again - less than 22% of crimes are cleared (solved) by arrest (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_99/99crime/99cius3.p
Moreover, many Americans who do _not_ commit crimes _are_ in jail - considering only the most serious cases (death penalty sentences) which you would assume would have the greatest attention paid to their proper conduct, 15% as many people have been found totally innocent and released from death row (after being convicted and sentenced to die) as have been executed (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99nov/9911wron
There are over 2.1 million people incarcerated in the US (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/p01.txt - note that 10% of black men age 25-29 are in jail!), suggesting perhaps 300,000-500,000 people are in jail for crimes they didn't commit.
Since the US has the _highest_ incarceration rate *in the world*, 5-8 times higher than European countries (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/p01.txt), the US has almost as many *innocent* people in jail as the European Union has *total* people in jail!
These are *hardly* statistics that one can be smug about.
"Because they're (in many cases) either not very bright or just lazy, which I suspect is what most of us get riled by."
;-)
Good thing for the phrase in parenthesis, otherwise you might seem like an elitist snob (not).
But actually, the possessive 'its' is one of the few exceptions to the possessive "add apostrophe 's'" rule. I was still making that mistake in my senior year of high school until a teacher corrected me.
And given that many people posting to slashdot probably haven't graduated from high school yet, I think making mistakes like these is okay.
But I have a question. Is European culture typically hung up on grammer like that? In the states, for the most part we don't care as long as we're able to communicate effectively.
At least, thats my experience
"...3, 2, 1... and we have lift off of the rocket 'Curry Puff' on route to the Moon... the rocket is following a nice, smooth trajectory, and is due to rendev... wait... wait a minute, the rocket has changed course, I repeat changed course... it is veering downwards... the rocket is now heading towards Pakistan..." etc.
When a very large percentage of your populace is living in abject poverty, you better have bigger plans than just planting a flag on the moon as part of an international pissing contest.
They (Indian gov't) don't NEED to spend that money on feeding their starving masses... they have countless American charity organizations and worldwide religious groups collecting hundreds of millions of dollars each year to feed the poor starving Indian children. (I'm serious, look it up.)
If you were in power in India (and trying to establish a reputation for your nation as major world power), and you had a rapidly growing technology class which was generating a lot of tax money, and foreign organizations were doing most of the work in feeding the starving classes, would you spend what money you had on more food? Nobody's going to be impressed by the fact that there's a little bit more food in the hands of your poorest citizens, not even the poor so much. They're still going to be living in shitholes and picking at their scraps of food off of their dirt floors. The only thing you did by spending your extra hundred million was allow them to have 2 handfuls of food to scrape at instead of one...
No, you'd spend it on tanks and nuclear bombs and launching rockets into outer space. The crying-skeleton-children commercials will help keep your insanely large population growing, and you can keep building more toys in the sand. And while the starving masses are pecking at their food, all billion+ of them can look up and see India's rocket ship blasting off toward the moon... and feel overwhelming pride that their people have made it! They've accomplished an unbelievable feat that previously only the other major superpowers had achieved. That they, in their shitholes, are vastly superior to those damn Paki's in their stupid-non-moon-going-Paki-shitholes...
Think about that the next time you see that picture of Sally Struthers popping on your TV at 2am begging you please help these poor little children... the only way those "poor little Indians" will ever stop being in such crappy conditions is if you stupid sympathetic bastards STOP SENDING THEM FOOD. There are many bright and industrious people in India, and they need to take over the task taking care of their own countrymen as a higher priority than expanding their military/defense budgets. In fact, now that I think about it, there are some other major countries that could consider doing the same...
---
Hiten (a.k.a. Muses-A)
Lunar Orbiter and Lander
Launch Period: 1980
Agency: ISAS - Japan
Hiten (originally called Muses-A) was an ISAS (Japanese Space Agency) Earth orbiting satellite designed primarily to test and verify technologies for future lunar and planetary missions. The spacecraft carried a small satellite named Hagoromo which was released into orbit around the Moon. Hiten itself was put into a highly elliptical Earth orbit which passed by the Moon ten times during the mission, which ended when Hiten was intentionally crashed into the Moon on 10 April 1993. The primary objectives of the mission were to: 1) test trajectory control utilizing gravity assist double lunar swingbys; 2) insert a sub-satellite into lunar orbit; 3) conduct optical navigation experiments on a spin-stabilized spacecraft; 4) test fault tolerant onboard computer and packet telemetry; 5) conduct cis-lunar aerobraking experiments; and 6) detect and measure mass and velocity of micro-meteorite particles. Three follow-on objectives were also added: excursion to the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system, orbit of the Hiten spacecraft around the Moon, and hard landing on the lunar surface. Hiten was named after a flying, music-playing Buddhist angel. Hagoromo was named for the veil worn by Hiten. This mission included Japan's first-ever lunar flyby, lunar orbiter, and lunar surface impact.
Selene (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer)
Lunar Orbiter and Lander
Launch Period: 2005
Agency: ISAS, NASDA - Japan
Selene will carry 13 instruments including imagers, a radar sounder, laser altimeter, X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and gamma-ray spectrometer to study the origin, evolution, and tectonics of the Moon from orbit. The 2000 kg launch-mass spacecraft will be carried by an H-2A rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center. The spacecraft consists of three separate units: the main orbiter, a small relay satellite, and a small VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) satellite. The orbiter is a rectangular box carrying the scientific instrumentation, measures about 2.1 m by 4.2 m, and has a mass of roughly 1600 kg. The relay satellite is an octagonal prism and will be used to transmit communications from the orbiter to Earth. The VLBI satellite is the same shape as the relay satellite and will be used to conduct precise investigations on the position and precession of the Moon.
Selene will take 5 days to reach the Moon, where it will be put into an initial 120 x 13000 km orbit at an inclination of 95 degrees. The relay satellite will be released into a 100 x 2400 km orbit and then the VLBI satellite will be released into a 100 x 800 km orbit. The orbiter will then be lowered to its nominal 100 km circular orbit. Selene will carry out observations for approximately one year.
---
The Japanese plan many more planetary missions, including a 2007 Venus orbiter called Planet-C. This will be extremely valuable to planetary scientists, providing the international community with a huge amount of novel data, including optical observations of the surface through the narrow 1 micron NIR window in the atmosphere. This should allow unambiguous identification of active volcanism, unlike all previous USSR/US attempts.
-Karl
I think cooperation is better than competition... think where india and china would be if they combined their efforts
hmm sooner
why would they want to find obl he works for the cia anyway.....
hmm sooner
Excuse me for being so dense but why "especially India"? Why India in particular? Are Indians (or people with brown skin in general) particulary predisposed to using major scientific and technological advances as a means of promoting their "military might" and their strategic national intests?
Because India is a secular democratic republic currently being threatened by Pakistan, a brutal Islamic dictatorship with an appalling human rights record, and birthplace of many Islamic extremists including members of the Taliban and al-Queda. If they can convince the Pakistanis (and Iranians, etc) that attacking India would be foolhardy due to India's technological and economic superiority, that's far better than a war starting and nukes being fired back and forth.
Any more so than the US, the old USSR, or even China? Was the space race of the 50's, 60's and 70's an altruistic exercise? Or was it one giant propaganda exercise?
Are you saying it's OK when the USA did it, but not when India does? What are you trying to say? The West won the Cold War by forcing the Soviets to bankrupt themselves trying to compete, rather than military force. Is that a bad thing?
It's laughable that you label the future intentions of another nation as an unnecessary show of strength when, as an American (and I bet that you are indeed an American), you're a citizen of the only nation to ever drop a nuclear bomb. Twice. On a civilian population.
Really, a nuke is tame compared to what happened in German, Russian and Japanese concentration camps. It was more important to end the war quickly. If the Indian strategy plays out, they won't need to go to war with Pakistan.
In point of fact: in 1969 the USA developed TIME TRAVEL.
... send a Go Team into the future with their 'Moon Landing' Props and 20th Century Cameras!! ....
.... So, there you have it! No Space Travel in 1969, just Time Travel and a LOT of complicated Time-Travelling and stuff!
..... "Aw! Gee!" ...
(The TV Show "Seven Days" was completely off the mark!)
So, what they did was
The folk in the Future took the Go Team (and material) to the Moon in a Space Tripper {the Go Team had cunningly included a 'Second Stage Time-Traveller'}
So, the Go Team THEN went BACK to 1969 on the Lunar surface!
Then, they set up ALL their props, did their experiments, and took their photographs (also took Lunar samples)!
THEN, they Time-travelled BACK TO THE FUTURE with the 'Second Stage Time-Traveller' where the Future folk were waiting to take them back to the Earth in their Space Tripper!
A simple matter then for them to return to 1969 once they had returned to the Earth! They then could 'Helo' out to the carrier, pretending that the helicopter had just picked them out of the water (on Splashdown), where they could wave to the sailors before going into isolation where they could get their stories straight!
"What's that? Have I taken my pill yet?"
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
India is planning an unmanned mission to Luna in 2007. The US, Russia (when it was the USSR), and Japan are the only nations to have done so, or so they say. For some reason, I thought that ESA, the European Space Agency, had sent one also.
Nope, the ESA has never had a lunar mission, however we are currently building SMART-1 which is due to be ready in early 2003, and will be launched as an Ariane-5 auxiliary payload.
SMART-1 is actually a testbed platform for the ESA's Solar Electric Propulsion system, with the primary goal being to test this and other technologies that will be useful for deep space missions, however the craft will carry both X-ray and IR spectrometers for inspecting the lunar surface.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
How about they get to work on the caste system, too?
I think you missed my point. I didn't say that it's right for India (or any nation) to use force, or the threat of force to achieve its agenda.
I didn't say that promoting their "military might", especially in the current political climate is to be applauded.
I'm not suggesting that stirring up nationalist sentiments and whipping the general population into a feeding frenzy is a particularly good thing.
What I said was, in response to the original poster's comments that this was true "especially [of] India" is that is true of all nations.
In my response I used the example of the Cold War but all of the above - the use of force, the projection of military might, the rampant nationalism - is just as true of the US today as it was in the paranoid "reds-under-the-beds" 50's and 60's.
And what's really ironic, is that the natural inference of the original poster's comments is that India is an overtly aggressive nation just itching for a fight.
Who knows, perhaps it is. But here are a few facts: despite suffering several attacks on its own soil by suspected muslim terrorist* groups, including the murder of innocent men, women and children, a direct assault on its parliament, US and other foreign embassies, India has shown a great deal of restraint and has not resorted to using its "military might" to strike at terrorists beyond its own borders. It's used politics, via forums such as the UN, rather than force to pressure Pakistan to stop providing a safe haven for the terrorists*.
Compare and contrast that to the US reaction to similar circumstances. Now tell me who looks like the more violent nation.
As an aside, I find it incredulous that you can defend dropping nukes on civilians at all. The US aim, showing Japan that they had a weapon of mass destruction that could bring it to its knees, have been acheived by dropping the nukes on military rather than civilian targets - or even on an unpopulated region.
(That you defend the use of nukes by saying that it's not so bad compared to a concentration camp is laughable. A few paragraphs earlier you were making a point that just because the US did something bad during the Cold War it doesn't mean that India should do it too - isn't the same true here?)
Hypocrisy. The greatest luxury. Raise the double standard.
(* As someone famous once said, "terrorist" is what the big army calls the little army. Feel free to interchange the word with the phrase "freedom fighter", I do. But "terrorist" is just so much more interesting and sensationalist n'est pas?)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Hey,
Don't we already own the moon? Our flag is up there.
I am glad that many other countries are getting involved in space exploration. There is much to be learned and gained from outer space that stretches through every area of science and industry. And who knows, maybe we'll actually find life besides our own one day. It's my hope that countries will cooperate as much as possible in space missions and that success up there could help in the diffusing of problems down here.
If you are awaiting another person to land on the moon. Do a search on China and moon landing. Or go to www.spacedaily.com
China has plans in place to be the next nation to have a man land on the moon.
~ kjrose
After watching a documentry about the 60's space program with NASA I dont believe they ever went. The evidence is startling to say the least! :)
But hey, apparantly Japan are going to put something up to find out in 2 years, so we will all know if the USA really did or not soon enough.
Personally, I hope they did make it all up :D
Hard Work Often Pays Off After Time, but Laziness Always Pays Off Now.
> But actually, the possessive 'its' is one of the few exceptions to the possessive "add apostrophe 's'" rule.
ARG!! NO IT ISN'T!
Repeat after me:
his, hers, its
he's, she's, it's
IT PERFECTLY FITS THE RULE!
(Sorry - I get vexed because too many people are being screwed up by being told it's hard and an exception when it isn't at all - if you can do "his" and "he's", you can do "its" and "it's".)
... but your historical facts are not completely correct and you choose to present history from a largely Hindu/Indian perspective. Officially understood history from a United Nations perspective completely disagrees with what you have said.
Your evaluation of government reads that of the crap that comes out of the mouths of Indian and Indian loyalists. Can I you two things? Why hide like a coward behind anonimity? And two, maybe its time to pick up some books to fix your large factual errors, would you like some help in that?