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Low-Budget Indian Satellite Launch
Geekonomical writes "On Thursday afternoon, for a mere 15 million U.S. dollars, India launched a meteorological satellite into geo-synchronous transfer orbit some 36,000 kilometres above the equator using a modified version of its highly successful space workhorse, the polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV). The article also claims that China spends 12 times as much as this for a launch!"
You may be surprised to know that in 2000 years of indian civilisation, India has never ever attacked another nation.
As for nuclear weapon development look at this way, supposed USA didnt have nuclear weapons but canada and mexico did and were hostile to US, how would you feel, scared.. right. So when you have two nulcear armed dictatorships sitting at your borders you cannot expect otherwise.It is real funny a developed nation has a moral right to have nuclear weapons but an underdeveloped dosent.
As far as space reasearch is concerened satellite launches came much after nuclear weapons. India achieved nuclear capability in 1971. Satellite lauches are for an economic reason. Already france and other european and african contries are looking at ISRO as a launchpad for their satellite and this will bring in much needed cash.My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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Have you ever wondered why it is that the US wants to regulate (Islamic dictator and harbourer of terrorists) Saddam Hussein,
Thing is that Saddam Hussein is more of a secular socialist than a radical Moslem.
but hasn't tried to do the same to (Islamic dictator and harbourer of terrorists) Musharraf? It's because Musharraf already has nuclear weapons, and Saddam doesn't.
More likely the real reason is that Hussein will no longer allow himself to be pushed around the US. The whole "terrorism" thing is a smokescreen. The US is quite happy to let all sorts of terrorists operate in the US, the British government is quite happy to let all sorts of terrorists operate in the UK. Both governments also give some of their tax payers money to supporting terrorists. So it would hardly be suprising if Iraq was prepared to harbourer any terrorists not considering attacking Iraq.
Just FYI: SpaceImaging is the world's biggest supplier of hi-res satellite imagery. It would surprise many on this forum to know that 4 of the 7 satellites SpaceImaging uses are Indian (the IRS series of satellites are Indian satellites).
India has a decent history (20+ years) of building and launching satellites. They have been helped along the way by the Russians to some extent, because the US refuses to sell them some of the advanced propulsion technology (like Cryo engines), which then they have to develop on their own.
All in all, more competition is good, I say.
Everyone loves to bang on the ISS problems but seem to forget that a number of major technology and/or cash commitments that were supposed to be provided by other coutries were never delivered. This means that the US had to cover other coutries expenses.
In other cases where technology was actually provided, extra US funds had to be paid to verify it because of minor communication issues. In fact, to date, I think Canada is one of the few coutries that actually completed what they committed to doing.
I'm simply bringing this up because ISS is probably not the best example to site when to comes to US funds and space research.
India has been in satellite business since long, and currently the man who was behind all this, who has been the scientific advisor to the indian government, who has been awarded the highest civilian honour of the country, is its President. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, President of India, has always talked about self reliance in the field of space and defence. This is one more step towards it.
You guys working in big companies must have seen vision statements for a big company, which drives the whole company, but have you heard that India too has a Vision, and working towards it ?
visit www.abdulkalam.com for details.
Also, "Wings of Fire" the autobiography of the president, is worth a read.
It's interesting that the new president of India was also the father of its space and missile programs - the PSLV is a descendant of the original Satellite Launch Vehicle, SLV-3, which was also the basis for a short-range SSM, Prithvi ("Earth"). Under Dr. Abdul Kalam's tutelage, the DRDO embarked on an ambitious program to develop a suite of missiles, many of which have either been inducted or are being tested. It's quite possible that his popularity as head of the Indian Space Research Organization, and later as DRDO chief, led to his choice as president.
Hey, You missed the boat Pal. India had already put a spy satellite in space in the previous PSLV launch.A simple search at google gave a dozen stories pointing to this.
On your other points I agree. India has a long standing succesfull space program. India has always invested heavily (relative to other internal investments) and is bearing the fruits now. INSATS (communication satellites),Remote Sensing sattelites, now a weather satellile, PSLV and other launch vehicles have driven indian Space program to new hights.GSLV (GeoStationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) is next, and then maybe a mission to the moon. All this would make India stronger as it helps India earn foreign Exchange and also all the new technology trickles down to the industry.
I think putting spy satellites up there is not the main point and would not buy you much leaverage when you can buy such services on the internet!. But overall , growth of Indian Space industry would help India be stronger in other areas , including defence.
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It's not about spying or ICBM's or anything, the key factor here is, believe it or not, agriculture. I know other patriotic Indians have problems accepting this, but India is still largely an agriculture-based economy, with the population especially concentrated in rural areas. With the exploding population creating pressure on food resources, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research actively involves itself in creating better yielding food varieties .
Students of Indian history would have heard about the green revolution that created self-sustainence in food; a crucial post-independence achievement considering food scarcity situations such as the 1943 Bengal Famine (the one on which Amartya Sen did economic research and won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics).
Now with satellite technology, ICAR can identify which land areas are suitable for which crops and therefore goad farmers into growing those varieties (remember that India is a sub-continent; you have all sorts of terrain, from deserts to plains to plateaus to, of course, mountains.
So accurately knowing which crop goes best where is critical information for the hungry masses (over-cliched, but it's true). Methinks that this will be the biggest use, followed closely by telecommunications and satellite television AND then by urban planning (Mumbai will have 24.7 million people by 2005).
PS:- Note that I'm not saying that satellite technology wont be used for other purposes; I definitely want India to use cutting-edge technology against a couple of motherfuckers, but talking only about that would be misleading.
More than mere navel gazing.