Slashdot Mirror
India Plans Moon Mission by 2008
LPetrazickis writes "According to the Tribune, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has announced today that India will send a spacecraft to the moon by 2008. The Chandrayaan-I mission will showcase Indian achievements in science and technology to the world. Both European and Canadian Space Agencies have shown interest in the mission. SifyNews reports that 2008 was initially mispronounced as 1908. Today is the 56th anniversary of India's independence." Previous talk about this has come from the Indian space agency; this announcement from the Prime Minister seems to have more weight.
Considering the amount of poverty in India I think they should put less money into space research and more into feeding their people.
Perhaps their first goal should be to get a man or woman in space... when they do that I'll start listening to their outer claims.
2008 is only 4.5 years from now, so it sure sounds like a tall order.
Get a man into space, then maybe I'll pay attention.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
The Indian government plans a giant musical which may feature Aqua Teen Hunger Force's Mooninites.
Imagine your tech support calls being rerouted to the moon.
I guess this is better than spending all that energy working on better nukes.
Oh wait. Now they are building long range rocket technology... Crap maybe this isn't better than just working on nukes.
With China and India announcing plans to send people up, I'd hope that the US could finally get its act together after the Columbia disaster and have a space program that people care about. Critics today attack the budget we spend on NASA and such, saying it could better go towards welfare or rebuilding Iraq or fixing the power grid or something. Maybe if there are other countries trying to match our achievement from 1969, we can finally get back on track and start really thinking about things like Mars.
A similar argument could've been made against the USA back when the USA dit it, but I'm strongly against that view and wish not to troll about either side.
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
Oh, no! They're going to take away even more American jobs! Think of all the rocket scientists! Programmers first...now this?
Oh, wait, that's right. Engineers can't even find jobs here. Time to move to India.
Poland announced this week they hope to be the first country to land men on the Sun, with a goal of 2007.
Would you like a Slurpee with that?
I wish them the best of luck, but from what I read in the article they just recently launched their first satellite. Seems very ambitous to think in 5 years they can get a man on the moon safely from this level of technology. The chinese are still having issues and imho they're far more advanced than india in terms of a space program. All in all, we can always use more countries giving the USA the proper boot in the ass to start a mars program. Our huge claim to fame has been that we were the only nation ever to get on the moon, when a moon landing is so common that eventually you're hearing about ethiopias moon landing, it devalues the achievement. We need to get to mars, and ensure that new plateu for the rest of the world to achieve.
I could get some decent Sag Paneer.
Ummmmmm....yummy
It is good that India and China are competing through science, and not through arms. Honestly, I don't see how this could be a bad thing for anyone. India and China will both make new scientific discoveries, and seeing them get into space may inspire the EU, the US and Russia to increase their space efforts.
I know lots of people are going to complain that India should be focusing their efforts on improving their living standards rather than going on wild adventures. But I don't think the one has to distract from the other. India actually has enough food to feed herself, its just a problem of social structure and education. And it is not as if the resources used for going into space make that great of a impact on the ability of India to educate its population. In economic terms, there isn't that great of a cost of space missions, because the resources that go into them can't really easily go anywhere else.
Please read the article. The plans call for a robotic probe to the moon.;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Why? Because rocket programs are dual purpose. They can be used to deliver civilians and satellites into orbit, or they can be used to deliver to deliver nuclear warhead payloads.
And India is now a nuclear power.
In other words, India will end up with nuclear ICBMs.
Now, I don't have anything particular about India - I'd say this about any country. More countries having nuclear ICBM capability is simply not a recipe for world peace.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
We were on the moon in the 1960s. In 2003 India should have no problem doing what we did all those years ago, their economy is plenty fast considering they have all the worlds tech jobs.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Wouldn't it be better to have a multi-national space station or deep space exploration? If every nation spends the money just to get a ship into space, and see what we already know, then what did we get out of it? I think it would be more productive to pool the resources of many nations and build something that one nation alone could not.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Poor people in America have it better than a lot of working people in India. Most of them have safe drinking water, for one thing.
The people who live in India care.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Starlight glittered from the chrome horns as the pressurized bovine arced up and out of Earth's gravity well.
Captain Raj blniked away a tear as he watched the earth diminish in size from his viewing station within the left eyeball of the craft.
The udders steadily increasing delta V that eventually carried the metal cow and the Indians up and over the moon and then back to earth descending gently into a McDonalds parking lot.
If you havent noticed, the US economy is slowed down, the Japanese economy is slowed down, so the worlds biggest economies are slow as hell.
Why would you want to waste money on something like the space program for bragging rights when we can cut taxes and create jobs?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I wish India the best of luck in reaching the moon with an unmanned vehicle in 2008. Very ambitious.
With more countries demonstrating prowess in space technology, perhaps it will finally motivate the U.S. to get off our asses, reinvigorate our space ambitions and do something more meaningful than driving a bus three times a year into low Earth orbit to a bloated and finicky station that doesn't seem to be doing much more than Skylab did 30 years ago.
I must be in a grumpy mood...
Welcome to 1963!
Why do you ask silly questions like this?
First culture is a factor, second race is a factor, theres lots of differences between the countries of europe and the countries of Asia.
Going to space is not profitable, and look at Africa if you want to see how well different cultures and races get along in this country, they still are having wars, and apartied(legal slavery and segregation) lasted all the way till the 1990s!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
But, that's true for the US too. Some families don't always have the good job.
Americans never landed on the moon. Don't be silly.
for Indian-kind, while 80% of the population is starving. Also known as the world's greatest democratic, idiocracy.
They can just take one of those nuclear weapons from their ongoing cold war with Pakistan, strap it onto a chimp's back and let 'er fly!
Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but that sounds pretty feasible.
Just making a correction to my previous post.
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Millions of people go without power and they want to create Mini-Nukes?
Maybe we will respect the middle east now that they have the same abilities as us, this does not mean anything, the soviets have had nuke for years and years.
I dont really care if India has nuke, and I doubt they'd put it in space unless we do it first, its insane to put it in space but I see them doing it to protect themselves from us, I mean we are willing to go to war just because we want to without going through the UN, I wouldnt blame India for being alittle bit scared of us.
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A little bit of added competition in the space arena is exactly what is needed. The more countries that put their space programs on the map, the more pressure there is for the larger space programs to stay on top of things.
I think this could be a very good thing for even more expansion in space.
And even if the pressure isn't put in other programs, it's still an increase in the space research being done.
They need to feed their people first. A trip to the moon is a huge waste of money.
For what the average Indian earns in one year, well, a moon trip could feed millions of their people for a year and well at that.
Just plain stupid. Besides, what the fsck do they need to go there for anyway??
There's NO benefit in it for them as a country or as a people.
STUPID.. Plain STUPID...
Current indian rockets (PSLV and GSLV) which place a few tons into space already give them the long range missile tech know how. Its not weaponized right now (i believe).
..... ... india has always stood for complete nuclear disarmament. The stated position is that once a NON-DESCRIMINATORY (not like npt) treaty is in place, it will give up nukes.
.. i still cant understand the logic behind the reasoning that some countries have an inherent right to keep nuclear weapons, while the rest should live without them. Why dont we all give it up???
and besides
Btw
Life is just a conviction.
Anyone else read "India Plans Moon Mission" as "India is planning to drop their pants and moon everyone"?
Then again it is 3am at a LAN party and my brain is running on caffeine
I think it's a good thing that countries like India and China have their sights set at the moon.
The sooner we start mining the He3 up there, the better.
For the whole planet's sake, we've gotta start colonising the moon.
that is 96.5 million dollars (assuming 1 dollar is 40 rupees). "Titanic" - movie cost more than twice as much. Lets hope that this does better than the titanic. 1 crore = 100 lakhs. 10 lakhs = 1 million.
Finish your beer... there are sober kids in India.
In the post-mortem investigation, the NTSB pointed the Hubble telescope at the moon in order to view the crash results. Hoping that perhaps some of the astronauts were able to survive by using the escape pods, scientists began counting the bodies . . .
One little, two little, three little Indians, four little, five little . . .
India's Moon probe will be equipped with a record-breaking 100 robotic arms.
Well, actually lag time to the moon wouldn't be all that bad (1.5 seconds one-way), but imagine networking Mars and Earth? If we remain Earth-centric, MarsNet would always be behind the times by between 4-20 minutes, depending on, you know, how far away the planets are. So Martians would never be able to get FP on Slashdot. How sad. Not to mention, Martians would cry over their ping times to routers on Earth.
And you madam, have a horrible english. You prooved it in your very first letter. read it again, CAREFULLY.
My hobby is to slowly peel the skin off the rabbits I catch. Especially cute little bunnies like you, and my friend here is thursty for blood!
Through this letter i would like to inform you about the actuall intentions of india. This mission means no harm to US. This is no publicty stunt. We want to use moon as a transit station for outer space.
More countries having nuclear ICBM capability is simply not a recipe for world peace.
I'd much prefer if nobody had any nukes, but living in a country that has its own, I certainly can't blame another country for joining the Look Ma, I Can Blow Stuff Up club.
Besides, I'd venture to say that a belief in karma is a stronger deterrent to actually using them than a belief in MAD.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
why does it seem like every time an article like this appears there are always the 20 people who say
"US = GOOD BETTER BEAT THEM IN EVERYTHING"
Why can't we just promote that space travel is the only way off this doomed rock, and that if humanity doesn't stick together in this effort, it's doomed.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
to see interest back in the moon.
Having colonies on the moon has a lot of advantages, for example, launching some sort of spacecraft from the moon to another object ( say, an asteriod ) and then back, sort of like making round trips. This sort if thing would be great for mining, since having shuttles having to go back and forth through the earth's atmosphere would be expensive for mining.
Please stop this nonsense about wasting money on the space programme when there are hungry mouths to feed. The money spent just doesn't vaporize into nowhere. It is spend on equipment(to manufacture which, ppl are employed and paid),scientists(who would spend the money) all resulting in money trickling down to the lowest part of the economy. This is not abt wasting money. Its about using it to do something productive.
It isn't.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
I think this trip to the moon is especially significant since unlike the last time India made a very high-profile foray into space, it will be doing so on its own. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to go into space. However, he was carried there by the Russians on a Soyuz T-11. This time, the vehicle will be conducted by the Indians and it won't be carried out through the generosity of Russia.
Also, technological progress is a positive disruptive influence on Indian society. This mission will add to the numerous changes that have come about in India recently, both economically and socially.
Posting messages for the betterment of humanity..
Their space agency is going to find out that all their technical experts are in the US.
Table-ized A.I.
"In other words, India will end up with nuclear ICBMs."
Of course, this isn't surprising news coming from the crackpot Prime Minister who decided he needed nuclear toys to "defend" his nation from a far less advanced/far less populous neighbor in the first place.
and the argument would be wrong.
does that sound even faintly like the united states in 1969?
source: the cia
2 1337 4 u!
the homeless Vets begging on the streets in
Boston, and the homeless American women in
the riches country on Earth should be thankfull
because... they at least have safe driking water.
For the riches country on Earth we should
not feel proud if our prostitutes can at least
drink safe water. (Not should Mr. Gates should
be proud if he is able to provide his kids
a bowl of cereal in the morning. There is no
much pride in it.)
GOOD LUCK
Now we're outsourcing our fucking astronauts?
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Iraq - no nukes - gets invaded - lots of dead people on both sides. (and counting). N Korea has nukes - no sign of it getting invaded - nobody has died.
> the most xenophobic, racist, and elitist society in history
Natch. that honour goes to their fellow Aryans, the mid-40s National Socialists (whose symbol incidentally was a bad copy of the Hindu swastika), who were xenophobic, racist and elitist, and claimed the lives of 6 million Jews to prove it.
Go somewhere random
I say they should fire the prime minister and finance minister right away, they have much better uses for the money.
The Raven
Well as to budgetary numbers sound not that unlike those of the US, today. Whatever happened to the fiscally conservative Republican party?
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Ok, there was a Sikh, a Hindu and a Polish guy on the way to the moon when the Polish guy rolls down the window...
US makes technology advancements = benefit of humanity
Other country does the same = War/Terrorism
Quite simple actually!
It's true.
I would just like to say, that given the chance, I would have put a bullet in that bastard's face.
Moon cheese.
The damage this far less advanced/far less populous neighbor is causing India is far more that what could fit in your little pea brain. Sorry for being a troll, but I can't stand such uninformed statements (and of course I am from India).
And your Slurpees. We definitely wouldn't get a damn thing done without the Slurpees.
Well, I am an Indian, and to be frank, it really doesnt make sense to me. All this is about scoring political points in India's muddled politics. Doesnt really make sense at all. Just goes to show the level to which India's thinkers have distanced themselves from reality. I wish we could have grown wheat on the moon, but that aint the case. So what are we going there for? Screw India's politicians, they are going to ditch this country.
by the way most of India's political class' children live elsewhere...not in India.
Great now we can outsource to the moon for even less :)
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
and whether this a good thing or not.
You can't throw money at poverty and expect the problem to go away. The urban renewal projects in the inner cities of America proved that. The underlying reasons for poverty must be addressed.
Yes, a moon mission won't do a damn thing for poverty directly but it will move a nation forward technologically so that people that were once making carpets or driving taxis can now make rockets and drive spaceships. A poor nation technologically will result in a poor populace. Call centres and computer software engineering have pushed India incrementally ahead already, to deny those moves forward to "solve" the poverty issue is to simply perpetuate their impoverishment.
With the moves forward in technology and the education that surrounds such improvements you have a population that will not accept low paying jobs when they have skills far beyond them. In a few decades you have economic growth that will eventually push low paying jobs to other areas of the world; eventually and hopefully you end up with a world where Nike or Rebook can't make their shit anywhere for less than a reasonable wage.
That's my theory, but the hell do I know.
They can't fly to the moon.... I mean ..... heck, where are they going to outsource all the programing and manufacturing to?
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
There are always some very negative comments when stories like these appear. China and India are both very large countries and after a sort of sleep of almost a century they are stirring up. These kind of space programs are inevitable, there will come from the sheer momentum of what is happening in these countries today. I grew up in India and now I spend a lot of time in China. So I would like to say some thing from this perspective, Some years ago, I used to teach some classes at CDAC (center for development of advanced computing) at Bangalore, India. At that time they were working on building a supercomputer. There were a lot of critics who said that the money could be spent on the upliftment of the poor. Today CDAC exports this computer. And think of the knowledge and expertise and the project management skills that came of this project. Similarly, the moon project is a "killer demo app" for the Indian space and allied industry. The knowledge and the expertise would raise other high tech industry and help them in selling their services. Also, unknown to many India has a good space science research program. Outside Pune there is the Giant Meter wave Radio Telescope (http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/) and in Ladhak they have the Himalayan Chandra Telescope, the highest observatory in the world. There are institutions that are active in fundamental particle research (TIFR http://www.tifr.res.in/). So there is more to India's space program then just brag. The politicians need the "brag" but ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) has been always very humble and always pre-announces all its launches and gives detailed information on failed launches too . Compare this to the Chinese agency which only announces the launch after it has been successful. In India there is a deep interest in space sciences in general. I remember as a school kid, us being taken to planetariums. Translated Russian space books were very popular- I remember one book - The sun's wind written by Alexei Leonov (the first man to space walk). Our HSC (A level) English text had some science fiction too. There were and still are active astronomy clubs and societies. In the 80s, when we had only one TV channel, Carl Sagan's Cosmos was one of the few foreign programs that was aired along with regular re-runs of the original Star Trek and Fireball XL-5 (anyone remembers this.. it was a puppet animation). So what I am saying is - yes there is poverty and lot of other things that need fixing, but these things just don't get fixed by putting money. What the current Indian leaders are hoping to do is to create programs that inspire people (or as the current Indian president likes to say "Ignite Minds". The president APJ Abdul Kalam is a Space Scientist BTW). These kinds of ventures encourage a farm worker to put his kids in school because he sees where the country is heading and where his kids have a better future.
Why do you have to measure everything in terms of $s?
Why does everyone automatically assume that this was a mistake?!
.The stated aim of the mission is to
The Indian government want to show off the advances they have made in time travel!
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
I heard they were scouting for a new 7/11 location
LOL. Touche!
Sincerely, poster of 'fuck the dotheads'.
In other news, everybody died doing something, if only lying in bed. Furthermore, lots of people have done stuff which which made them tired, and tiredness deserves no less compassion than dying.
In other words, nothing is funny.
Lighten up or I will start making jokes about your mother.
Yes, but Conan is promising everyone in California a fantastic job!
I agree, more nukes is bad. ICBMs trigger the work more closer to Death. Let's see how we fare.
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
I disagree. We learned a hell of a lot from space research. Satellite tv, physics, Tang, etc. And we're learning more all the time. The Indians just want to look good by putting someone on the moon. The Indians need to concentrate on building a viable civil society before they try and put a man on the moon.
He is much better than a crackpot President who thinks all moslems are terrorists and bites the hand that feeds him.
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
Thanks, that's more like it.
http://www.isro.org/mileston.htm
America didnt and STILL DOESNT have a public health system
America still practices the barbaric practice of execution by electric chair (Don't even get me started on guantanamo bay)
America's gun crime is the highest per capita of any in the world
America's welfare program is hardly fair
Every country larage and small has it's problems, and I wish for one minute that American's would stop pretending they lived in a perfect country, stop dashing off to solve (*cough* create) problems in other countries and take a good long hard look at their own country.
If you would look at the percentages, you would see a different picture.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Maybe cutting out excess breding would certainly have helped it acheive its goal faster.Certainly at this rate .. nyet
Prejudice is a troll, but you were modded up, so too bad you didn't take time to RTFArticles.
This is a moonshot that costs about one-ninth to one-sixth of a shuttle launch. The European and Canadian Space Agencies are interested. India has traditionally received technological support from the Russian programme, but it's cheaper to use indigenous launch vehicles, no matter how threatened USA feels by large markets (even if the population is poor) being independent. And this is an exploration mission as a prelude to commercial missions. So why would India spend money on this and what does the market have to do with it?
Because India's space programme launches communications satellites which, like TCP/IP over railway communications lines, bring literacy to remote villages. Yes the schools in the villages need satellite dishes and the railroad stations need network stations, but the government provides them!
Because India's space programme launches weather satellites which, along with the communications satellites, help farmers in isolated regions to increase their yields.
Because with Japan and China shooting for the moon while NASA stagnates, India wants to position itself now as a contender for lunar mining and lunar transit station operations for deep space missions, services for which other countries (like ESA and CSA) and private companies worldwide will pay . And that money can be used to feed people!
Imagine that, creating high tech jobs to help farmers grow more food and to sell services to the global market and use the money to educate and feed more people.
With Congress cutting NASA's budget, how much of the savings are used to help feed poverty stricken Americans?
You're trying to be funny. It isn't working.
Way to go, India! Welcome to the 1960s!
I don't think that's very funny. More frightening. Only silly eurotrash like yourself, would find something like this funny.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Just maybe the Indian space program will encourage and inspire young people there to take up careers in science and engineering. Read 'the October sky' sometimes. In the long term, engineers, economists, and teachers will put more food on the nation's table than social workers handing out food stamps. Inspiration, determination and a little pride in one's own country can accomplish much...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I don't know that it's such a good thing for the most xenophobic, racist, and elitist society in history to have the ability to destroy the world all by themselves.
Thought you meant USians until I read the rest of the paragraph. What makes you think one of the races in India is xenophobic, racist and elitist? And which one of the Indian races do you think that is?
Typical illeterate and pretentious American comment: one, they plan to send a probe, not astronauts (you didn't read the article), and two, you suppose that because they're indians, they'll fail. Time to upgrade you power grid, while Indians go on the moon, son.
Maybe you don't like being reminded of Nixon, but India has nuclear deterrents because a crackpot US president was willing to use weapons of mass destruction against India to protect Pakistan. How would Pakistan have been protected when wind carried fallout over the border?
I bet you're this scumbag, you slimey dothead!
Go choke on a hamburger you smelly Indian sand nigger! (hey, that rhymes!)
For all those who have been whining about the state of India's finances and poverty levels, let me add that the PM in his Independence Day speech (think State of the Union) is also building highways, creating jobs in rural areas, not to mention modernizing our ports and major airports.
May I also add that India's external finances are in great shape ( a $6.5tn deficit comes to mind, cough cough ) and we are at present reorganizing our expensive debt.
We are sitting on so much cash, (and soon, low interest debt) that for the first time, India has become a lender nation.
Inflation is static at just under 2%, the Indian rupee has been holding its ground against all international currencies. Duties are being lowered, tariffs and trade barriers are being slashed, capital and bond markets are flourishing -- why the hell can't we have a moon mission?
Agreed, poverty and health problems cannot be disregarded, but to say this money would be better spent anywhere else is just stupidity -- India has long prided herself on her space programme -- we have great comm satellites and have been launching them since the early '70s, and a moon probe is a logical next step.
Finally, the moon probe is just one proposal among many, and slashdot readers, or at least those posting derogatory comments, need to keep a sense of proportion.
shooting is not too good for my enemies
Was enough. Think of your fingers' health.
No, wait. Let me rephrase that...
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
outsource the development to india....
oh wait.
Where does india go to oursource stuff?
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Iraq - no noodles - gets invaded - lots of dead people on both sides. (and counting). N Korea has noodles - no sign of it getting invaded - nobody has died.
Where did you get these numbers? I don't know what the Indian poverty line is but I can't believe that America has 50 million homeless people. I also thought there were more then 200 million people living in America. And I presume the 10/100 infant mortality is a typing error, but 10/1000 is still quite high for a developed country. In Holland only 5.2 children per 1000 die in their first year.
-- Cheers!
Maybe this means that the salleries will go up for the people in India, which in turn means that it won't be as profitable for american and european companies to outsource...
I was just making a joke about their tech support being busy.. sheesh.
Many read the article and like me made the mistake of assuming it would be a manned flight.
I just didn't think another probe would make news... we are already sick of hearing about Mars explorers, and now we are suppossed to be excited about another moon probe?
The unofficial
Mabey this will give NASA som clout to go to Congress with an aggressive plan to conquer the Red Planet before the 2nd tier space nations go where USA has gone before.
This will also be interresting in terms of the tech spinoffs. Remember, the tech had to be INVENTED for the 1969 moon flight. What is possible with todays tech and how will this expand our understanding of the application of todays 'best tech'?
I am the Barber of Seville.
The cultural momentum is there even if the availability of resources isn't apparent.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
The solution, for both the USA and India, is a cheaper space program. Use X-Prize type prizes to enable entreprenuers to evolve cheap re-usable spacecraft. NASA and government organisations are no good at this - their infrastructure is too expensive for the commercialisation of space.. $600 million per shuttle launch?? come on guys..
USA being the only country which has used nuclear warheads should be the first to give up as a symbolic gesture. But then such noble thoughts are the last ones that would occur to George W Bush ( and the rest of america ). For the record, India is one of very few countries which has never invaded any other country ( if you check through the backpages of history ).
And maybe instead of spending billions on invading foreign countries USA should pay better Sergeants who have to depend on Food #stamps to make ends meet.
Wanted : A Signature.
Disco is sweeping the nation, as well.
Perhaps Pink Floyd could write an album commemorating the historic event.
What would be really great is if the Indian government decided to allow one of the first Indians to go on the Moon to be one of the Untouchables. Despite government rhetoric, prejudice and violence against Untouchables is still very prevalent esp. in rural areas. It is only really in the teeming populations of the big cities that they can really escape what one calls suffering simply because they were born. Having an Untouchable in such a nationalistic important venture would be a big symbolic step in helping to increase their standing. Of course, that's also probably the reason why it would probably never happen...
When you give free food to a hungry unemployed poor person, they're still unemployed, poor, and will get hungry again.
You don't reduce poverty by giving food to poor people. You reduce poverty by creating more jobs for more people. Building technology is a good way to do that.
Your's is a common, well-meaning notion driven by compassion. But it's wrong. Yes, feed the hungry, but if you stop there and don't create an economy that enables them to support themselves, all you've done is to create a permanent dependent underclass.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I don't know if this jab at the current state of the US is meant to be sarcastic, but here are some more realistic figures for those who are curious.
(from the CIA World Factbook and other sources as listed)
1. 3% of the US population is illiterate
2. 12.7% of the US is under the US poverty line, defined as an individual earning less than USD 8,860 a year. The Indian poverty line, by comparison, is defined by the world bank to be earning less than USD 365 a year (from Poverty USA and India Watch).
3. Infant mortality in the US is not 10/1000. It is 6.75/1000. That is not the lowest in the world, but the figure ranks among most developed nations. Cholesterol-related teenager deaths? While the USA is getting too fat, causing a rise in diabetes in young people, I have not heard of a rise of teenage heart attacks or teenage heart disease fatalities, so I think your theory is way off. The obesity problem bodes poorly for lifespan and healthcare costs, but not so much for teenage mortality.
4. I won't dispute this last point much. The deficit now is ridiculous, and it was equally ridiculous when we went to the moon ourselves. Such spending is certainly not sustainable over the long haul. However, comparing deficit-per-capita means nothing without considering the deficit as percent of money brought in. A 30 billion deficit on 50 billion collected, as in India (if the previous posts were correct), is 60%, compared to $600 billion on 2 trillion, which is around 30%.
However, budget deficits aside, I think the point most people have is that India has many more places it should be spending its money other than space and nuclear weapons. Beside the high poverty in India, the caste system still rears its ugly head in the rural areas, which hampers development.
The Economist recently did a feature comparing China and India, basically showing how much farther China is ahead of its neighbor.
--Scott
Where did you get the idea that being below the poverty line implies being homeless?
There is a fairly balanced set of criteria which determines what the poverty line is, it isn't just "Have no home you're below, have a home and you're above".
Boy are they gonna be disappointed...
.
Maybe in the next administration. The current administration may decide it's easier to bomb out the infrastructure. This isn't meant as a flame but as a comment on priorities. No shuttle flights, no kuiper express, no return to the moon, no WMDs, lots of oil, but still no stable power grid, and gouging at the pumps.
FWIW, ISRO is public sector, where discrimination is illegal. When the government outlawed the caste system in the public service, many opponents of the law set themselves on fire in protest, with the happy result that there were that many less opponents of the law to vote out the legislators who supported it.
They'll be forced to turn back!
India will be facing some tough challenges this century. Research has shown that water supplies in the soil will get exhausted and massive amounts of people will suffer and probably die because of this. Admittedly, they'll be proud of having sent a probe to the moon and possessing nuclear weapons. But I really don't see this moon project as a scientific or technological achievement, it's just an extension of their military.
SifyNews reports that 2008 was initially mispronounced as 1908.
;-)
I guess they haven't installed their Y2k patches yet.
Basil
1908 was the year of the mysterious Tunguska impact
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
How did that get moderated Interesting? Its a tissue of lies! See replies for corrections.
Mod parent up!
the US has never been at the forefront of space technology, ever.
the greatest achievements have all been done by the Russian Federation, the US only got to the moon because Russia publically announced it has never, and never will, have plans to go to the moon.
get the Russians involved and we'll have ourselves a gen-u-swine space race once again, i think the ESA has much more of a chance of getting to Mars, they're gradually picking up a good pace mainly backed by British space technology (which incidently supported most US missions into outer-space, don't ask me why).
anyway, maybe pakistan will nuke india before the launch anyway. we can only hope.
Nor do we want one. The only people that want one are the socialists and the gullible fools who believe that socialism will solve their problems.
America still practices the barbaric practice of execution by electric chair
I don't care how we kill the lowest criminals. (i.e. lets say some dude decides to mug a woman on the street for the $20 in her wallet to support his heroin addiction, then casually rapes and shoots her without a second thought.) Stone them, hang them, put them in front of a firing squad. I don't care. If they don't want to be killed in a barbaric way then they shouldn't act like barbarians.
(Don't even get me started on guantanamo bay)
Yeah, I know those terrorists are getting pretty good treatment down there if I say so myself. In my opinion we should fly them to one of Castro's prisons a couple miles down the road and see what kind of treatment they get there.
America's gun crime is the highest per capita of any in the world
Obviously countries that bans guns have lower GUN crime rates. Tell me about our overall crime rate compared to other countries?
America's welfare program is hardly fair
Yes, I should pay more taxes so my hard earned money can be given to someone who:
(a) is too lazy to find a job, or
(b) is too immature to hold a job for more than a week, or
(c) failed to get educated becuase they were too busy jerking off when they were being offered a free education in our public high schools, or
(d) couldn't keep their legs closed or their dick in their pants and now wants to blame me for having to support a family.
That is the only way to be fair according to you communists. I should have known you were a communist.
I wish for one minute that American's would stop pretending they lived in a perfect country, stop dashing off to solve (*cough* create) problems in other countries
Yeah I know. Disband USAID now!!!
http://www.usaid.gov/
One behalf of all of us on the Moon, I for one welcome our new Indian overlords.
Uh, what about the poverty, disease, etc.?
We would like to eventually put a man on the moon... and then see the effects of doing yoga in 1/6 of earth's gravity. Then compare it to the 0g Yoga when we had an Indian in the space.
Such arguments can be made for anything and everything. For example : The united states spent blah blah blah billions on a space program while 40 million people go without health insurance and so on. Retrograde anti-scientific morons in every era always argue against science and lose
You mean USA, right?
Thankfully somebody who has the nutsack to defend this great nation of ours. Let's see....
France conquered, we came, now free.
France conquered, we came, now free. (yes twice)
Communism came, we create NATO, communism fell.
Countries living under Communism, we showed them how to make a living, now they are becoming prosperous. And now you people bitch about IRAQ, just say thank you before we take our fucken OIL.
Besides George Bush???
The republicans are not fiscally conservative. They are politically Conservative. Their fiscal policy depends more on who is looking for handouts -- Little people get nothing, Big companies get lots. Under a solidly Republican party, the US has given lots of money to bug business (mostly via reduced taxes) and then gone to war for big business (thus increasing expenditures and giving even more money to big business).
THe biggest difference between corporate welfare and regular welfare is how much money goes to each recipient, and what they do with it.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The facts in this book are almost always skewed one way or another no matter how objective it is.
I beleive the Eu's grid is in even a worse mess than the US's. youre pun was an abysmal failure.
you say something bad about kim jong 2 or whatever the fuck his name is. Try it N. Korea, I hear its Fun!
I think India would be better off leaving these tax dollars in the hands of the Indian entrepreneurs, who seem to be doing a MUCH BETTER JOB now in terms of developing the economy THAN THE GOVERNMENT DID before economic reform of the early 1990's.
It isn't clear that going to the moon is a money-making venture. Better to let some neo-John-Carmack down there to start a sub-orbital space tourist business and make some money.
Socialism is its own reward, I hope India learned that from 1960-1990. Because it is time for more pro-capitalist economic reforms in India, not time for more central government socialist spending.
Uh, duh! You guys decided to get rid of the H1(b)s last year. So the US "outsourced" 10% of its IT workforce to india instead. Same guys doing the work but paying taxes and boosting the economy somewhere useful instead. Are you happy now?
The space race was a cleverly designed PR piece that told the rest of the world that we could put a very large missile wherever we wanted it, whether in space, or on the moon, or in Moscow in a half-hour. Let there be no bones about it. If you saw what we spent on NASA vs. balistic missile testing, your jaw would drop.
By the way, the USSR was doing, and trying to do, the exact same thing we were.
Spare me the anti-US rhetoric about my country always being a bunch of bullies and the rest of the world a bunch of well-meaning space teletubbies. It is just plain ignorant of history... both of my nation and the history of man's aggression in general. "Big dog" politics has been happening since before humans could write. Mankind has always had useless demonization of the other tribe, which you are now guily of as the next guy. Way to not overcome it. You should put your ignorance in check, as well as your limited, uneducated world view and personal politics.
All the blessings in the world to you now that you are out from under Soviet rule.
Many of us in America hoped for that day. Many of us knew how good our lives were and wished happiness to the rest of the world. I am happy you are free.
May you enjoy and love the life of your choosing that many of us in America do not appreciate as much as you do.
Feeding them would not work, as without population control they would simply breed to match the increased supply of fodder.
Large litters are useful in the Third World, and the projected attrition is only a qulaity-of-life issue.
I'm far more afraid of the USA having ICBMs than India.
If people are stupid enough to blow each other up then we deserve to die. The fear of war should never be used to prevent the advancement of science and our dreams.
The Republicans currently in power are in fact right-wing radicals, not conservatives.
I know this isn't related to the topic at hand, but:
Some of you are saying India should spend its money on helping reduce poverty, others are saying this space program will do this indirectly.
The reality is, US has a land area of just over 9 million sq km. India has a land area of just over 3 million sq km.
Considering the fact that US has more resourceful land, and has a population less than 1/3 of India, isn't the main problem population?
India celebrated when they reached 1 billion. I think the real celebration should be when they go back under 1 billion (if that ever happens).
But yes I do think this space program definitely has a better affect on the national economy than just giving food/money away.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
You misspelled "illiterate" and misused "pretentious" in a most pretentious way.
Hey I know who should go on the first Indian Lunar
Mission. All the Indian IT people who outsource
work from the United States.. Send them up on the
first defective test rocket!
Heh. Yay for time travel.:)
Now we can pay India $2 billion to do a space mission instead of spending $10 billion to do it with NASA! American astronauts better start finding another career real quick!
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
1) If a space program in India allows them to develop hydroponic technology, that would allow more people to be fed and employ thousands of people to make the piping necessary for hydroponic farming (Ever been to Disneyworld? If you've had a salad there, you've eaten hydroponically-grown food)
2) Space programs spend money. That will help alleviate the poverty problem as more people are employed, increase government revenue as other countries expand existing demand or create new contracts to launch their own satellites into orbit, and save some Indian children through advances in medicine and material science (new insights into pharmacology, physiology, and pathophysiology [bad effects on the body caused by space travel share characteristics with other diseases] just to name a few)
3) Spending money on space programs increases our abilities to counter threats from space when they arise. Stray asteroids could wipe out the entire planet, not just the poor of Calcutta. The problem with the poverty-stricken masses in the 3rd world in largely caused by feeding them enough to allow them to have multiple children who end up starving during the next generation. We tried feeding the 2 billion poor of the world after World War II as part of our desire to make allies during the Cold War, now we have 4 billion poor in the same areas who we are being asked to feed instead. Let the Third World take care of itself for a generation so it can establish equilibrium then let us teach them how to take care of themselves instead of just giving them handouts. Having spent time volunteering in one of our nation's busiest public hospitals, I also recommend you take time to fix domestic problems before focusing on international ones. If India chooses space over social programs, that is their business.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
I mean, well, who needs LH2/LOX when you've got vindaloo and a sweaty arse?
Shut up you beggar. We know what to do about poverty. Take care of your homeless first in the US.
indian poverty fell by 5% in last 2 yr.
At this rate, it should not worry about the
poverty issue as much as it should about
creating some real knowledge for world.
The moon mission should create a better
understanding and expand global knowledge
base, instead of national pride issues
The nuclear powered craft will be called "Shiva".
Anyone afraid yet?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Them injuns is going to put a missile platform up there!
Who says indians are illiterate. Then
how come so many Americans who are highly literate are getting displaced by Indian H1 and L1 visa holders (the visa programs created by literate american politicians).
Get back to work and do courses upto masters or PhD, get your country up and running. Stop the addiction to rap music, drugs, and teenage sex.
Invest on education and stop thinking all the world except yours is useless and start respecting all cultures.
get the education, it is golden !
OpenBSD rules in Indian Universities.
FreeBSD rules in Indian Universities.
Linux rules in Indian Universities.
Micro$oft sucks!
The modern nation of India isn't that old, in all fairness. It was a British possession for centuries, and before that it was never united. In this period they haven't actually invaded anybody, but they've had countless skirmishes with Pakistan, border disputes with China, and have spent a good portion of the last half century oppressing both people in the Kashmir region and Sikhs throughout the country.
Sure space missions use money, but most important for India and China is they use up the resource of smart people. I don't know about China, but I know India has plenty of smart, well educated people who have nothing to do with their skills. Take a few of those people and have them work on space, and they suddenly have a job. And since each person working now has money, the effect snowballs meaning many more people work to do the jobs that the sapce people don't have time to do now that they have a good job... Good for the ecconomy so long as dept doesn't get out of control.
Note that I'm not convinced that the above argument is a good idea, but it is very common, and has some points in its favor.
Two things, to support your post; 1) The average prisoner in Guantanamo bay has gained 14 pounds of bodyweight. Oooh, they must be starving. 2) They eat the same thing that the solders eat. They're subjected to the same heat and other conditions that the solders deal with. 3) They're used to living in caves, I'd say it's a huge step up. And if they didn't want to be in a cage, they shouldn't have been shooting at us. Guantanamo bay is for *enemy combatents;* these are people who were caught *fighting,* not just random arab guys. 4) America COULD have a health care system if we wanted one. We just don't. Excuse us for being conservative. I don't see how you liberals can rant and rave about us being anti-diversity, but then mock people with a different culture as being backwards. That's exactly what it is; A different culture that doesn't want such a system. Can't ya'll liberals be more accepting of other cultures? It's not like we're forcing Canada to drop their health care system. If, as an American, one wants health care, one can do what the Mexicans do and drive accross the border.
Two things, to support your post;
1) The average prisoner in Guantanamo bay has gained 14 pounds of bodyweight. Oooh, they must be starving.
2) They eat the same thing that the solders eat. They're subjected to the same heat and other conditions that the solders deal with.
3) They're used to living in caves, I'd say it's a huge step up. And if they didn't want to be in a cage, they shouldn't have been shooting at us.
Guantanamo bay is for *enemy combatents;* these are people who were caught *fighting,* not just random arab guys.
4) America COULD have a health care system if we wanted one. We just don't. Excuse us for being conservative. I don't see how you liberals can rant and rave about us being anti-diversity, but then mock people with a different culture as being backwards. That's exactly what it is; A different culture that doesn't want such a system.
Can't ya'll liberals be more accepting of other cultures? It's not like we're forcing Canada to drop their health care system. If, as an American, one wants health care, one can do what the Mexicans do and drive accross the border.
-Frapazoid. Conservative Athiest Linux-using Liberatarian Free-market Anti-doobie.
PS: About India, I think that's cool that they're gonna get to the moon, but they should really be spending that money on a higher quality federalized education system. (We should be too, although we have more than enough to blow on NASA and more than enough waste that we could cut spending without hurting our space program. fuckin' politicians don't care though.)
of their master plan to populate the moon...
excellent, now they can breed more and steal more IT jobs...
_________ Help me get a PSP!
That's 5 years to develop your craft, train your crew and stop thinking your Jimmy Neutron.
I, for one, welcome our new moon-faring Indian overlords!
http://www.club977.com/ - The 80's Channel!
Your source for commercial free 80's music!
Tell me how NASA or moon-landing contributed to the bottom-line of the USA. People need to look at the history to do things differently.
Government and the elite needs to think about coming up with innovative ways along the lines of what H-P is doing with its iCommunity project in the Indian village called Kuppam.
Adopting my best Indian accent...
"We do not do these things because they are easy. No, no, no, no. That would be very very bad. No, indeed. We do them precisely because they are very very hard."
-- thinkyhead software and media
Ugh. After seeing this movie, I see grandiose Indian projects like this in a different light. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0326/hoberman.p hp
Why bother pursuing a space program when you have a country to care for? Such inappropriately lofty goals; it seems unethical to dump millions of dollars into ceramic tile R&D when your country (1,000,000,000+) largely lives below the poverty line?
What people do for the sake of rabid nationalism is frightening.
And you've resorted to name calling. Boogerhead.
"I'll never feel corrupt, racist, and demented again."
Shouldn't this be based on your actions, and not on your citizenship? What does your place of residence have to do with this? Oh wait, you're an apologist, sorry I almost missed that. So does that make me a corrupt, racist, demented person too? Holy crap! I never knew! I owe you big.
Any man who had ever worked in a hardened missile site would have felt at home in Clavius. Here on the Moon were the same arts and hardware of underground living, and of protection against a hostile environment; but here they had been turned to the purposes of peace.
After ten thousand years, man had at last found something as exciting as war. Unfortunately, not all nations had yet realized that fact."
from Chapter 10 (Clavius Base) of "2001: A Space Odyssey"
One dollar can buy about 6 pounds of healthy high quality food (vegetables, fruits, low cholesterol beef), and a good DVD player costs about a hundred bucks. Health care is also cheaper compared to the individual earning.
That's one of the reasons the math related to economy is a little bit complex...
Thought you meant USians until I read the rest of the paragraph. What makes you think one of the races in India is xenophobic, racist and elitist? And which one of the Indian races do you think that is?
All who support the caste system, which is widespread, socially-endorsed racism. What makes me think that? Careful study.... :)
Like what I said? You might like my music
Natch. that honour goes to their fellow Aryans, the mid-40s National Socialists (whose symbol incidentally was a bad copy of the Hindu swastika), who were xenophobic, racist and elitist, and claimed the lives of 6 million Jews to prove it.
Ok, I'm genuinely curious here. The Aryans, as an ancient civilization, grew up in what is now known as Iran (note the similarities in spelling) and were originally known as Persia. Of course, nobody actually called them Persians, they were the Aryan Kingdoms and non-Aryan lands. They are also credited as being the civilization that introduced the concept of conquering the world, which is quite differet than just quibbling and fighting pitched battles and so forth, which was quite common. So how did this ancient civilization located in what is now Iran become Germany? Aren't the Germans descended from white european tribes that were painting themselves blue when the Aryan race originally struck out to conquer the world? (An action which predates Rome, of course, and Greece, by quite some time. The Persians would be put in check by Alexander the Great, who also rose up to conquer the world, and may have likely developed the idea independently of the Persians)
Besides all that, there is more than pure irony in the fact that Hitler copied a Hindu symbol and adopted it as the symbol of the super-race. Birds of a feather, and so forth. THe difference being that India never industrialized on their own, and to my knowledge has never been a world power (even in anciet times), while Germany has done both of these. Give India a chance, and we'll see who is really untouchable and who is not.
Like what I said? You might like my music
I'm killing time right now, so I'm going to be long winded ;)
:-D) at the time of the Industrial Revolution, and industrialization in India was discouraged when it was economically beneficial to Britain. Example: Cloth mills were not allowed in India for a very long time because the East India company's monopoly on importing cloth from England's famous Lancashire mills would be busted. (In fact, Gandhi later used the spinning wheel as a form of civil disobedience for just this reason -- he would rather make his rough homespun cloth himself than wear high-priced imported cloth)
;), and (b) because India is very energy-poor country and simply cannot afford to buy the energy (i.e., oil/gas) it would take to have high levels of industrialization and (c) the large population makes labor cheap, so there's little incentive to build labor-saving devices.
:)
> The Aryans, as an ancient civilization, grew up in what is now known as Iran
Persians do call their earliest civilization "Aryan", but so do parts of Germany and India. As far as I am concerned, "Aryan" is a term a lot of people are quick to claim, but have little to back it up. Here's what I understand from the mythology (you really can't call it history):
There was once a group of very early men (~4000 BC) who emerged out of Central Asia (and possibly Persia) and, in a Dune-like Scattering, went forth to South Asia towards the East and parts of Europe towards the West. Alternatively, they originated in Europe and spread Eastward. These people effectively were the stock from which all other Aryan nations originated.
There was never a "Aryan" civilization in the sense of a Greek, Roman , Chinese or Indus Valley civilization, i.e., pre/historic ruins and so forth. The only (scant) evidence is linguistic roots: words like "apel" (apple) and "mater" (mother) repeat time and again in several languages in the Indo-European family, suggesting a shared past.
> India never industrialized on their own
India was under British rule (the East India Company: case study of what happens when a giant multinational corporation owns a country
After Independence, India _did_ industrialize. Not to the same extent as Europe/America, chiefly because (a) unfortunately because of a socialist/Gandhian hangover, India's early leaders somehow equated industry with evil (not unlike some slashdotters of today
> and to my knowledge has never been a world power (even in anciet times)
India, like Europe, was a collection of States. Before the British conquest, there were only 2 or 3 instances when one Indian ruler held territory equivalent to even ~80% of what India is today. The idea of "one India" is, ironically, an English one.
That said, like China for much of its history, kings of these Indian states had a rather inward-looking outlook (Something about Eastern philosophy?). It (generally) projected no naval power, sent out no missionaries nor missions of conquest (apart from some early forays into SE Asia, which is why the world largest Hindu temple is in Cambodia, not India).
> untouchable
Btw, untouchability is illegal under the Indian consitution. India has plenty of problem, yes, but untouchability in everyday life isn't one of them.
Even caste, that bugbear of Indian civilization is becoming less of problem (although it hasn't vanished) as folk become more educated and urbanized. It's often said that the degree to which caste is a problem in a given Indian region is inversely proportional to the spread of MTV, HBO and Pepsi there
Go somewhere random
Because India's space programme launches communications satellites which, like TCP/IP over railway communications lines, bring literacy to remote villages. Yes the schools in the villages need satellite dishes and the railroad stations need network stations, but the government provides them!
Why the Indian government failed not provide standard telephony to those areas many decades before will then remain a complete mistery.
I mean, why would they use the latest tech gear now, and not have done it before ?
There's a problem here...
And I seriously doubt that it is cheaper to use satellites than a standard telephony wire system. If wire is cheaper for us in USA and EU then it's not going to be different for India.
Moreover, it's also dubious that bringing "knowledge" to uneducated masses without bringing material stuff that they can work on with such knowledge will help them raise their standard of living close to those living in big cities.
Even people in big cities are really poor in India, so it's not like their problem is technology.
Funny how this myth about technology being the solution to all problems - especially poverty, seems to spread so easily.
The solution to poverty is not to send pigs in space or invest in high tech R&D, it is to give money to the poor ones.
IE *share*.
You can brainstorm the problem for centuries, you won't find another solution. As long as there are inequalities, no tech will help poors to become riches or at least less-poors.
Economics is a zero sum game, what the riches have, the poors have not. No amount of tech toys is going to change that.
(though I'd love it to be true)
You insult me by putting words in my mouth and by associating my comments with your unreasoning meanderings.
First, I don't agree that the U.S. or the EU have a "permanent dependent" underclass. To the contrary, I do believe that there is more opportunity for personal financial growth in these countries than anywhere on the planet. That is why so many people want to leave their own countries and move here.
I believe that it is natural for some people in a society to have more wealth than others. That means that the people atone end of that spectrum will be always "poorer" than people at the other end. However, that doesn't mean they will be doomed to lead lives of poverty. Wealth is relative. (Better to be officially poor in the U.S. or the EU than to be poor in sub-Saharan Africa.)
I believe we measure economic fairness in terms of access to opportunity, not by forced distribution of wealth. People want to acquire more goods and services, and by working to ensure access to opportunities to increase personal wealth, we ensure that everyone has the means to do that. Politically or socially mandated efforts to artifically distribute wealth in a "fair" way simply remove the means to acquire personal wealth, creating a failed and stagnating economy. (That's the basic lesson of the failed USSR and all of its socialist cousins.)
If you want to call that "unfair", that is your right. But, it is also my right to assert that your opinion is driven by emotion and an incorrect understanding of human nature and economic fairness.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You forgot France came, you gained independence; you ingnorant moran.
And by the way _Canada_ created NATO (read some history will ya?)
How can you call yourself a Libertarian and support Guantanamo bay?
No one is saying these guys are good-guys, or that they weren't caught fighting in a war. The question is do they not have human rights? The US signed the Geneva convention for the treatment of POWs and they are flaunting it. When a war is over then POWs on both sides must be returned. I understand the US position of releasing terrorists, but not all these individuals are terrorists, as I assume you would like to believe. In fact the US just let a bunch go without so much as a "sorry I kept you in a cage for a year in the heat". The US even fought having the RED CROSS visit them to ensure they were being well treated.
I think we will all watch the outcomes of the upcoming closed-door, secret, death-sentence-possible trials with interest.
> I was explaining that you should not think that way.
;-).
Actually I don't, perhaps I used wrong words. I liked your way of explaining though
>America's welfare program is hardly fair > >Yes, I should pay more taxes so my hard earned >money can be given to someone who: >(a) is too lazy to find a job, or >(b) is too immature to hold a job for more than >a week, or >(c) failed to get educated becuase they were too >busy jerking off when they were being offered a >free education in our public high schools, or >(d) couldn't keep their legs closed or their >dick in their pants and now wants to blame me >for having to support a family. I'm on Welfare. (a) I'm not lazy or immature. (b) I am educated. (c) I have a hole in my spinal cord, at C7. This creates a pocket of fluid therein.... (d) *I AM* waiting on the lazy .gov idiots at social security to get around to doing their job. So far, it's taken 4 years (2 years of bureaucratic red tape between each step in the system).
Welfare provides my son and I with food, a place to live, medication ($1,500/month), and health care ($30,000/year). Without this system, my son would be an orphan. Sure, a great deal of people on welfare fit YOUR description....but not all of us.
I'm waiting for WOOT to offer an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. I need one.
Note to self: Don't use the HTML formatting.
I'm waiting for WOOT to offer an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. I need one.
Of course giving money to big business is the best thing to do since big business uses money to create bigger business, in the process creating jobs and stimulating the economy. Regular welfare provides ways for poor people to get high.
Big companies should get lots. At least this way, people WILLING to work will benefit. Regular welfare takes their money and delivers them no benefit.
Economics is NOT a zero sum game. Wealth is created NOT distributed. Try ECO101 at local community college and stop reading liberal crap like NY Times and regurgitating verbatim on /.
Economics is NOT a zero sum game. Wealth is created NOT distributed.
;)
Wealth is created, true, from physical resources, which as you may know are exhaustable and finite. Our means to recycle them are also limited.
Theoretical economics may not be a zero sum game, but when you add physics to this very nice (but unrealistic) model, it begins to be reality-compliant and ceases to be a useless mathematician utopia where wealth can be indefinitely multiplied.
The earth is finite, so is wealth. And even if it weren't, pollution growth being proportional to economic growth, we are going to see the limits of indefinite exponential economic growth very soon.
Does the words "global warning" mean anything to you ? A reality check may be a good thing sometime
Dude the first Indian "Cosmonaut" Rakesh Sharma was the 138th man into space- human.h tml
"http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SPACE/space
Dr. Kalpana Chawla was an Indian American , and died in the colmbia crash on feb 1st 2003.
Perhaps you mean to ask why the British government "failed not" (sic) provide standard telephony in India. The answer is no "mistery" (sic). Why India didn't do it after Britain left is that Britain left India in a state of war, which is standard procedure for Britain when withdrawing from an occupied territory. It keeps a potential economic competitor down.
If you think connecting all other countries by wire is as cheap as connecting all of US or EU by wire, you know nothing about geography. Do some reading on the geography of places like Russia, Canada, China, India, and Brazil. Do some reading on the building of railways in these countries. The reason communications lines follow railroads is not just for the railroad to use but because the railroad is never built over places where structures will sink into the ground or slide down a mountain side. Even in Canada, a G8 member, there are places where you won't find a telephone pole if it's not along a railway. Large expanses of Canada are served by satellite only.
Cell phone usage is common in some remote Indian villages because it's cheaper than getting wireline service into the village, just like wireless Internet is thrives in some rural parts of the US. Each village needs only one cell phone to communicate with other villages. Will AT&T lay wire to a US town that will subscribe to only one phone line?
Besides that, getting Internet coverage all over means getting telephone coverage all over, if that's really needed. I can tell you from living in a big country, communicating by Internet is a lot cheaper than communicating by phone. Like you said, these people are poor. They can already communicate with everyone in the village without a phone. Just go outside! If they want to communicate with a village that is a long distance away, phone is not the best answer.
I'm not sure why you think people who live outside big cities strive for the same standard of living as people who are doomed to live in big cities, or that the standard of living in big cities is higher. Even in the western world, you will find no shortage of people leave away from cities and especially away from big cities because small towns with fresh air, fresh food, and unlocked doors at night give them a better standard of living. They might wait a few months longer than city dwellers to see the next Star Wars episode. Is that a bad thing? Travel around a bit. Ask people in small towns and rural areas why they don't move to the nearest large city.
How would you educate the uneducated masses without bringing knowledge to them? What materials do you think will be useful without knowledge? A pencil? How would people without knowledge know the use of a pencil? Why bother to build telephone lines, as is your preference, is they don't have the materials to connect telephones? Schools are given all the materials they need to teach and the knowledge to use the materials. I don't know if that's true in the US, but that doesn't make it untrue elsewhere.
If by "material stuff that they can work on" (sic) you mean farm implements, Indian kids learn that the same way as American kids, by going into the fields with the rest of the family and learning from them. The outside "knowledge" Indian farmers need, as the parent to your post says, is the outside information western farmers need, information about rainfall, soil erosion, etc, the big picture that a satellite can see but Farmer Joe in Idaho can't see by standing in the middle of his field or on the roof of his barn, but he can get from government satellite reports. Except that US government will launch satellites to help Farmer Joe and his neighbours, but the US government has no reason (votes, campaign financing) to do that for India. The US won't even help to pay for Soy
Only one of the races in India supports the caste system, and not very member of that race does. IT'S ILLEGAL. Seems like you're damning all of Indian society because of the outlawed way of thinking of one segment of it's population. It's like saying USA shouldn't have nukes because the KKK is racist. 7 of the last 11 US presidents were from the south. KKK is widespread in the south. That proves KKK controls the Bomb. Sounds silly doesn't it? But that's what you did.
Which *obviously* means that nuclear weapons are required, in order to threaten to decimate a population whose military India could crush if it decided to do so?
No. Nobody really cares.
Only one of the races in India supports the caste system, and not very member of that race does. IT'S ILLEGAL. Seems like you're damning all of Indian society because of the outlawed way of thinking of one segment of it's population. It's like saying USA shouldn't have nukes because the KKK is racist. 7 of the last 11 US presidents were from the south. KKK is widespread in the south. That proves KKK controls the Bomb. Sounds silly doesn't it? But that's what you did.
A few differences. One is that I have actually spoken with more than a few immigrants from India who told me the caste system was still going. I did not know that it was illegal, now, though. However, I have not damned all of Indian society, just the people who are in power, since the racism is supported politically, even if it is illegal (much like most of the US's history of independence. Racism has been illegal, but supported by the government, even after the Civil War).
And yes, because of the prejudices in the US, I don't think the US should have nukes.
Like what I said? You might like my music
have spent a good portion of the last half century oppressing both people in the Kashmir region and Sikhs throughout the country. Being a Sikh myself I find that statement stupid. Same about Kashmiris, no truth about it. BTW, who are Indians? WE are (that includes Sikhs and Kashmiris). You don't know anything about the real problems. You must come and pay a visit to India and see for yourself.
40% illiteracy out of 1 billion people means 600 million literate people. That's equal to the total populations of the USA and EU combined. I'm sure they can spare a few thousand to work on a space program. And if they really have an annual govt revenue of $48 billion -- well, that means that on average each indian pays only $48 per year in taxes. I'm packing my bags.
But if you want to talk similarities with 1969 USA how about comparing the India-Pakistan nuclear standoff with USA-USSR. The space race was a major part of cold war rivalry (not to mention an important "peaceful" forum for developing missile technology). Maybe India sees things similarly.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
I must disagree.
When formaulating an idea what is more important; the resources, or the knowledge to put them to use? Wealth is created from knowledge, not resources. While there are certain endeavors that require resources in order to succeed the idea is what brings success and prosperity, not the resources themselves. Without the idea resources are just hunks of steel and plastic with no purpose.
Funny, that's a lot different story than I get from Sikhs that aren't posting anonymously on message boards.
One word: Microwaves !
How else would I eat my Microwave Blast-o-Butter Popcorn?!
What else are governments for, if not to exploit the poor?
'Hello, I'm from the Indian Government, and I am here to help you!'
But, In the long run, developing new technologies may improve the Indian Economy, with the 'Trickle Down Effect' trickling down onto the poor...
Sounds like they are following in the footsteps of the USA...