Slashdot Mirror
India Test-Fires Cryogenic Rocket Engine
alphakappa writes "Wired News reports that India has successfully testfired a cryogenic rocket engine that can be used to 'launch high-altitude satellites, send a man to the moon -- or build intercontinental ballistic missiles'. The rocket which typically has to fire for 12 minutes during flight was fired for 17 minutes during ground testing. So are we gonna see competition in the moon race? Remember, India has already spoken about sending a mission to the moon and it has joined the Galileo consortium along with China."
anyone comes out and spouts the "stolen or bought technology" meme, the Wired article says
India's bid to develop its own cryogenic engines suffered several setbacks. In 1992, Russia agreed to give India the technology but reversed the decision after Moscow signed the Missile Technology Control Regime with the United States. Washington objected to giving India the technology because of its potential use for nuclear missiles.
Russia later agreed to sell fully built engines, without passing on the technology, to India.
India developed a rudimentary form of its cryogenic technology in 2001 and several tests were held after that to fine-tune it.
It does have to do with freezing of sorts, because the gases that are required for fuel oxygen and hydrogen (as well as a mixture of others) are gaseous in normal atmospheric conditions. They are required to be cooled down to a liquid state, hence the name "cryogenic rocket engine".
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I was listening to a debate about outsourcing on BBC Radio the other night, and they pointed out that in Bangalore there's a lot of worry about all the call centre backroom IT jobs getting outsourced to China, where the costs are so low that India can't possibly compete.
I agree that the Moon isn't the *real* purpose of the Indian space programme, but, just as with the US 30 years ago, aiming high helps to hit the lower targets, like comsats, earth imaging and so forth, not to mention the huge boost to national self-esteem and all the benefits that can bring in sheer morale terms - when you've got to the Moon, what challenge can you honestly say is too big to even attempt?
So are we gonna see competition in the moon race?
No, we're just going to see India launch a few satelites to show that they can (because if you can launch a satelite, you can build ICBM's), I doubt they will want to go to the moon.
A nice article on Cryogenic Rocket engines is available here .
"manned mission to the moon...."
Am i the only one confused. Indias moon ambitions were said to be restricted to only firing a unmanned galileo type mission to the moon. Which is pretty simple considering that they were planning to use the existing GSLV(Geo-Stationary Launch Vehicle) set-up. Why the sudden shift to a manned mission? A manned mission to the moon will never happen in India because of a number of reasons most notably the fact that we spend peanuts on space, compare isro's(indian space research org.) budget to NASA.
Also i thought GSLV - the satellite launch vehicle was totally indigenously built, Though WIRED seems to claim that the engine was Russian!
Anyway i think its a great achievement considering the amount India spends on space research.
So are we gonna see competition in the moon race?
Perhaps we should wait until India has actually placed someone in orbit before talking about a moonshot? I am all for an increase in competition when it comes to space, but aren't we getting a wee bit ahead of ourselves?
Is this because Dell wants a tech support center on the Moon?
This ICBM nonsense seems to be floating all over the place. Only a bloody idiot would use a cryogenic engine for an ICBM. You don't need to build a god damned geostationery satellite launch vehicle to build an ICBM. India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which has been operational for many years now can easily be converted to an operational ICBM. Cryogenic engines just add the need for a lot more ground facilities for a launch. There just isn't a need for an ICBM since China and Pakistan are right next door to India. The attitude seems to be.. "oh India's launching satellites? It must be for something bad." Get over it assholes.
welcome our new cryogenic Indian overlords.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
prices for thowing things into orbit will only come down when there is some straightforward competition. It is good to see more players in the field, and it is good to see various technologies tried-- I doubt this is the most efficient, but let them give it a shot.
Rocketry is yes-- rocket science-- but certainly within the grasp of "second tier" tech nations like China, India, Brazil, and Korea.
davejenkins.com |
Lets also be realistic here; the only place India would want to hit with an ICBM is Pakistan, and they already have more conventional rockets which are plenty capable of doing that.
This rocket is just because they can, and no doubt also an attempt to attract international investment. After all, this is a great adverstisment for the education standards of your workforce if you're able to achieve complex technological goals like this.
I: We will be having giant-sized moon rocket now.
P: You think you are becoming big shot with moon rocket now?
I: We are becoming superpower now.
P: You are not now.
I: We are too now.
P: We will be building bigger rocket now.
I: You are not now.
O: We are too now.
I: All of your bases are belonging to us now.
sigs, as if you care.
Now we can outsource our space program!
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
The change is kinda interesting. Countries pouring their resources into science and exploration instead of another arms race (but it only takes one nation to start the whole thing again and if it happens there will be several players).
Spin offs include environmental technologies which never would have been developed. Smarter more exotic materials. Massive raw protein potential. Getting things to mars or even low earth orbit is alot easier from the moon then from earth. so on, so forth, etc.
Not unless they want an incredibly slow to prepare and obvious missile fleet.
The problem with cryogenic fueled rocket engines is that you have to fuel them before you fire them. Filling a missile fleet with LOX takes time and if anyone notices gives them ample opportunity to preemptively strike.
Thats why, pack up, go there and educate those people.
Yeah, according to you, close all those schools that are doing these researches, maybe even stop educating people, and somehow do this magic trick that will make the caste system go away.
How will the government 'dismantle' caste system?
Hmm, let me see, from India's perspective , the bigger challanges are ....
Poverty :- The country's wealth is divided by the 90-10 rule. i.e. 10% of the population has 90% of the wealth.
:- More than 50%. And since being literate means being able to sign your name, the actual figures could be as high as 70-75% :- Forget the politicians , I can't get my mail if I don't tip my postman. :- One of the world's worst . So much Red tape everywhere. :- Barring major cities, public transport is a mess and not every one can afford their own vehicle. Road/Rail accidents account for most no. of deaths in the country.
Illiteracy
Rampant Political/Economical and Social Corruption
Infrastructure
Transportation and Safety
Disaster Recovery:- No set plans and procedures for natural disaster recovery from floods , famines, fires etc. People are left at the mercy of nature and rehabilitation is a joke.
I am not a westerner trying to judge india, I am an indian , humbly pointing out what our top priorities should be.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Excuse me, but are you referring to the Apollo program as "useless"? If so, you are a fool.
In terms of long-term scientific and technological returns, the Apollo program in particular, and NASA in general have been some of the most well-spent gummint dollars in history.
It is also very hard to put a value on even one smart child who is inspired to do something great. I have never seen anything more inspirational in my life than the first man setting foot on the moon.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Volatile does not mean explosive!
As for being peace-loving, that's what everybody says themselves to be.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I am a westerner and will now judge india in a burst of hubris:
I think India should also work on its leprosy poblem...and the plague.
Seriously, for a country to simultaniously have atomic weapons and diseases from the middle ages...that's scary.
Then again, there's been an increase in syphilis in the states lately...that's more 19th century than middle ages, but nobody's perfect.
You can't take the sky from me...
Wow! If that's your definition of a serious poverty problem we'd better get to work fixing America, too.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Anyway, how do you keep a kerosene-LOX rocket on the pad on any kind of alert status (i.e. able to launch in some time less than several days of prep)? The idea was to keep it plugged in to a supply of LOX so as LOX boils off, you pump in more. In a test, they had a leak on a LOX feed line to the rocket, so one of the technicians, like, whipped it out and took aim at the leak -- that froze over and plugged the leak. I work with a fellow whose favorite expression is "running around peeing on all of those problems" and here is where someone did it for real.
Cyrogenic ICBMs are first-strike weapons. It takes so long to prep and fuel them that they're useless as a retaliation weapon. The opposition's ICBMs will land on your silos first. Keeping a cyrogenic system at a high state of readiness for years on end is difficult.
The Cuban missile crisis is sometimes said to have occured because the US put cyrogenic ICBMs in Turkey, aimed at the Soviet Union. That looked like the US was planning a first strike on Moscow. The Soviet Union had to respond to that threat.
(Decades later, interviews with the Soviet officials who made that decision revealed that most of them didn't look at it that way, but that's another issue. The communication-by-strategic-threat thing never worked as some of the gurus of deterrence thought it did. The most famous example of such miscommunication was that Kennedy's advisers thought the Soviet missile base in Cuba was deliberately laid out just like the ones in Russia so that the US would recognize it as a threat. Years later, the Red Army colonel in charge of building the base was asked about this, and said "No, we just did it that way because that's what the field manual said to do." All the military personnel present nodded in understanding.)
So it's a launcher, not an ICBM.
When we say poverty in india, we mean being unable to provide oneself even with daily bread.
There is no govt. program (at least one that works), to educate, support or at the least feed the really really poor indians. Any money generated thru welfare organizations is socked up internally by politicians and officials.
The fast rise of Islam and Christanity in India is mainly due to FREE food provided by the mosques and churches to poor people. I am not a religiously biased person, so I am not critisizing either one, But when a religion starts to get converts because it provides free food, instead of its principals and ideologies, you start wondering about the entire system.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Wow, the historical ignorance displayed in this post is astounding:
The ONLY reason nuclear war didn't break out during those years was because a. we'd have volatilized them and b. the Russians were never quite sure their equipment would actually work. Furthermore, they knew that we were highly unlikely to ever fire the first shot.
Please post some sources for this opinion - it's highly unconventional and conflicts with the generally accepted historical view. The Russians were actually fairly confident in their missile capability, and as much as the states yould have "volatized" them, they would have volatized us. The reason nuclear war didn't break out was because of the principal of MAD, which you cite in your introduction but clearly don't seem to understand.
Pakistan has atom bombs (only fission weapons at this point, I understand), India either does or isn't far behind and China most likely does but probably wouldn't admit it yet.
For your information, China has had nukes and openly admitted it since 1964, and has had intercontinental capability since not-long-after. India tested a civilian nuclear device in 1974, and then detonated both fission AND fusion bombs in 1998. Pakistan detonated their fission bomb in response.
Given the political and economic instability of the Middle East and the Orient, I have no doubt that any of the major "peace loving" players would be perfectly capable of firing that first shot.
None of the nations you have cited are the most likely perpetrator of the first shot in that scenario - Isreal is (They have nukes, but won't admit it). In fact the closest this world has ever come to nuclear war was not the Cuban missile crisis (as most Americans would like to believe), but the Yom Kippur War. Had Isreal not been able to reverse their apalling rout with an emergency infusion of US arms, this world would have seen nukes flying in the middle east.
Please, go take a 20th century history course or do some reading before you start spouting off unfounded opinions on slashdot. Most slashdot posts have at least some (tenuous) grounding in reality.
Technicly nukes would be a great choice for busting bunkers but the obvious danger is that once you make it acceptable to use little nukes it will be a lot more palatable to use big ones and to use them to solve more problems.
Its so ironic to see U.S. politicians rail against WMD's when its fact the U.S. always has been and continues to be in the forefront of developing and using them. Many of the nuclear documents found in Iraq were from the Eisenhower administration's "Atoms for Peace" program and were definitely dual use. And, of course, the U.S.was actively supporting Iraq when Saddam began using using chemical weapons. At the time time we were using him a as a proxy to wage war against Iran and fundementalist Islam. Iran was in danger of winning the war by using human wave attacks of young boys to overrun Iraq's trenches. We almost certainly encouraged or turned a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons to stave off these attacks and certainly did supply Iraq with precursors for chemical and biological weapons, anthrax in particular. We also supplied them with cluster bombs from Chile to use against these human waves. Some of the key players at the time VP George H.W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.
You can't really blame countries for wanting nukes and missiles. Its one of the few methods for insuring the U.S. and everyone elese doesn't f**k with you.
@de_machina