Slashdot Mirror
India Plans Hypersonic Space Plane by 2007
MaximusTheGreat writes "While India has announced plans for a hypersonic plane (speeds greater than mach 5) before, this is the first time a firm date for test of an unmanned plane has been given. Final version of this plane called Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (AVATAR) is envisaged to deliver a 500 kg to 1,000 kg payload to low earth orbit. It will reduce the cost of space travel to a fraction to what it is today, by being completely reusable. Also, by allowing hypersonic speeds, it would for example reduce the travel time from Sydney, Australia to New York to less than 3 hrs. The crucial technology in the development of Hypersonic planes is supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet). India has already demonstrated the basic technology of ramjets by the development of world's fastest cruise missile Brahmos which outspeeds famous US Tomahawk by three times, and by ground tests of scramjets. US, Australia and Japan are also pursuing similar programs."
Now they can outsource my job to orbit, where they don't have to pay for gravity or air...
Now *that's* what I call the fastest call center on Earth!
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
India said they planned to outsource the programming to lower paid US programmers.
If India really has those super fast jets, it's time to globalize their aerospace engineering to countries like Canada and U.S. for cheap labor at $100,000 USD a year.
They have nuclear weapons and they'll be able to place objects in orbit cheaply...
Twenties Retirement
They actually charge me to breathe air at work.
activestudios web design
I wonder how much of the technology has been stolen from US companies that were stupid enough to outsource there.
Hey, Indian laws don't stop that kind of thing and it's happened before. Never know....
Everyone in their country may not have access to running water and basic medical care but they are building a fscking Space Plane!
WFT are they thinking?
First our jobs, now are missiles.
How long would it take to bring me to Mars?
Pakastan announces they will be developing a satellite missle defence system by 2006.
The Pakastan/India conflict is eventually going to explode.
So sad.
Davak
From the article: "Brahmos which outspeeds famous US Tomahawk by three times, and by ground tests of scramjets."
The Tomahawk cruise missile was intentionally made subsonic. The sound from a supersonic cruise missile with a range in exceess of 800 miles would negate much of the stealth aspect of the missile.
If you want to compare it to a US missile, compare it to some of our anti-ship or anti-air missiles.
But, there's no sound in space.
You don't need to be a superpower to experiment in this area. The University of Queensland here in Oz has the HyShot program which, despite a few teething problems, is producing world class results. The US has yet to see any results from its X-43 series. It will be interesting to see if India can live up to its own hype. Good luck to them.
I don't understand why everytime India advances technologically, people immediately think "oh they have nuclear weapons". The United States has Nuclear weapons and continues to develop and is the *only* country to ever have used them in war - and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Anyway, I digress - the point I am trying to make, why don't we see this as it is - other countries (besides the US, Germany, UK, France) are also trying to develop advanced avaition and technological capabilities. This is going to happen more often now.
Of all the countries in the world, the last one we have to worry in as far as using nuclear weapons is India. It is so completely against the basic pysche of the country. Clearly, nukes are a deterrant to all the hostile neighbors India has. India lives in a very tough neighborhood bordering Pakistan and China, with Afghanistan only a hundred miles from the border. They have to develop nukes to keep the enemies at bay.
Again, I digress - bottom line: please don't think nukes everytime India develops new space, missile etc technology.
I welcome our hypersonic outsourced programmer Indian olerlords.
Wait, Isn't this an outsourced NASA project?!?
Go India! Now that it is getting more money, it can put its vast brain power to good use. This is definately good news. I have been to India and I know of its potential. I always wanted to setup a PayPal account to get American to send more money to India. I suppose I will do that soon. Without capital, India was simple wasting its brainpower - unable to do anything else.
Money is everything.
it sure is fast, but how easy is it to navigate, and more importantly how accurate is it? since it's going so fast, it must have a really small marigin of error to hit a target sucessfully.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
More so than the US it seems. With NASA pulling the funding on every new shuttle replacement just before it starts working and our commercial aerospace industry relegated to Boeing, who seemingly can't compete on a level playing field, it seem slike all the exciting advancements are going to happen in China and India.
The Western countries have lost their population advantage long ago - there are much more Chinese and Indians than Europeans and Americans.
The military advantage is already gone in thecase of e.g. France or UK or is already decreasing like e.g. US and Germany.
The industrial advantage is also gone: most industrial consumer products are not produced in Western countries these days leading to the huge trade deficit of the US.
What is remaining is the technological advantage.
However, India and China are catching up.
The US has traditional 2 strategies to keep this advantage:
- Sucking brillant minds out of 3rd world countries by getting them into the US via e.g. graduate schools.
- Blocking advancement in 3rd world countries by covering every rubbish with patents.
However, both strategies are failing these days:- Foreign graduates from India and China are in fact returning to htheir home countries. By this they are exporting the US technology there and creating unbeatable (cost !) conpetitors to US businesses.
- With reducing importance of the US in the world China and other countries are less and less willing to accept the US patent dictatorship - killing the exploiting by IP strategy of the US.
Bush tries to cover these facts by made up wars in the middle east. But the Iraq war wouldn't last forever and the US public will be forced to face their bleak future.Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Well India has more people with Doctorate degrees per capital than any other country in the world. So I could see India getting the plain up and running by 2007.
...the US may have to reveal the secret scramjets we already have. Will be interesting to see if all those reported string-of-pearls contrails indeed turn out to be from Aurora's scramjet.
India will have well paid skilled technical specialists to produce this technology.After all we must make all the world have the same standard of living as us to prevent terrorism...Dr Howard Dean
"Outsource For America!"
India is well aware that the stability of Pakistan's dictator Musharraf could collapse any day to the surge of Islamic fundamentalism in the country due to the exodus of the Taliban. In fact, he was almost assassinated last week.
Most of this is obviously meant for military technology. With a hypersonic scramjet, their military could not only call airstrike missile attacks within minutes, they would also have a de-facto ICBM on their hands that could travel so fast through space it would bypass the early warning systems. With it, they could launch a nuclear first strike on Pakistan and cripple their nuclear capabilities.
The Concorde was grounded because it was too dangerous, and a space plane would be infinitely moreso. This technology will be mostly for military use.
Nuclear weapons? Missile technology? Yeah that's exactly what India needs to feed its teeming masses!
I wish governments could be more people-serving. But I guess as people climb the food chain they inevitably forget how important silly little things like food and shelter are at the bottom.
Probably because India and Pakistan appeared to be very close to going to war fairly recently, and there are sufficiently advanced weapons on both sides to make people nervous.
:-)
Even if you assume that India will never use thier nukes, won't an increase in power on thier part make thier neighbors feel that they need to increase thier military power as well?
On the other hand, cheap space travel is really cool no matter who is developing it..
Twenties Retirement
India has been working for more than 20 years on an indigenous jet figher to replace its Mig-21s, and also a jet trainer to replace its Hawks. The latest report: some Mig-29s and new Hawks have been rented "temporarily" from Russia and England to "fill in" until the local products are ready.
So - if it has taken India 20 years to produce some Mach 1.5 aircraft, how long will it take to produce a usuable Mach 20 spacecraft?
sPh
Why ?
I regularly donate cash to charities to drill wells in India and other such poverty relief measures - and yet their government spends a ton of cash on nuclear weapons and prestige projects.
Time to redirect my charity I think.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Regarding those missles, yes, India's missle is indeed faster, but the article states that it has a range of only 280km. That, compared to the American Tomahawk of anywhere between 1100km to 2500km, is just a drop in the bucket. The article states that had India been able to fire off some missles at the same time as the Americans that their chances of getting Bin Laden would have been greater. The problem is with a range of only 280km, they'd have to get pretty close to or within the country. With the Tomahawks extremely long range, the American's can fire from the Ocean without taking any land. Although its slower, the fact that it has between 4 and 9 times the range of the BrahMos, the Tomahawk would realistically 'get there sooner' because of its longer firing range in a real world situation.
Oh yes, I'm not American, I'm Canadian. This is an objective perspective.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
The thought of a missle named after a cow just dosn't scare me somehow.
Probably because, unlike the US or Russia, they have no agreement with other countries on what they can/cannot do with those nuclear devices (regardless of the fact that we don't always respect the agreements).
President GW Bush
But seriously, since a scramjet will only work in an atmosphere this only makes getting to LOE (low Earth orbit) easier. Of course if it is cheaper, you can haul more rockets up, more quickly, with more fuel. Speed and Time of travel are always a trade off in space based on fuel, so the more you fuel can haul up to start your journey the faster it will be.
Letter To Iran
If you take a look at the India of 20 years ago and the India of today, I think you'll see startingly different countries, particularly in terms of technological education and infrastructure.
Hijack and hit your target in under 2 hours anywhere in the world. Isn't technology wonderful?
Ramping up to something from nothing takes longer than from something to something better. Get it? Good.
India only received it's independence from the parasitic Brits about 50 years ago. We got that about 200+ years ago.
Pray explain what noise would make it audible before it physicaly arrives.
It's Supersonic i.e, faster than sound!!
The fact that the bang might be heard and the news radioed ahead is rather trivial as cruise missiles don't need to follow a straight line of attack.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
...is thinking Mensa and graduate schools is where you find the brilliant people.
Perhaps because India/Pakistan is one of the few places in the world where there can be multiple cross-border shellings of civilian -cities- which doesn't result in a declaration of war. That's just....messed up. There's a lot of rage been building there for decades (understatement).
I agree that there is a fair comparison between the USA and India. Both are war-mongering Democracies.
Europe is somewhat different. Western Europe is very much a post-modern society, whose power is economic and diplomatic (and in those areas FAR exceeds the US's power). And has little interest in Imperialism of any kind.
Which is strange as the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes. The US, India and Pakistan owning nukes however scares the crap out of me.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Read the article:
It scoops oxygen in the atmosphers at hypersonic speeds, and then oes into space.
and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. You can't make statements like this without having lived in the time period. The world was a very different place.
Not really. The whole "nuclear deterrent" thing is grossly overrated. If any one country decided to attack another- it'd start world war three, and it'd pretty much be "Us versus the World". Pakistan wouldn't stand a chance against even one world superpower, and China survives off its exports to prevent its economy from collapsing.
In fact, the specific reason nothing in kashmir ever gets beyond potshots and minor artillery skirmishes is that the rest of the world keeps clearing their throats every time it flares up - "AHEM!" The last time it flared up, virtually every large nation's leader called both of them and basically said "look, you're like the neighborhood drunks, only now you've got guns(nukes) and we're pretty fucking concerned. Chill out or we call the cops(UN) and take the guns(nukes) away."
In fact, I think forced de-armament of both countries, simultaneously, would be an excellent idea. Trade embargo both if they refuse, and they can starve together. Meanwhile, let's also reduce our own stockpiles so that we only have enough to blow up the entire earth once over.
Please help metamoderate.
The UK isn't the world's largest creditor, it is one of the world's largest creditors (Japan being the largest creditor nation). Banks located in the UK, however, are the world's largest creditors. Oops.
He posts fake "breaking news" about terrorist strikes or natural disasters in the USA!
Would be nice to see this done but 2007 is an apolloesqe time scale ( meaning lack of time ) for deploying a scramjet and sufficent shielding for atmospheric hypersonic speeds for any significant duration flight.
The flight profile for a space launch by an Air breathing engine requires a great deal of acceleration to be done where there is still significant amounts of atmosphere to provide friction... the vehicle would essentially go through re-entry twice on a mission rather than just once ( shuttle does most of its hypersonic acceleration outside the atmostphere.
Last I heard talks about this there was a great deal of uncertainty if scramjets dealing with atmospheric friction would be any more efficient than carrying your oxidizer and accelerating above the atmosphere. Basically the friction requires more energy which requires more fuel which requires more fuel tanks which increases size which increases friction... and its an exponential increase as I recall which is what ate into the wieght advatage of not carry the oxidizer.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
have the same access to clean water as the rest of the world.Terrorists will no longer hate us for our clean water...Dr Howard Dean
What agreements? NPT? which requires India to give up the nukes before signing? what's the point in signing.
By the way India has a declared No-First-Use policy, while USA has a declared Pre-emptive-strike policy. And, US has exercised that poilicy once, and with the new tactical nukes it plans to do so again and again.
which nuke power is more dangerous?
So we can't condemn the slave trade, either, because the world was a different place? The Allies committed many atrocities in the second world war, of which the use of nuclear weapons was one.
How is the transit time calculated? By dividing the great circle distance between the cities by the crusing speed? How long does it take to reach altitude and cruising speed?
>>... Avatar will use a combination of turbofan, ramjet and scramjet engines to reach a cruising altitude of 10 kilometres before a cryogenic rocket engine takes over for the final push into space.
And how long to decelatate from altitude and crusing speed? The airliners that I flew in last week took at least a half hour for this.
Well if they can commercialize it for air travel it will still be lots faster.
Nate
Hypersonic aircraft soon
Ground trials on the new engine will commence next year and the first actual flight may take off by 2007.
By VIJESH KAMATH
DH News Service, BANGALORE
Imagine travelling from Bangalore to London in less than three hours or cruising around the globe at 5,700 kms per hour! Even as the world is celebrating the centenary of powered human flight, India is all set to actively compete with Russia, France and the US to realise what is being dubbed as "one of the greatest aeronautical research challenge" -- achieving sustainable hypersonic flight in atmosphere.
Speeds greater than Mach 5 or five times the speed of sound are called hypersonic, that's travelling at speeds about 1.6 km per second or approximately 5,700 km per hour. A regular passenger plane flies at 0.8 Mach while fast military jets fly at Mach 2 (supersonic fighter aircraft). SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest jet flies at Mach 3.2. The fastest rocket-plane, X-15 flew once at Mach 6.6 way back in 1960.
The Hyderabad based Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) has now taken up the ambitious task of developing an engine that can maintain an aircraft at mind-boggling hypersonic speeds. "Technologically it is possible, but the task is very challenging. It is like sustaining a lighted candle in a hurricane," DRDL Director Prahlada told Deccan Herald here.
An alumnus of UVCE and the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Mr Prahlada is confident India will achieve the first actual flight of the engine by 2007. Presently in the configuration stage, the ground trials on the engine will commence next year, he said.
The scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjets) propelled by a special type of air-breathing jet engine, is the key enabling technology for sustained hypersonic flight. Mr Prahlada , who is also leading the integrated guided missile programme as chairman of the Programme Board which has the responsibility of realising, producing and deploying the missile systems Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag, says the project is a more practical version of DRDO's Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (AVATAR) envisaged to deliver a 500 kg to 1,000 kg payload to low earth orbit.
Another great challenge in designing a hypersonic plane, Dr Prahlada points out, is to build an aircraft that will withstand the temperatures experienced at high speed flight.
DRDL is working with the Mishra Dathu Nigam (Midani) to develop high temperature Nickel-Cobalt alloys and other exotic composite materials that can handle the heat associated with hypervelocity flight. In addition, the conceptual design, development of technology components are being jointly undertaken by the IITs, IISc and a few universities across the country, Mr Prahlada said.
India has another advantage in this sector, the aircraft could be integrated with proven rocket technology like that of Agni for providing the initial thrust during take off.
Because something travelling at Mach 5 max will never reach escape velocity. So this thing is suborbital at best.
Not to mention scramjets only work from Mach 2 or thereabouts, so you need an alternative engine to speed the plane up to Mach 2, then you use the scramjet to go up to Mach 5. Plus there is the additional problem that liquid hydrogen is low density, cryogenic fuel.
The main use for such technology is a high-speed intercontinental bomber or reconnaissance platform. Not space launch. So far no other engine beats rockets for cost/efficiency when doing space launches.
My policies will equalize world economies thereby preventing terrorism.This is a far more sophisticated and nuanced approach than aggressive military force.Military Force shall be reserved for the United Nations.
Vote Dean4AmeriKKKa
.. what is holding it back is access to the latest in materials science, which it has been trying to acquire for the last decade.
Hypersonic planes aside.. India should overtake the west in Solar energy science as well, due to the high cost of energy there.
Sharks with laser beams... er, what was I thinking. Oh right, mmm num num.
Europe is somewhat different. Western Europe is very much a post-modern society, whose power is economic and diplomatic (and in those areas FAR exceeds the US's power). And has little interest in Imperialism of any kind. Potential power yes. Demonstrable power, not a chance. And the idea that "Europe" (as if you can refer to it as a single entity) doesn't have any imperialistic tendencies is silly. Ask the Spanish about their little tiff last year with Morocco. Ask the British about Gibraltar/Falklands. The French sure like to exert a little imperialisim in Africa as well. Lastly, the entire idea of the ICC, the UN, etc is so that "Europe" can exert it's will on the unruly savages of the world...
So the Hindu's have succeeded in naming the project Avatar. I'm sure that the Muslims in India have a lot to say about that.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Clueless Manager:
hmmmm..... yeah..... I'm going to need those TPS reports. Yeah, and uhm, no faxes. I don't know where you hide, but I'm going to have to ask you to walk right up here and hand those TPS reports to me. Yeah..
Response:
Your willing to pay for me to come to your office, very well sir.
Clueless Manager:
Yeah, and don't park in my spot when you get here.
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
http://www.the-week.com/23dec21/defence1.jpg
Missiles are phallic symbols and routine infant circumcision is not performed in India. The picture proves both these statements.
All three countries have common goal - Islamic Terrorism.. All three countries know where terrorsm emanates - Pukistan, funded by Saudi Arabia.
And they are forced to smile and put up with it.
Istead of competing, they can co-operate.
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
Snacks -- it's the snacks what are missing.
Metamoderating with benign indifference and a dash of randomness since 1812.
Being a Canadian, and having several Australian friends, I think you're so far off base it's amazing. Australia is far more American than European, and Canada is actually becoming more Asian influenced then most realize.
I've got to laugh at your opinion that until 1903 the US wasn't imperialistic. I guess the Lousiania Purchase, the American-Indian wars, the Spanish-American war, and the Mexican-American war isn't something you're too familiar with. Try a little research before you make a complete jackass out of yourself.
Europe is somewhat different. Western Europe is very much a post-modern society, whose power is economic and diplomatic (and in those areas FAR exceeds the US's power). And has little interest in Imperialism of any kind.
Ok, first of all--Europe is a post-modern society?? What the hell does that mean?!
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!" Better yet, tell that to all the struggling 3rd world farmers who are oppressed by subsidized European agricultural goods. Economic imperialism at its finest!
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation, and the I'll refute the second below!
Also, show me some European led international diplomacy that has gone succesfully without US participation? They've certainly managed to do a bang up job in the middle east! Who is spear heading peace in the Middle East right now? The US. Who was responsible for peace between Israel and Egypt. Largely the US! Who is responsible for Libya opening? The US! Who is responsible for recent NK negotiations? The US. Show me ANY comparable European led initiatives.
Which is strange as the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
Inaccurate representation of American history--you need to go much farther back. Hell, start looking back to the 1840's if you want to see American imperialism in its nascent form. You absolutely cannot say that American imperialism starts post-ww2. I can list examples if you don't know them, or are interested, just reply, I'd be glad to.
So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes. The US, India and Pakistan owning nukes however scares the crap out of me.
If you're European all I can say is, WW2 would have been much nicer had the US not joined the European front, and had the US not nuked Japan. Things would have been rosy and happy all around! And since then, America's nuclear atrocities are absolutely unforgivable. Your post is truly insightful!
the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition - but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
Some would argue that American imperial ambition began with the Declaration of Independence, and continued throughout the Western expansion -- that every square inch of what is today America was taken by force.
Even a less sanguine historian -- say, Mark Twain -- would agree that American imperialism was obvious by the time of the Phillipine war.
-kgj
-kgj
I know the stock Markets are doing well world-wide, but here is what BBC caried on India's Economy yesterday.
Boom time for India's economy
And here is an article from yesterday's NY Times ...
Indian Soybean Farmers Join the Global Village
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Well, no, actually. The India of 20 years ago had plenty of good scientists and a lot of good scientific research going on. It isn't knowledge or understanding I am pointing out: it is the ability to turn that knowledge into something useful via a long-term, structured development project. Which is what India seems to have trouble with. Of course, that is a gross generalization given the size and diversity of the country, but the last few big aerospace projects haven't turned out so well.
That said, contrary to many comments above I think a big high-technology project is an excellent way to jump-start an economy, regardless of whether there is still has poverty and inequality in that economy. That is essentially what England and the US did from 1840 - 1880 (and again 1950 - 1960) after all.
sPh
Not directly related to the Indian project, but something I've always wondered...
Why is re-entry always performed by using the atmosphere for braking? What is the main obstacle to building a craft that uses its engines to reduce its speed to well below orbital velocity while "hovering" outside the atmosphere in a non-sustainable orbital path until it's slow enough to reduce stress from air resistance and heat? Maybe the cost incurred by carrying the controlled descent system around would be offset by savings in maintenance, the exotic materials required to build the vehicle, etc.
Oh yes. India is so peaceful. 50 years of history, 3 wars already. Pakistan 1947-48, 1965, and 1971. Continuing border skirmishes to this day. Border problems with China. All these nations arming to their teeths.
But I digress. The biggest problem is India's booming population bomb. If you take your time to check human history, you'll notice that wars usually result in a population overstretching local resources and solving the problem by grabbing some from its neighbours. With Pakistan & China having the same population profile, the next major war will be in South Asia.
Will this ever happen? Unlikely. Important part is to be "planning" to do something and making noise. And whether or not this will ever materialize doesn't matter.
Note the last para of the article suggests they may use it to boost their existing rockets. Or possibly future rockets, now that India is starting to consider manned spaceflight.
:v)
The China/India/Pakistan space race could be far more interesting - and given the new technologies available - productive than the USA/USSR one.
Vik
> b) Rise of India+China means fall of west FALSE.
> This is not a zero sum game. With world trade both west and asia will end up getting richer.
I agree, and we all would be happy.
But some people care about relative power. Some will even impoverish if they can make others miserable, so they can make the new miserable their slaves.
They create their own artificial zero sum game.
it would be like trying to hover in mid-air without helicopter blades. You'd fall because of gravity.
To gain orbital 'altitude' you have to increase your orbiting speed tangental to the earth by firing your engines. Similarly, when you want to re-enter the atmosphere you fire your retro rockets to slow you down, but as you slow down you decrease your orbital altitude. At a certain speed you'll re-enter the atmosphere, but this speed is still relatively high and requires heat shields.
So to sum it up, orbital altitude is related to the speed you're orbitting the earth.
-
The problem is that such statements is that they seem to ignore the then-Japanese tenacity of never surrendering and fighting to the death. ONe can state atrocities, but then it seems to ignore the alternatives. Every island in the Pacific was taken only by extremely bloody wins and running that kind of war on the main Japan islands would have been nothing short of upper level of hell as if it weren't that already, and could have easily involved ten times the deaths. IIRC, the emperor simply ignored the first bomb as a fluke, so by his inaction made the next one necessary.
I suppose only one bomb might have been necessary, on Tokyo, but that would have been even worse yet.
will reduce the cost of space travel to a fraction to what it is today
Have you noticed how they never reduce things to multiples - always to fractions? Is it possible to reduce something to anything other than a fraction?
In my opinion, their hypersonic pipe dreams are an indicator of the strength of their delusions.
I'm shocked that educated people entertain this nonsense. It seems obscene to me.
One of the very important issues I see neglected in many of the news reports relating to SCRAMjet-powered craft is the issue of getting the damned things up to a speed where the SCRAMjet can actually start working.
With a small unmanned craft the solution could be to use rocket boosters to get the vehicle up to around Mach 1 -- at which speed the SCRAMjet would be able to start producing sufficient thrust to continue the acceleration.
However, what do you do with a passenger craft filled with people. The acceleration to 0.9M is going to need to be done far more gently (or they'd spill their prawn cocktails and Bucks Fizz). Perhaps they plan to use conventional turbojet engines -- in which case you're now talking about a whole heap of additional weight (engines plus fuel) and drag that will penalise the hypersonic performance. and range.
Then there's the issue of landing...
Since the SCRAMjet will not provide any useful thrust at mid to low subsonic speeds, what safety margins are built in for aborted landings or other problems. Sure, the space shuttle can glide to a landing -- but it has a dedicated runway, clear airspace and only seven lives at risk.
Finally, one has to ask: just because we *can* build something, does that necessarily mean it's a sensible idea to do so?
Increasing the flight-speed of a craft is an expensive business in terms of energy consumption. To double the speed requires four times the power (all other aspects being equal) so to push a craft along at mach 5 would require 256 times as much thrust as it takes to push it along at mach 1.
Unless there's some clever magic involved, that means 256 times as much fuel being used to travel five times as fast -- making it 50 times *less* efficient in terms of miles to the gallon.
Now think about this for a minute.. would you pay 50 times as much as it presently costs to fly from one place to another if it meant saving a few hours?
The Concorde service died because it was too expensive and they only flew at Mach 2. How on earth then, could a hypersonic passenger service be economically viable?
And don't make the mistake of thinking that liquid hydrogen is going to be cheaper than Jet-A fuel, last time I checked it was almost identical.
A final note, even if this all panned out and India was able to introduce a hypersonic passenger jet service, would anyone use it? After all, just look at their railway safety record
Indians live in facist country.
The parallels between contemporary India and pre-Nazi Germany are chilling, but not surprising. Many Hindu nationalists are frank about their admiration for Hitler. Luckily, we don't yet have a Hitler. Instead, we have, the hydra-headed Sangh Parivar -- the "joint family" of Hindu political/cultural organizations.
Sangh Parivar's genius is its ability to be all things to all people. While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Congress) exhorts its cadres to prepare for the Final Solution, Prime Minister Vajpayee assures the nation that all citizens, regardless of religion, are treated equally.
Wow ... Curry shipments will be faster than ever.
and I sure as HELL wouldn't trust them with nukes.
They'd probably nuke Nauru just to rid themselves of a refugee problem. Or pre-emptively nuke Indonesia 'just in case they were developing their own nuclear programme'.
No mate, Aussie is in the same league as the US of A.
(For Aussies reading this; prove me wrong at your next general election; you have* to vote anyway so you may as well get it right).
(* voting is compulsory in Aussie. Very democratic, that).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
20 years is actually not that very long. I've worked on military research before, and while I was doing so a report stated that the average time between the start of a military research project and a deliverable hitting even limited deployment was 10 years (in the UK and USA). Given that a lot of projects are quite simple upgrade to existing technology, 20 years isn't that bad.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
>So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada,
I'm Canadian and I don't feel relaxed if we did have nuclear weapons.
You are taking the same position that the US does. "Hey, we are not going to use them wrongly."
If they have them, they can use them. All it takes is one messed up situation.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
What about the major gender imbalace that is developing in your country? You know the one that is happending because your highly developed civilization places such little importance on girls that it is ok (wink, wink) to kill them.
Let's give more credit where credit is due.
...Of course, India will not be the only country to have BrahMos. As the missile was designed and developed and is going to be produced and marketed (yes, it will be on sale) with the Russians, the latter would also have the missile...
The missile and consequently the plane weren't exactly designed from the ground up by India alone. In fact this seems to fit very well with the everpresent notion of Russian faster-then-sound armaments such as the Shkval torpedo.
...aren't going into space anytime soon, I think India is the best chance we have of getting some decent breads in space.
Which is strange as the US just over a 100 years ago also lacked imperial ambition -
Your ignorance on this subject is staggering -- "just over a 100 years ago" the US fought a blatantly imperialistic war with Spain for control of its colonies, including Cuba and the Philippines.
but then post WW2 took serveral major steps backwards (imo): Vietnam, Panama, Iraq 2003.
The US had forces in Panama longbefore WWII.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Let's examine the Chinese and Russian capability briefly in terms of war fighting. The sole potential for victory in semi-conventional warfare is the ability to project and sustain force. Neither China nor Russia has this ability. They simply do not have the power to project their force at will on a global scale. That is the long and short of it, take it however you wish. They are nonetheless relegated to fighting a war in their own backyard if they are to have any chance of victory. The US is the sole nation that can take the fight anywhere, anytime. The others are doomed to fight on their own lands, or up the ante and go nuclear if they are to have any chance of success against us. Speaking of nuclear, their is a good reason why Russia bailed out of the cold war and it is under the ocean right now. Trident class subs cannot be tracked by anything or anyone, and their are armed to the teeth. This wing of the nuclear triad ensures that without fail, you will be counter punched into oblivion, whether you strike first or not. I won't even go into the fact that Russia cannot deploy more than one nuclear sub at a time these days becuase they cannot support it! This is over people, whether right or wrong the US stands alone as a world power, in every sense of the word. I hope we get some leadership that uses it responsibly, but that is seemingly in doubt at times. Peace.
The United States has Nuclear weapons and continues to develop and is the *only* country to ever have used them in war - and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Yes, we were the first to use them in war (and hopefully, that will be the last time they will ever be used). We had little knowledge of long-term impact. But even if we did, I am quite sure that we would have used them. Both times. Japan attacked us and had shown that they were a formidable force. We were having great difficulty winning the pacific. The lose of life on both sides was horrendous. The bombs put a stop to it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The US peacefully and legally bought the Louisiana Purchase territories from France and Alaska from Russia.
How did France and Russia come to be the owners of this territory? Surely not by inheriting it from their ancestors, nor by purchasing it from the previous inhabitants.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not defending the Indians -- they fought wars over this land.
-kgj
-kgj
... Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah and Colorado?
... if memory serves, they were acquired by the Gadsen purchase, to which Mexico would not have agreed except for her humiliating defeat in the Mexican-American War ... which, again if memory serves, was American aggression.
... taken from the Utes by force. ("The Utes Must Go!" was the battle cry.)
Texas was a state of Mexico, until rebels who disapproved of Mexico's no-slavery constitution broke away by force.
Arizona and New Mexico
Utah
Colorado, I don't know.
California's aboriginal inhabitants put up little fuss, and were easily disposed of.
-kgj
-kgj
Now, see, this where Karl Malone get all mad because y'all think that some of us American ain't not able to can't talk worth a damn. See, here Karl Malone whole thang: some of us don't need profisiorry of spoken language in our job because we play sport on the TV. I don't need to worry about all that scholarish drivel, I just have to focus on my way I can dribble. You get it? Ah, that's good.
Until next time, this here Karl Malone.
True story.
The one belonging to no country which is hidden on a barge, rather than sitting atop an ICBM that leaves a trail pointing home.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Where in the history of independent India, has she been the aggressor. Do you have facts or are you just paraphrasing what your neighbour heard from his colleague about a talk on the radio one night?
e ace+pakistan&btnG=Search+News)
Recent news: after a year long stand off at the border (how that border came about is a longer story of compliance to cease fires) after the attack on her Parliament, India has been the one making *peace* overtures (slightly misguided, IMO).
Check out (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=in&q=p
Damn my conscience -- I coulda just modded you down as a troll; but I had to go and reply.
What a load of crap! How does such uninformed bullshit get modded up as insightful?
Which was the last "war" that the so-called war-mongering India has started?
Hint: The last war India has been involved in ended in 1972. In it's 56-year history, India has initiated military action only once and that was to help Bangladesh gain its independence.
Meanwhile the great benevolent non-imperial nations of UK and France continue to maintain their colonies such as Falkland Islands and the islands in the South Pacific that France likes to blow up with nukes whenever it feels like pissing off the Aussies and Kiwis.
And I won't even begin to dwell into the economic imperialism that Europe is imposing upon Africa. European nations also have a long way to go before they can be excused for the mess their greedy exploitation and subsequent hasty departure has left in large parts of Asia and Africa.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Is just what the hell has NASA been pissing away its funding on. They have been working on this since the Reagan administration and don't have piss to show for it. If India gets this done in 3 years I want criminal charges brought against alot of NASA officials.
I can name 2 towns on the on the outskirts of Billings Montana that have been advised not to drink the city water due to oil refinery pollution. Countless more individuals throughout Wyoming and Montana suffer at the hand of coal bed methane drilling -a destructive new industry, growing in this area. Ever hear your parents talk about swimming in the local pond or stream? You would not dare do that today. Wake up. I can't believe the level of arrogance and ignorance in this whole "India is 3rd world" discussion.
Apparently, you know nothing of the Sukhois that India develops using Russian technology. The Sukhoi 35's are made in INDIA and are actually Su-35 Mk II, a modified version with advanced electronics and guidance systems made completely in India. The replacements are not Mig-29's (which are BTW still formidable aircrafts - go look at Jane's) but rather the new breed of Sukhois.
So you're saying that India acquired the technology from alien spacecraft? Well, I for one welcome our new alien-Indian co-overlords.
True story.
I did a quick estimate once, based on the casualties in Okinawa, and figured that the bombs saved at least a million people.
Atrocity?
And I'm sure that the less-overpopulated Pakistan was just attacking India for fun? The first attack doesn't mean the first offense...
"Gopalaswami said the idea for Avatar originated from the work published by the Rand Corporation of the United States in 1987. "They threw the report into archives. It came to me as an unclassified document and formed the basis for our approach," he told "
Quick start mining all our archives.
The continuation of the India's Menace expands it's tentacles to the High Paid Rocket Scientists Contractors in the US.
Why should you pay only one Rocket Scientist when you can get 10 Fireworks specialists from India?. Also we have to consider who will be selling the parts to India developers, yes U.S. companies evading taxes like Neo evades bullets.
If I was able to travel in time I would shoot those who claimed that India's programmers where better programmers than U.S.'s and so HB1 visas where to be granted blindly to padded resumes.
Have you ever debuged sofware written in India? so you know what I mean.
Firstly, I think the present refugee policy is immoral and probably illegal. I also agree with Australia's Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, who described the current Prime Minister as an "arselicker", (the target of his affections being GWB) and the entire government as (and I'm not making this quote up) forming "a conga line of suckholes" behind him. To top it all off, he described GWB as "the most dangerous and incompetant President in living memory". Crude, rather undiplomatic, but in all three cases accurate.
However, I would argue there is a very good reason why New Zealand doesn't share the same incohate "fear of the darkies" that John Howard and his merry men so shamefully exploited to win an election. Given the geography of the two countries, the only plausible route for the "darkies" to get anywhere near New Zealand is, through, well, Australia. Easy to point out your moral superiority in those circumstances.
As to Howard's chances in the next election, there is every chance he'll get the boot. Part of the reason the Liberals have stayed in power the last couple of times was the lame, timid leadership on the other side of politics. Whatever can be said about the new Opposition Leader, he's neither lame nor timid.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Japan and India became the 4th and 5th countries to put human beings in orbit [2010,2011]. China, of course, was 3rd [2003] and now had made its manned Moon landing, with tragic consequences.
0 20 .html
The Decade 2010-2020 included the New International Space Station finally up
and running, but with a much-reduced crew of 8 and uncertain purpose. The
old International Space Station space station was saved from crashing to Earth
and boosted to Clarke Orbit.
excerpted from:
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline2
Once upon a time, way back when space and aeronautical engineering was cool,(er, you remember a thing called engineering?), there was a similar project called HOTOL.
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6 133/hotol.html
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/hotol.htm
WTF happened.....
TSR2 Fan
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Technical schematics and documentation can be found here.
(A)erobic (V)ehicle for (H)ypersonic (A)erospace (T)ransportation == AVATAR?
/. tradition, I've not yet read the article... I'm satisfied with just making fun of the summary. :)
To what extent are we allowed to arbitrarily select letters to form a cool acronym?
Maybe they felt that AVHAT was a little too close to "asshat"?
On the other hand, since "avatar" is derived from Sanskrit and can mean "the incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form"... and since Vishnu is the "protector and preserver of worlds", perhaps AVATAR is meaningful symbolically rather than acronymically (is that a word?... didn't think so).
Of course, in
That criteria [conquest of territory by force] applies to just about all land on the planet, with the exception of Antartica.
Yes.
Conquest by force was bad enough before the nuclear/biological age; now, it's suicidal madness.
-kgj
-kgj
The United States has Nuclear weapons and continues to develop and is the *only* country to ever have used them in war - and it is very debatable whether they needed to - definitely, not the second bomb.
Uh, the Japanese were still fighting after Nagasaki and it wasn't until Hiroshima that they surrendered.
during an early gemini mission they tried doing things like this to get a handle on navigating spacecraft while in orbit to practice docking procedures. The mission had to be cut short early because they started running low on fuel as fighting the physics of orbital mechanics is fairly futile.
in any case if you want to use rocket engines to counteract the force of gravity while orbitting at low speed, you're going to need engines of the power and fuel consumption similar to what got you into orbit in the first place.
this would require huge tanks of fuel which would have to be carried aloft into orbit from launch, which would mean your launch system would have to be all that more powerful, or your spacecraft could carry little to no cargo.
Then there is the issue of controlling your final descent back to ground...
-
Many of the developed countries have huge defense industries that recuperate a part of the cost of research by selling weapons in international market. India has probably lacked behind many developed countries in arms exports and hence, the cost of defense research comes more from taxpayer's money....
For statistical purposes, according to The Fedaration os American Scientists' Arms Sales Monitoring project, the United States has exported more than $152 billion worth of weapons to states around the world since 1990. Many of these sales have been to repressive and/or unstable governments.
First of.. the notion that the Indo-Pak rift is anything but religious is hard to sell if you acutally was to speak within closed hindu or muslim circles with utmost their confidence. I have on several occasions had the displeasure of listening to people who are quite liberal on the outside but take extremist stands when in the closed confines and safety of their four walls. I am myself a non-practicing hindu, and i hope i am one of the "enlightened" ones on this matter. And I'm actually quite un-patriotic, guess I have become far too self centered in recent times. On the perspective of american loyalists trying to be-little almost every story that has come forth about technological advancements from India or for that matter any 3rd world country, try to think of current stories as foundations towards greater advancements and you will prolly see it in a much different light. True, Indians have never been too famous for their time sence or for that matter their table manners. :)
The brahmos isnt built for long range assaults (YET) but whos to say they arnt already working on long range versions of it. Afterall, all previous missle technologies that have come out in India have just been a sort of preliminary towards the next big one to come.
As for the quality of work that goes into products coming out of India. True a lot of commercial products made in India are sub standard. However, they have atleast in recent years shown a balance in the level of quality and cost effectiveness atleast in their Defence oriented products.
And for those who seem to wanna bring up the nuclear issue or the armament race between India and Pakistan. It never seems to be a point made that most of the recent defence technology being developed has been indigenous or atmost in colaboration with Russia, whereas pakistan has almost always bought its technology (mainly from the US by the way).
Well, whatever peace the US brings to the middle east, it is certainly "Spear-Headed"...
Also, lol @ whole quote. Some good points otherwise.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
I thought the scramjet program was a joint project between India and Russia.
They're actually Su-30 MKI (M- Modified, Advanced, K-Export, I-India), but they're damn good planes all the same.
> I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!"
Well, if you send soldier when two sides are fighting, at least one of the side won't be happy with it, of course..
> Better yet, tell that to all the struggling 3rd world farmers who are oppressed by subsidized European agricultural goods. Economic imperialism at its finest!
Yes, we all know how the US is not protectionist at all with its own market, *sigh*.
That said, I'm French, and not happy at all with the way France has supported dictators, but frankly do you really believe that the USA are better in this respect??
>[Europe]They've certainly managed to do a bang up job in the middle east! Who is spear heading peace in the Middle East right now? The US!
I agree with you that the US has more "diplomatic" power than the Europe, but talking about its diplomatic success with peace in the middle east is a bit ironic no?
Even if we do not talk about Irak, I'm not sure you could call peacefull the Israelian/Palestinian situation..
Sure, China has 1 billion people. However they also have a one child per family policy, so their population is old. For every 4 grand parents you have at most 1 child. Soon it will be for every 8 great grandparents you have 1 child. (The policy hasn't been in place long enough for this to be completely true - yet). So when comparing populations you need to look a head. In 40 years expect the population of China to be .5 billion (all it takes is the current crop of old people to start dieing), while the population of the US should be only slightly less.
India isn't quite as big as china today, but they soon will be bigger. However India is working hard at becoming a first world, western style country. Remember, they were ruled by the British (I'm confused on the differences between Britton, Great Britton, and U.K, but I'm assured they are subtilly different) and have those influences. I'd say in the years to come they will become just anouther western country, like Japan is today.
Japan is good for the US, they have a bunch of smart people designing and making a lot of different neat things, for both our and their use and we both benifit from it. If a cure for cancer was found in Japan it would greatly benifit life in the US. If the cure was found in China I'm not sure they would share that with the US.
Western nation is more than a geographical position. When on western nation advances, all western nations advance.
"it would for example reduce the travel time from Sydney, Australia to New York to less than 3 hrs"
Yep, I'm real sure the Indian govt is pumping cash into this so a high-speed service from Sydney to NY can be set up..
Mumbai to NY perhaps, Delhi to London perhaps..
"So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes."
That is until Western Europe becomes Islamic, judging from the immigration trend, i.e. moslem population grows while the native population declines. And we already see how many European countries such as Norway give Islamic militants refugees. Also notice that many hatred crimes perpetrated by Arabs go unchecked. One other thing, notice that many in the moslem population actually resist integration with the local cultures. It only a matter of time before some militants get access to nukes, as time is on their side. After all, we can see how much damage 19 people can do.
This is not a racist comment, but European countries need to take steps to integrate the moslems to embrace their values. Europe scares me more than the US. European may not like to think that way on the account that it is against their 'liberal' views, but come the next decade, it'll be a major issue.
radars detect metal things much more easily than slightly compressed gases.
You can't see when an aircraft goes supersonic, except in the right conditions. The condensation that forms is just the same as you see on the wing of a 747 as it lands, that is, the high pressure/low pressure transition forces some of the water vapour to condense.
As to your last para, I agree 100%
Not much I agree, but remember Nasa has sent people into space and returned them to earth every year that I can remember. (Might be an exception for 1986 and 2003, since I don't follow shuttle launches, I don't know for sure they had a successful launch in those troubled years though I belive they did) That is at least 1982, and I know there were plenty of launches in the 1970s, they even managed to get men on the moon and back home before I was born!
Then there are various Mars and Venus missions I hear about from time to time some of which lanuched since Reagan. Not to mention ground support for Voyager other other satalites that were launched years ago and still are sending data that needs to be examined.
What did India do? Built a few rockets, but never managed to support people in Space on their own. They don't have any satalites 10 light minutes away (at closest point in the Earth's orbit) to watch and attempt to extract useful data from. Sure their rocket is more advanced, but they don't have all those other distractions to deal with at the same time they build their rockets.
Mind you Nasa should have done a lot better.
It's not like he kicked your dog.
You know damn right what you do.
When did US imperialism start? I mean I've heard it said that the spanish american war was a change in foriegn policy. But on the other hand What other word is there for a country going from aquiring more and more territory all the way across a continent than imperialist?
Maybe the question we should be asking is not when did american imperialism begin, but when did it stop and why is it starting up again?
>> 50 years of histor, 3 wars.
Nice score compared to that of the US and of its friend China.
>> Pakistan 1947-48.
This war caused mostly because there was no agreement on where the border was supposed to be and the British had left the country to itself when they saw things were heating up. By the way, the English had fed the enemity between the Hindu and the Muslim communities to reduce Gandhi's influence. That didn't stop the independence, but caused a lot of suffering to both the Indian and the Pakistani population.
>> 1965
A sequel of the previous Kashmir war. It was Pakistan that shot first.
>> 1971
India helped Bangladesh to declare its independence from Pakistan. That was very kind because the Pakistani dictators were killing people there at large to suffocate the autonomists. The Bengalis wanted independence because they felt exploited and abandoned by the Islamabad government. BTW, they are forever thankful to the Indians.
You forgot to mention that:
* Gandhi's plans to lead india to independence were peaceful and tolerant, it was the Muslin League's fault (with English support under cover) that it didn't work. His plans were to make the entire Indian subcontinent a lay and democratic state where all of India's religions (hinduism, islamism, jainism, buddhism, and christianism) would live together.
* There aren't hindus living in Pakistan, but there are muslims living in India (What do you think this mean?)
* India is indeed tolerant. Hindu fundamentalism is relatively recent and has more to to with right-wing politics than with religion itself. Also, fundamentalists are reacting because they think they are threatened by the aggressive islamic fundamentalism (that's no excuese, I Know, but it does explain).
* You forgot to meention Chinese aggression against India in 1962 trying to seize the whole of Kashmir (India was defeated, but managed to keep most of the land leaving only a small portion [Azad kashmir] to the Chinese). It was then that they decided to start developing weapons so that they wouldn't become another Mexico.
And remind that:
* India insist that Pakistan is behind the terrorism it is striken by.
* And that the country is the world's biggest democracy (in spite of its problems) while the American friend Pakistan is a tyranny of the worst kind.
* It is surrounded by countries who are tyrannies (Pakistan, Burma and China), all of them former aggressors recently (Pakistan and China) or in the past (Burma, Afghanistan).
* They live in a dirty place, so they can't always play clean.
It is an impressive development. But, so far, kudos largely to the Russian.
The BrahMos, a derivative of the Yakhont, was developed by a joint venture between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia's NPO Mashinostroyenia. Yahont is supersonic (Mach 2.5) with a range of > 300km. The modificiation to 280 km is mainly to bypass the nonproliferation treaty. Any missile with range > 300 km are considered to be strategic and Russia does not want to get into hot water by exporting that openly and thus enter the joint development.... It is reasonable to expect that the Indian contribution is more on the target recognition, seeker head rather than the aerodynamics side... They still have quite a long way to catch up. There are lot of know-how (processing technology, material selection etc) to be discovered.
If brain drain were an economic strategy of the US wouldn't the government be helping to subsidize the education of foriegn students so they don't have to pay through the nose? Also if they were trying to steal capable/educated individuals from foriegn economies why would INS give people so much shit about student visas? Wouldn't they just let the individuals getting education immigrate? "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -Samuel Clemens
Sure, and both India and Pakistan have such a great history of following through on policy!
At least the US has been honest about what they've said/done.
Now this is what happens when those foreigners are denied visas to the US. Perhaps the discrimination should stop and the US should ease up on its immigrant policies
What about a huge aircraft which drops scramjet craft, which drops rocket which goes to orbit? Is there a reason why this is completely insane?
I'll believe it when I see it.
In the 60's and 70's the US was worried about a nuclear delivery method called the Fractional Orbit Bomb System (FOBS). A warhead was boosted into an orbit which passed over its target, then at the right instant, retro rockets would fire to bring the weapon down on target. The advantage of delivering nuclear weapons via FOBS was that a conventional ICBM lofted the warhead quite high, as much as a couple thousand miles above the surface of the earth, whereas FOBS might go no higher than 100 miles. A FOBS-delivered warhead would not appear on early warning radars until much later than an ICBM launched from the same position, giving much less time for the target country to launch a retaliatory attack. The disadvantage was that the warhead had to be boosted to orbital speed (17-18,000 mph) which is much faster than just lobbing them over the north pole. This requires a more powerful (read bigger and more expensive) booster, and more complex control system to put the warhead into the correct orbit and to initiate retro burn at just the right time.
If India can build these at a cost comparable to ICBM's, it would be very worrisome to China, and possibly, Russia and other middle eastern countries which are trying to secretly develop their own nuclear weapons. India unquestionably has the know-how to design such a system.
What is the point of the above post being +4?
What agreements? NPT? which requires India to give up the nukes before signing? what's the point in signing.
To avoid another UN-Iraq situation, where people are saying "we're doing something..." yet nothing happens, this is a way of forcing on the ratification of the agreement. Compare with Kyoto, which some countries have signed but not ratified.
By the way India has a declared No-First-Use policy, while USA has a declared Pre-emptive-strike policy. And, US has exercised that poilicy once, and with the new tactical nukes it plans to do so again and again.
Your arguments are completely flawed: The US has a pre-emptive strike policy, but that does not necessarily include NBC weaponry. The document which was created a few years ago, which upset a lot of slashdot, by the Bush administration, detailed the US use of NBC weaponry. Some people regarded that as "The cowboy is gonna nuke the world!" When it in reality was an investigation on how they can be effectively used and under what conditions. (and so on)
One of the conditions are to not be the first to use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. But if you strike the US with either, you might see either heading your way (most likely the first, obviously).
It would be extremely irreponsible of the world's leading nuclear superpower to have an arsenal which it does not have conditions for and knowledge of its use.
By the way, the USA last used nuclear weapons 50 years ago, don't you think the world view has changed a bit? Perhaps the threats? Perhaps the administration? In other news, I think you're rude because your grandpa's ancestors said women are supposed to be house wifes only.
If you want to know who might be nuked, you ought to take a better look at North Korea rather than anything else. I personally believe that encitements for the use of tactical nuclear weapons have been meant in a threat to them - for their capability of taking out a possible underground uranium enrichment plant. That is an enourmous leverage, and unlike the UN, it doesn't lack credibility. First get the tools, make the other party aware of that, then slowly build up an alternative for the other party, in a way that it understands that oppressing it people or being a threat to your interests is a bad thing. When they realize that their options are exhausted, you can start moving somewhere. The UN didn't enforce their resolutions on Iraq, thuse leaving lucrative options for that regime. What happened?
You ask which nuke power is more dangerous?
I'd say China, Pakistan, etc, any hidden in or nearby major cities.
And by the way, I do not see it unlikely that India knocks out large portions of Pakistan's arsenal (especially the nuclear), with the supersonic cruise missiles they have, carrying nuclear warheads or not. It is not the words that are the meaning, it is the leverage, the actions behind them. History shows this, learn it and you might appreciate the Bush administration more, unless you don't like freedom.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
I know one shouldn't believe uncritically what one reads in the papers, but in a recent piece discussing the display of the "Enola Gay" the topic of the necessity of the use of the bombs was brought up.
... :(
According to the article, there is evidence showing that at the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was communicating with Russia with the aim of having Russia act as an intermediary in negotiating a peace in the US. Further, the USA knew of this.
At that point in time, Japan was in a very poor position, running low on resources and having its cities severely bombed conventionally. Again, according to the article, provided that the terms of a peace would allow them to keep the Emperor, Japan was all too willing to surrender.
The choice wasn't between using atomic bombs or a land invasion. Given this situation, a land invasion, along with the concommitant loss of life, would have been simply unnecessary.
Note also: even if there had been a land invasion, the lives lost would have been chiefly confined to those in the armed forces of the two nations (note also that this figure as estimated today would have been similar to or less than the 160000 casualties of the Hiroshima bombing.) Dropping an atomic bomb on a city of course kills mainly civilians. Whether this is significant or not depends on your attitudes towards war.
PS: For comparison, the firebombing of Tokyo is said to have killed about 80000 to 100000 people. The firebombing of Dresden, between 25000 and 150000. With such attrocities it demonstrates that the actions of the victors in WWII were in the end no better than that of their foes, as regards the deliberate targetting of civilian populations. I guess you can always point a finger at the Germany and say 'they started it'
Yes, we all know how the US is not protectionist at all with its own market, *sigh*.
In fact, the US is worse in this respect. European farm subsidies are a drop in the bucket compared to those of the USA.
As for peace in the middle east... Real good job there. Iraq is showing every sign of turning into another Vietnam or, worse, another Cold War Afghanistan, now that Saddam's gone. And Bush has done wonders for the Israel/Palestine peace process. Clinton had them very nearly signing a treaty after eight years of hard work. Bush managed to demolish that in less than three, and now Israel's talking about more expansion of its Golan Heights territory.
European countries have been improving relations with Iran. Maybe the recent earthquake will spur the US to follow suit.
Yes, but not against someone who had nuclear weapons to retaliate with. In America's recent wars, there was no question which side was stronger, and thus no need for nuclear weapons.
Twenties Retirement
Yes, we all know how the US is not protectionist at all with its own market, *sigh*.
That said, I'm French, and not happy at all with the way France has supported dictators, but frankly do you really believe that the USA are better in this respect??
I do believe that the US is _better_ than much of Europe ... but not GOOD (and maybe overall not much better!) with regards to support of dictators and also protectionism. I tried not to be overly defensive of the US in my original post, and you're certaintly right--there are no innocents or saints in the world at the moment (if there ever were).
My point was mainly that the original poster was not presenting a reasonable point of view (which was Europe = great, US = terrible).
In fact, the US is worse in this respect. European farm subsidies are a drop in the bucket compared to those of the USA.
Have any stats to back that?
As for peace in the middle east... Real good job there. Iraq is showing every sign of turning into another Vietnam or, worse, another Cold War Afghanistan, now that Saddam's gone. And Bush has done wonders for the Israel/Palestine peace process. Clinton had them very nearly signing a treaty after eight years of hard work. Bush managed to demolish that in less than three, and now Israel's talking about more expansion of its Golan Heights territory.
Well, answer me this. How many suicide attacks have there been in Israel of late? Libya and Syria are both looking like they are more open than ever.. Iraq is very unstable, no doubt about it, but before declaring it another Vietnam, how about we give it even a year? Afghanistan? I think there is nothing that anyone can do there. Afghani tribal structures go back thousands of years, relatively unchanged. You can't just bring about mass changes in a small amount of time. Not to mention that the US didn't attack Afghanistan for any reason OTHER than the destruction of al-Qaeda.
Why on earth do you want ANYONE to improve their relationship with a country like Iran? First they begin to stop being a women degrading, public oppressing, murderous state, THEN we can talk a little. And no, the US is nowhere near their dilapidated affairs, so don't twist my words, please!
Thank the improved relationship between Iran and Russia for the most recent nuclear crisis. The world doesn't just need peace, it needs peace under good conditions. I won't buy peace with chains of slavery and torture, especially not for somebody else. That is not solidarity. I won't show solidarity with thugs.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
First they will ignore you Then they will laugh at you after that they will fight with you then they will yeild finally -Mahathma Gandhi This is exactly what is happening around. Probably india might have reached the 3rd stage now. For all westerners who are totally ignorant of the indian history, please read "Discovery of India" by Jawaharlal Nehru and if you want more, try "My experiments with truth" by Mahathma Gandhi.
You know, as odd as it seems, I am not terribly worried about Iran's future. The population of Iran is VERY young. the majority of the population has been born after 1978 and the Religious revolution. The older generations remember the Shah and American aid and forced westernization.. The younger generations only know the strict religious rule and forced Islamic law etc. There is GREAT disatisfaction amongst the youth in Iran.
Ironically enough, the religious revolution brought the form of a true democracy to Iran, without the full function (since the Religious supreme leader and Guardian Council essentially can veto candidates and anything the democratically elected can do). Yet the people in Iran now EXPECT democracy. Things are changing, and I seriously expect that very soon things will change in a big way due to popular social movements.
Having said that, I agree completely with the point of your post.
I used to keep track of Indias space programs when i was in school. I'm sure I first heard mention of this hypersonic plane more than 10 years ago.. then they said "it would first fly by year 1999". ... when it was supposed to be 2000 (? it changes every year)... and its expected to be quite obsolete by then. There are many reasons for this .. bureaucracy, money, immature military and space realated industries and Westerns unwilling to share tech for instance.
That means this is NOT the first time a "firm date" has been announced. I'm sorry but I dont have sources to prove this.
So yea, I'm willing to take bets for this not happening in THREE years.Even Nasa will find this tough.
The aircraft mentioned by parent is now said to be inducted by 2010
This doesent mean India has not made progress in other space areas or that India is *totally* incapable of making such a plane.
As an Indian, I'm sorry to say that the articles linked to are the typical "feel good" aricles that appear every now and then...probably to make people forget the prevailing lawlessess,castesim, illetracy, communalism etc etc.
It would really only be useful if you have to fly literally halfway around the world... even a new york -> LA trip would only very briefly enter hypersonic speeds.
-
India developed nukes and Pakistan responded to India's developement. Yeah China may be the big boy in the neighborhood, but India is no saint, it is very aggresive against Pakistan. Afganistan has no border with India and no weapon that has the range to reach India, so you are cleary quite stupid to think that is justification for nukes.
Are you on crack or something? Did you forget what US did during the cold war? You have to look no further than South America.
Just curious as to where you live now?
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Oh, that's such a load of crap. In Japan, even the civilians were military targets. The Japanese were instructed to fight to the last man, with pointy sticks if necessary, and we're talking about an invasion of their homeland. If we were talking about a similar invasion of the United States, you can bet every redneck in the country would be using his/her 2nd amendment rights in a fight to the last, to beat off the reds or whatever the enemy of the day was. The fighting in Okinawa was the fiercest battle of the Pacific War. Projections from that actual battle, and not the estimates of armchair generals playing alternate history, clearly showed that an invasion of the mainland would have horrific costs. In fact, the estimates would probably end up being low, if past events were any judge.
Not interested in Imperialism? Really? Tell that to the French neo-colonies in West Africa. I wish I still had the link, I saw a great picture after France unilaterally sent troops in Cote d'Ivoire of Ivoirians holding up signs saying "Bush! Save us from the French!"
Like others have pointed out, such pictures can be misleading. How do you know the people asking for Bush's "protection" weren't supporters of one or the other faction in the civil war?
You think European economic and diplomatic power far exceeds the US? Well, the economic point is so laughable as to not even deserve refutation.
Actually, the EU's total GDP as of 1999 was about the same as that of the US; once EU enlargement takes place this year, with the accession of Poland, Hungary et. al., the EU's GDP will actually be larger than that of the US (though per capita GDP will be rather lower). Many member states export proportionally far more than the US as well -- such as Germany, for example.
Furthermore, the Euro has succeeded in becoming the largest reserve currency after the US dollar, and continues to grow in usage (one reason for the dollar's decline in value recently -- many countries are partially switching reserves to Euros to spread out their risks).
Oh, and half of the G8 are in the EU -- France, the UK, Germany and Italy.
The EU's economic influence is thus hardly "laughable" at all...
As for European diplomacy succeeding with or without American participation, one can quite easily turn your statement on its head and point out that American diplomacy doesn't work in a vacuum -- American initiatives tend to work far, far better when the Europeans are on board. Think of it as the "good cop, bad cop" routine. Worked brilliantly in Iran recently, as the Iranians agreed top open up to the IAEA (after intense consultations with EU members as well as having American troops on its borders).
A final point about 'European' diplomacy: don't forget that the EU is really just a collection of nation-states, and can only act as a unit in nearly all cases when a consensus amongst those states has been reached.
In that light, to blame "Europe" for diplomatic weakness is misguided: the EU is weak, but its individual members still have quite a lot of influence abroad -- far, far more than other countries of similar size. France, Spain and the UK all punch far above their weight, and Germany is also taking an ever higher profile in recent years.
No offense intended, but such blinkered remarks are why many non-Americans get so exasperated with us -- factually wrong (or iffy) boasts, filled with misinformed chest-pounding about our supposed achievements and so on. We as Americans do have much to be proud of, but that doesn't mean we need to overdo it -- nor does it mean we need to rub everyone else's faces in it (especially not when we claim too much credit). Not a good way to make friends and keep them.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
"According to the report, the critical feature of Avatar is that it does not carry any liquid oxygen at take off. Instead, the entire 21 tonnes of liquid oxygen required for the rocket flight will be produced during an initial hour long cruise through the atmosphere - where at eight times the speed of sound, Avatar will suck in air before separating the oxygen and liquifying it for storage."
funny how the timeline for these planes get pushed into the future each time the articles get recycled... =;-]
"...can you imagine a BEOWULF CLUSTER of these? That'd be some serious power!"
Read Ben Richs book Skunkworks. Reagan wanted a Mach 5 aircraft, because his science advisor (poor grades, but a great brown noser who had the connections to get the job) told Reagan it could be done. When they tried to get Skunkworks to build it, Rich (was Kelly still around?) came up with many reasons why it was not practical (and probably impossible) Amusing conversation ''The Titanian on the blackbird starts to melt at Mach 3. You got something stronger''???? If India want waste, good for them. Better that than they keep building nooclear weaponz and picking fights with the Pakistan Dictator! sorry! friend of freedom. ;-)
"No better"? As someone living in Germany (and married to a German), I can hardly tell you how wrong you are. Where to begin?
America and Britain did not seek to exterminate an entire people (and nearly succeed) as the Nazis did, or summarily rape and pillage and entire city, as the Japanese did,
America and Britain did not do human wave attacks, unlike the Soviets.
America and Britain did not, as a matter of policy, summarily execute prisoners of war, as did the Soviets, Japan and the Nazis.
America and Britain did not impose dictatorships wholesale on the countries they occupied, unlike the Soviets, Nazis and Japan. Indeed, most countries the US and UK occupied got liberal democracies and independence.
Indeed, America even rebuilt its defeated enemies, gave them liberal democracies, gave them huge amounts of money and aid, defended them from the Soviets through the Cold War...need I go on?
To make the statement that America was "no better" than the Nazis, Imperial Japan or Stalinist Russia is just completely out of touch with basic facts. Yes, America and Britain did commit many crimes, like the internment of Japanese-Americans and dropping the atom bomb on civilians and firebombing German cities and so on. But on balance I'd still much rather have a world where America and the UK won, as opposed to one where the Soviets or (shudder) Nazis won, thankyouverymuch.
And given that I live in a city which was flattened by Bomber Harris, and which has Hiroshima as a partner city, I can tell you that the "defeated" Germans were in the end just as much 'winners' in the end as us Americans -- and they know it, and won't forget it easily. That's why Germany still commemorates the Berlin Airlift, Kennedy's "Berliner" speech (no, he did not say he was a jelly donut), the Marshall Plan and so on.
America little better than the Nazis? Today's Germans -- at least all the Germans I know -- would say America's a hell of a lot better.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Surface less than 280 km from target, shoot, bug out. India has a few dandy submarines.
The Brahmos doesn't have to fly across all of Europe to get where its going like the Tomahawk was designed to do. Its not going to Moscow, its going to some place in Pakistan.
Look at a map. There's not much in Pakistan worth shooting a million dollar missile at that's farther away from the Indian border than 280km.
[...] the US didn't attack Afghanistan for any reason OTHER than the destruction of al-Qaeda.
Apparently, the war in Afghanistan was largely due to the desire for an oil pipeline to gain access to the Caspian Sea resources, and had been planned as far back as 1992:
This is why the U.S was able to go to war in Afghanistan within weeks - detailed war plans had already been finalized - while it took well over a year to get ready for war in Iraq.Nuclear weapons (per se) are very old techology. Several countries developed them in the 40's and 50's pretty much without electronic computers.
With regards to nuclear war being "against the basic psyche of the country," keep in mind that in 1992, Hindu extremists tore down a 16th century mosque sparking nationwide riots, in which about 3,000 people were killed. There is a lot of ethnic conflict and religous nut activity in India (and Pakistan). India is now ruled by a Hindu-nationalist party.
With a per capita income of $480, India is still an unstable country with a long way to go. I hope they make it OK!
Ok, first of all--Europe is a post-modern society?? What the hell does that mean?!
The best translation of "post-modern" is "aware or its own context". Americans tend to be completely ignorant of the world around them, and because of this its politicians constantly bump into international opposition like a person stumbling around a dark room.
Did you guys realize that India is happen to be surrounded by non-democratic or poor or terrorist countries
a) Burma (Non-elected Govt.)
b) Bangladesh (Non-elected Govt. sometimes)
c) China (Non-elected Govt.)
d) Pakistan (Non-elected Govt, Terrorist Country)
Other people are kind of ok but not a strong democracy. e) Shri Lanka (Unstable Govt.)
f) Nepal (Weak Govt.)
g) Bhutan (Weak Govt.)
So, quicker India gets better ammo and better security in it's borders it is probably the best thing for that region.
Self-defence can motivate you to do the impossible.
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
Go get yourself a nice big source. Expose yourself, your wife and kids to about 100 rads then break it open and sprinkle it on yourselves. Then go drive off to the woods where and throw the remainder in your water supply. Light the forest on fire. Now sit there for a few weeks until you all die. It looks like this, only new weapons are orders of magnitudes worse and there are thousands more of them.
Only a sick fucker would will that on people. An exchange between India and Packistan would make the entire second world war look trivial. The people who actually suffer would be the innocent who could not afford to run away from their insane rulers. The only good thing about nukes is that they make a ground assault highly unlikely. The bad thing is that people are dumb enough to think a pre-emptive strike would work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Indians actually -do- something NASA has been fiddling with for 15 years? BWAHAHA!!!!
This is rich! How many middle manager weenies in NASA do you think are going to be fired with extreme prejudice when the USA has to lease space planes from India? Or Burt Rutan? Woohoo!
Maybe India should concentrate on making sure more people have food and medicine than trying to get into space where no starving people (or any people) reside. Same can be said for the US as well.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
think you're rude because your grandpa's ancestors said women are supposed to be house wifes only.
Exactly who's grandpa's ancestors didn't think that way?? Women's sufferage only happenend in the united states in the 1920's, that's only 80 years ago, even then up until the 1960's the vast majority of women in the western world were taught that they could only be wives and mothers. Anyway, what's the weather like up your own ass?
Who is responsible for Libya opening? The US!
I do believe the Brits had something to do with that endeavour.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
This question was well answered above, but here's another way of looking at it.
The Saturn booster is what it takes to get a few thousand pounds into orbit. If you were to land by using such a rocket and no air braking, it would have to be the same size. Want to imagine what it would take to get a loaded Saturn booster to orbit? A very, very big rocket. Remember, if you screw up and run out of fuel 25 feet in the air, you are dead. The adopted solution, parachutes, are much smaller, lighter, less expensive and more reliable.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
At least the US has been honest about what they've said/done.
Correct! Most recently, we have honestly maintained our dishonesty re. WMDs in Iraq.
Well the first steps of the F-22 program began in 1985 so that program is about 19 years old and still no combat ready air wings in the USAF.
Already done.
For instance, check France's ASMP. Mach 2, liquid fuel RAM jet with integrated solid booster, range up to 300 km, inertial guidance system. And it's, pfff, pretty old : work on it started in the mid 70's and it has been in operationnal service since 1988. So everybody says to India :
" Welcome to the 70s, India ! The Wonderful Years of Disco, Hippies and Free Love Communes ! ". (Yeah, it's THAT old).
Right now, ASMPs are fitted with a 300 kt nuclear warhead but they could refitted with conventional warheads if needed. Noises about a long range (~1000 km) version are emitted every now and then and nothing happens.
SNS Not Sig
Once those things are sold in quantity, sending U.S. Navy carriers to trouble spots will become much riskier.
Maby they want some kind of influence with the iranian government other than the point of a gun.
It is posible to 'inprove your relationship' without changing any of your opinions or stances on any issues. Instead you help each side understand the others positions and the whys for those positions. relationships improve when there are fewer misunderstandings.
Whether or not you want to do that with iran . . .
[o]_O
Really? I'm almost 50, and I've never paid more than $25 for any medical procedure.
Hindu extremists tore down a 16th century mosque....THAT WAS WRONG...shouldnt had happened
you close your eyes to what happens to minorities in pakistan, bangladesh,afghanistan etc
"My sister's a doc in India"
That equivalent to a 1st year med student in the US. I've seen the output of your "technical" schools, and a masters in math from India is less math than a B.S. in engineering from a US school.
Plus, that sing-songy english you speak; no wonder you kill each other; it must drive you crazy.
Your country will never amount to anything because anybody with any brains leaves to come to the US...oh, like you...meanwhile, back home, you're afraid to eat a cow because it might be your grandmother.
You'll build a scramjet allright.... you'll get some stupid VC's money and scram like a jet with it.
Besides, the only *real* indians are the ones who were hunting buffalo in the N.A. continent 400 years ago.
You guys are just a bunch of lackeys for the british.
Oh yea...Ghandi wore a diaper. A freeking diaper. You worship a guy with a diaper, you elected a brutal woman dictator, and now you do call center for the US
And you're going to build a scramjet? ha ha ha ha ha. You build an Estes rocket from plans and think you're going to the moon.
Gullible.
"That said, what most people know about India is wrong."
yes...its even worse than they imagine.
I am so tired of this far too frequent "argument".
European: "I think X is true, because of Y".
American: "We saved your ass in WW2. Therefore X is false. QED."
Am I the only person in America who can spot the logical error in this exchange??
So personally I'm relaxed about West European countries (and I include Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that group as culturally they are) having nukes
Canada has nukes? Shit, most people are surprised someone even gave them a warship.
"I am utterly sick of this casual racist nonsense from US slashdot readers"
(guys from the US, let me handle this).
My brother. I welcome you to the US. We respect you and your fine, ancient culture.
I am indeed sorry that we have offended you; in the US, we understand the debt of gratitude we owe to you and your fine, beautiful ancient culture.
You are people of color, and we in the US are not. We are pale, and not the glorious brown of your ancient beautiful, heralded skin.
We view you as our little brown brothers; a beautify burder to be borne by the white man in the US. As such we will work with you to bring you first in the 18th century, the bring you up until you are in the 21st century along with us. Then you can join us at the table. Join us bringing food for our dinner and answering the phone for us, my little brown brother.
We treasure our time together. In Jesus name we prey, Amen.
...definitely, not the second bomb.
I would suggest a closer reading of history. I can see that there is a healthy ability to debate this issue, but I cant see anything definite about it. In hindsight, it all looks so easy, and so many of the details that lead to that decision are lost to us today.
In taking many of the islands on the way to Japan, the American military had a rather good measure of just what it took to take those islands.
In taking Okinawa, at least ( IIRC ), civilians ( men, women, and children ) jumped off cliffs when it was obvious that the American forces were going to succeed. Such was the propaganda that had been fed to the Japanese citizenry about the Americans.
In the analysis of what it would take in terms of American casualties gave results where 1 million American dead where expected. It was expected that in addition to the regular Japanese army, that ordinary civilians would be taking part in the resistance, and would therefore be part of the Japanese casualties. Would the Japanese have surrendered? After my reading of this era and issue, I do not think so, not until the population of Japan was decimated. Not until after a long hard fight in which many many Japanese and Americans were dead. It is easy to loose sight of this in the interval that has elapsed since. Here is an interesting link tangent to the subject.
So, was the first or second bomb really needed?
In a sense no, but the effect saved many many Japanese and American lives. Yes, there was a cost to that.
Was the second bomb needed?
The Japanese had not surrendered after the dropping of the first bomb, indeed, it took five days after the dropping of the second bomb before the Japanese announced that they would surrender.
Now, as to the point that this is not something other countries should be worrying about.
The military outlook unfortunately has to look at capabilities first and foremost, and then at intents. So, while I agree that India lives in a rough neighborhood, and I can understand wanting a better deterent than they had before, I can also see that Pakistan would feel exactly the same way about the issue, and so might others in the region. Thus begins the proliferation. Tensions rise, and who knows what happens next?
emt 377 emt 4
"How do you know the people asking for Bush's "protection" weren't supporters of one or the other faction in the civil war?"
The point isn't whether they were asking for Bush support; that is irrelevant. The point is the French sent in troops unilaterally.
That's okay.
The US gets rid of a modern day pol pot, and that's a bad thing.
Its all a joke, but we're not laughing, loser.
these indians are nuts.. millions of indians are starving to death and still the governmetn wants to spend their little money like that??
geezz... I was there a few years ago and its really shocking to see -and smell- all that poverty and misery.
"Am I the only person in America who can spot the logical error in this exchange??"
No,I see it. Arguing on slashdot is always stupid, and moreso with somebody who thinks the EU is an economic or diplomatic powerhouse.
In fact, the EU is a marketing term for a bunch of people who can't even agree on a constitution or a common currency. The Euro is absurd.
You'll get pissed at me saying this, but the point of war isn't just to win, its to set yourself up not to fight the next war.
Read that again so you'll understand.
Japan bombed us. They "japped" us.
We destroyed them utterly. It had to be done. The lesson needed to be sent.
We asked the Japanese to surrender; they should have done so. To go to the Russians to act as a diplomatic counterweight is so insulting that it had to be met with ultimate force.
Same in Iraq. Libya, Syria, and North Korea *got the point* of Iraq.
If the president of the US says "Surrender or we'll turn your country to glass", its a good bet that he isn't fucking bluffing. The US does not bluff that way. We are patient (too patient in my opinion), but if it comes to war, it should be clear that you will lose against us, and lose utterly.
Go read some history. Read how the Romans exercised diplomacy and then read how long the empire lasted. Power must be used carefully, but ruthlessly.
I studied in Japan about the art of war with people whose lineage can be traced back to the dawn of recorded history, and they are quite clear how force is used, its limits and when to understand those limits. People who are squeemish about using power effectively should limit their comments to slashdot and allow adults to do the work necessary to ensure survival for you and yours.
The Nukes in Japan were effective and humane. The Emperor understood what it meant, and the meaning was clear. He understood the war was lost and it ended. He *understood*.
You do not.
The Ss-NN-22 at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/mos kit.htm
is faster, its deadlier, and russia is going to improve its range and speed.
This missile, which is now sold to china, and has russian launchers stationed in iran and other places can pack a nuke into it, and even with normal explosives can take down a Aircraft Carrier easily.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
This article makes a good argument that Tony Blair is the "good cop" to George W Bush's "bad cop."
If one uses "to" it implies being/getting closer; "from" implies being/going farther away.
Usage: "I am not very close from my mother-in-law".
OK, Frenchie, this is long overdue then.
Thanks for sucking the US into Vietnam. If only you could have held off Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu...
But no. Once again, the Mighty French Army can't do the job. I suppose you were ready to nuke Vietnam if the US had backed Ho Chi Minh like they almost did...
oh please, it was USA who sold lots of fuel and suppplies to germany. Even bushes grand daddy was implicated in some dodgy dealings with the germans, and IBM helped heaps by providing the germans with those new things called computers and databases and stuff. If USA didnt sell anything to germany, they wouldn't have been so powerfull in the first place to require kicking their ass.
Only the US would sell weapons/tech to a so called customer which is a future enemy to get some quick cash and then 'come in to the rescue' later by kicking their ass.
Now if any american is offended, please get a clue , SEPERATE the difference between the american citizens from the American Government in charge. Its your right and duty to hate with passion your own government, after all the USA Gov does tell other poor countries to rise up against their evil governments, so why can't americans do the same thing to their own ???? None of us here hate 'americans' except their govt.
But werent japan going to surrender any way before that nuke was done? It was'nt needed really. They built it and had to 'show it off' to get maximum influence.
Finito
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You said...
1) "and unlike the UN, it doesn't lack credibility."
2) "The UN didn't enforce their resolutions on Iraq, thuse leaving lucrative options for that regime. What happened?"
It seems like an odd jusposition of statements.
The UN is not credible and yet if they pass a resolution and don't enforce it then we have to do it for them.
War is necrophilia.
This is great news for American corporations that fly their employees all over. Now they can outsource their air travel to India. Getting someone from New York to Sydney will cost only $30 (assuming $10/hr)!!
I too donated to WTC bombing through amazon.com and what i find as a result: Govt. subsidising Big Business rather the poor & needy and starting an unnecessary war in Iraq.
Maybe its time i rethought about donating to US.
P.S. Iam a PROUD Indian Citizen.
cry till ur throat is hoarse..
India is a nation that has woken up from thousand year slumber and found utterance. This is just the beginning. I am sure voices like yours would be heard more and more as India progresses.
You can give as many broken links on the web as you can or read up as many communist insurgent propaganda as you want, but this does nothing to change the fact that an average Indian is doing much better now than any other time in last 1500 years.
I will give you more material for you to cry over.. India got Bhutan to attack and KILL all ULFA insurgents (these guys wanted to ethnically cleanse the state of Assam of all non-assamese). We are not taking any prisoners this time.. they are being executed mafia style. Hate it? who the fuck cares? hahahaah
duh ;P
The best translation of "post-modern" is "aware or its own context". Americans tend to be completely ignorant of the world around them, and because of this its politicians constantly bump into international opposition like a person stumbling around a dark room
Well.. yeah - typical American doesn't deal well with international politics. It's the whole "There's an ocean between us" mentality that drives a lot of it. Outside of Canada and Mexico (yes, I'm ignoring Central and South America for this exercise), the U.S.'s nearest neighbors (or enemies) have to have boats or airplanes to get here. That has been a driving force for foreign policy since the days of Jackson.
Was that the civil war where the French evacuated American expatriates for us?
If they were expatriates, i.e. folks who deliberately turned their backs on the US, then what were the French doing for us in the US, exactly?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
There's been a lot of harping on about WW2 lately and how the USA saved the world.
I don't think the US saved the world. It's hard to deny that Germany would not have been stopped in Europe without the US entry into that theater. It's also hard to deny that nuking Japan saved *American* lives--the Pacific theater was not one that we wanted to enter, the Japanese brought us in, nukes effectively ended the war very quickly.
The Japenese during the time of WWII and before that believed the Emperor to be either God or acting by divine intervention... Therefore, the US would *NOT* accept any peace treaty until the Emperor himself told the people that he was not God.
You may be right about the peace treaty, but I suspect that the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved many more lives than a peace treaty would have ( future japanese aggression towards US which would be all but guarenteed at the hands of a "God" emporer ).
"According to the article, there is evidence showing that at the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was communicating with Russia with the aim of having Russia act as an intermediary in negotiating a peace in the US. Further, the USA knew of this"
The fact that the Japanese had spoken with the Russians about negotiations is not the same as a signed surrender. I think it could also be argued that the Japanese government of the time was not exactly well known for good faith bargaining. Why not deal directly with the US? It has been alleged that the reason that the Japanese opened talked with Russia was to attemt to convince them to come in on the Japanese side, with the Japanese offering a partition of Asia as the reward. The surrender that Germany and Japan had been informed would be acceptable was an unconditional surrender, nothing less. Negotiations were not really involved. Also, keep in mind that this might have been a gambit to buy time to regroup militarily, and even if it wasnt, it would be prudent of the American command to consider that it might be. The feel I get from my reading on the subject was that the Japanese were not very interested in surrendering. A lesson American forces in battle learned the hard way was that individual Japanese would feign surrender in order to sucker in US forces, then betray that surrender. Further, Japanese in the waters ( downed airmen, naval ship crews ) would swim away from US ships that tried to rescue them, and would fight with rescuers when they were successful.
Noteworthy is the fact that in the final surrender, Hirohito had to overrule his government.
"At that point in time, Japan was in a very poor position, running low on resources and having its cities severely bombed conventionally. Again, according to the article, provided that the terms of a peace would allow them to keep the Emperor, Japan was all too willing to surrender."
Yes, they were in a poor position. They decided not to surrender. They kept on with the fight that they had started and had been making since about 1936 or so.
( Yes, the American embargo put them in a bad place. Why was there an embargo in the first place? America was using non-military methods to protest the Japanese invasion of China. They were in the drivers seat on this. )
"All too willing..."
So, why didnt they?
"The choice wasn't between using atomic bombs or a land invasion. Given this situation, a land invasion, along with the concommitant loss of life, would have been simply unnecessary."
I would suggest that it is easy today to think this way. Try putting yourself in the position of the people that had to make the decisions, and try to understand what information they had to work with, and what experiences they had been through before you judge them and their actions. It is, I think, the standard you would want applied to an examinination of your actions in a hard place.
So, please, what choices were there? They could not leave Japan alone, unless they wanted to go back through all that again later.
"Note also: even if there had been a land invasion, the lives lost would have been chiefly confined to those in the armed forces of the two nations (note also that this figure as estimated today would have been similar to or less than the 160000 casualties of the Hiroshima bombing.)"
All the research I have done on this subject leads me to believe that there are several things wrong with this statement. Namely A) that the fighting and dieing on the Japanese side would have been largely confined to the military and B) that the casualty figures would be 160000.
A) In the fighting on Okinawa, civilians were influenced by the propaganda from the Japanese government to such an extent that many jumped from cliffs commiting suicide rather than being captured by Americans. The defence the Japanese put up as the Americans got closer to the home islands became increasingly desparate, including suicide attacks both on the ground and from
emt 377 emt 4
www.brahmos.com
I'd say it is hard actually. The main battle was on the eastern front, a battle that dwarfed all others. For the whole duration of the war some 80% of the German army's resources (esp. personell) was spent on the eastern front.
So to parapharse: "If it weren't for the Americans we'd all be speaking Russian" is not an unlikely scenario.
Not that I'd have very much cared for Stalinist rule instead of a free Western Europe, but I think it could be argued that the Nazis were doomed when Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop act.
Stefan Axelsson
thats india for you. I am an indian and it drives me nuts that on one hand we have some of the best brainpower in the world and also some of the worst poverty and apathy.
Ok, you're furthering my parallell to the nuking of japan. The point was: it was different times, a lot has changed, plus you shouldn't judge people based on somebody rather distant.
Why the hell do you bring my ass into this? You're obviously the one who didn't understand it, not me.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
It seems like an odd jusposition of statements.
The UN is not credible and yet if they pass a resolution and don't enforce it then we have to do it for them.
Yeah, that is what has happened. The UN lack credibility because they do not have the leverage (credibility/power of threats/action). Therefore, in the Iraq-situation, the US took care of it. Good work on behalf of the US! The UN, on the other hand, e.g., bringing Iraq (under Hussein) and Syria into the commitee for Human Rights, has issues with credibility.
I don't see where we disagree. Btw, you're not the Malcontent from SOCNET, are you?
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
Plus we're cogniscent of the political fallout as well as the radation fallout. The former will probably doom a president that authorises a nuclear device to be used.
Shouldn't they work on getting indoor plumbing for everyone first?
Please let the US return to the day's of the Monroe Policy. We will police the America's with the Iron Fist of the American Bleeding Heart Liberals.
We leave North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, in the hands of the EU to do with as they see fit. We will leave Oceania to Austrailia, New Zealand, and ASEAN. The Rest of Asia we leave in the hands of the capable humanitarians the Chinese. Enjoy!!
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
The mighty american army did so much better.
You say "allowed" like you have a choice. As if each European country could team up and have a chance of defeating us.
In other words, dipshit, come try and take 'em.
Oh yeah, horrible things in Pakistan as well. Neither India or Pakistan is safe with nuclear weapons. Pakistan is even less safe!
Was there any evidence that the USA knew about these communications, or was it hindsight? Did the president know?
I don't read AC A human right
Sometimes the effective demonstration of power is the most important component to being humane.
"War kills people"? Well shucky-darn, I just didn't know that until you pointed it out just now.
I'm curious, are you under the impression that fascist regimes don't "kill people"? How about famine? How about intentionally created famine of the sort that totalitarian regimes and rulers like to create, as in Somalia?
Everything large "kills people". Even making X-Boxes or printing up more boxes of GTA3.
Care to go over the toxicity data for low-wage workers in Silicon Valley, let alone electronics factories in Malaysia or Indonesia?
The key question is, how to minimze the damage in a given situation and ensure that the maximum amount of that damage happens in ways that ease future risks.
Japan was under the control of a very well-organized junta of racist, expansionist sociopaths and extreme nationalists who had spent the previous decades rebuilding the entire country's structure to justify the "Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" abomination.
"Co-prosperity"? Tell a Korean woman that as she was raped daily as a casual amusement for Japanese troops.
As others have pointed out, the battle of Okinawa was dirty and lethal as hell. And, let's be honest here, the Soviets made no secret that they were planning to, sorry to be un-P.C., TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD.
Both of them were serious. Both were well on the way.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, as the AC pointed out, our line in the sand.
We do not bluff; we do not joke, and we can and will, to quote the AC, reduce your nation to glass.
And that is what real humane behavior is. Making the smaller sacrifice (and, yes, compared to an invasion of Japan, let alone a hot war with the Soviets) this was the smaller sacrifice. To put on a very public display of what happens to expansionist dictators.
Now don't get me wrong, having won the war, we then proceed to fumble the peace (Indochina war anybody?). But nonetheless, dropping those nukes was the brave and tough thing to do.
You want to dispute this, then start by explaining the intervening fifty years of no military expansionism by Japan or Germany -each of which made the seizing and rape of "inferior" countries their daily bread until we kicked them into the dirt over and over until they learned to stay the fuck down.
Japan's military culture, for all their bullshit talk of bushido, did not believe in honor. Not in the way that we would mean it.
Remember, they started firing on U.S. soldiers back in the thirties for daring to even be nearby while Japanese troops ravaged every square foot of Chinese land they could take and despoil. "oops, so sorry, just a mistake" they would say. Kinda like their cute little game of giving their ambassabor in the States documents about a declaration of war and then, "oops, so sorry again" ensuring that they were not in appropriate American hands until the Pearl Harbor attack was under way.
When I was a wee lad, I used to get in fights with bullies. I was the geek who fought back. And initially I would get them in pain, and make them promise, then and there, to stop fighting. Oh, how earnest they sounded. "Yes, I'll stop, yes, I'm sorry, no, I won't attack again". But somehow, the moment I let them go, they would attack again. They didn't slow down until I started to actually give them the kind of hurt that didn't end when I let go. Ain't nothin' like a trip to the emergency room to teach some little snot to be more circumspect in the future.
Bullies are not just lacking in compassion. They are also lacking in the ability to understand that others are not like them. If you want them to stop bullying, not just now but from now on, then you'ld better make sure that they are throbbing with pain for a good long while even after you let go. It sucks, but there it is.
And, oh, by the way, back to the "humane" bullshit, have you ever looked into conditions in postwar Japan?
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
>>>That said, I'm French, and not happy at all with the way France has supported dictators, but frankly do you really believe that the USA are better in this respect??
I suppose not. We did a lot of business with Napoleon a couple of hundred years back, right?
Somebody please mod the dumbfuck parent post down as offtopic, flamebait, or troll.
Now I'll go into my own offtopic rant and get modded down myself:
I guess this fool wasn't there, on the islands, when the Japanese dug in and fought to the last man. When the Japanese used pilots in their planes as guided bombs. Japan was, at the time, pschologically prepared to fight down to every last man, woman, and child.
Would they have surrendered more easily? Its easy to look back on it now, almost 50 years later, and say yes. But I think if you ask anyone who was alive during the time if they thought Japan would ever surrender, they'd say no.
Could we have bombed them into submission using conventional weapons? Sure, but we'd have been bombing them for years - and the death toll would probably have been much higher.
No, what we needed was a pschological edge. Something that said: "If you don't give up now, there won't be anything left to defend." That technology was the atomic bomb. Was it horrible? Yes. Could we have done it another way? With enough determination, yes. Would doing it another way have resulted in less casualties? No. So do I still defend its use? Yes.
Thank you.
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
"None of us here hate 'americans' except their govt." And this shows that you do not understand us ("americans") or our system of government. To hate the United States government is to hate the people of the United States for both are one and the same.
Because many people believe that India has something to prove.
The US has undisputed military and nuclear capabilities. India doesn't. India needs/wants to prove it's technical capabilities to the world in this area.
The Economics of Website Security
oh please, it was USA who sold lots of fuel and suppplies to germany. Even bushes grand daddy was implicated in some dodgy dealings with the germans, and IBM helped heaps by providing the germans with those new things called computers and databases and stuff. If USA didnt sell anything to germany, they wouldn't have been so powerfull in the first place to require kicking their ass.
Sigh. Do you honestly think Germany required US help in the 1930s to do what it did to the rest of the world? And computers were not even a speck on the IBMs horizon at the time. You never heard of Turing (British) or Zuse (German) at the time. Databases did not exist at the time.
And the Americans did not do much kicking ass during the WW 2 (at least not in Europe). The Russians did.
Good God, I should check a dictionary before making an ass of myself. Anyway.
[o]_O
Some certainly claim there is such evidence, such as the collection of quotes at this site. In particular have a look at the section under Ellis Zacharias, Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Quoting one segment here,
topic of the necessity of the use of the bombs was brought up. According to the article, there is evidence showing that at the time the bombs were dropped, Japan was communicating with Russia with the aim of having Russia act as an intermediary in negotiating a peace....
The Japanese government was generally split on how to handle mounting losses. One faction negotiating does not necessarily indicate opinions of the other side. Many held to the old Samurai tradition that it is better to die than to surrendur, regardless of how bad shape their people were in. Remember the Kamakazi's?
Some believe that the nuke offered a bit of a way to save face by making the situation look totally lopsided rather than a conventional person-to-person fight to the end. Thus, the bomb allowed to a way to surrendur with less face loss.
But, nobody knows for sure what would have happened without the Bomb. The only thing we know for sure is that it brought about a swift end to the war.
Table-ized A.I.
I am no historian, and am certainly not familiar enough with the details of WWII to argue your points directly. But perhaps you would be willing to see what others have said in counter-argument?
The positions taken by Doug Long in an article Hiroshima: Was It Necessary? (there is also a summary), and the arguments given by Gar Alperovit on a mailing list, also collected on Doug Long's site, seem to have the weight of evidence behind them. Their case seems very plausible.
This site came up with a quick google search; I was unaware of it when I posted the earlier comment.
We don't know that. In fact, by quotes from military people who ought to know at the time, it was felt that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did little to hasten the end of the war.
Many of these comments though were apparently not available to the public at large until relatively recently (1979 or some such). If interested in reading more, there's a site I came across recently and have linked to in other comments in this thread: http://www.doug-long.com/
And like everything in the world, it is best to wipe the glasses of the gunk a little bit. I know a LOT of ponds and rivers in my neighborhood (seat of the Industrial Revolution) that my parents would never swim in, but that are safe enough now to actually eat the fish. Wherever heavy industry pops up, great environmental damage is done. It's the nature of the beast, especially when the laws and enforcement policies to protect nature are not in place to stop it.
I think we need to start setting our goals in the U.S. a bit higher. When two countries who were lagging decades behind us technically and economically are about to send people to the moon, and we can't even keep our damn space shuttles flying, we've dropped the ball.
I have a great deal of respect for India. They've managed to establish freedom and democracy in a part of the world where it is sorely lacking, and they're making great strides in addressing their social and economic problems. I think we need to learn from their drive and ambition, or we're going to be passed up in the race toward the future.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
"I don't see where we disagree. Btw, you're not the Malcontent from SOCNET, are you?"
No.
The UN was not able to prevent a strong country from attacking, invading and occupying a weaker country. That makes them irrelevant. The UN charter was to avoid war and they have failed miserably for last few decades where not a year passed without a war going on someplace and that makes them irrelevant.
UN has no credibility because political avenues are dead. We are back to might makes right. Whoever has the most bombs makes the rules.
War is necrophilia.
No, the UN is not irrelevant, they lack credibility because they do not stand up for the values that they claim to hold so dear.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
In what way are they relevant? As I said their charter was to prevent war. To prevent stonger nations from attacking weaker ones. To find diplomatic solutions to the problems of the world such as ethnic strife, starvation, disease etc.
On any account they have been collasal failures. Strong nations routinely violate the sovereignty of weaker ones. Starvation is common, africa is racked with aids and other diseases, there has never been a year without war.
I honestly don't see how anybody can claim that they are not irrelevant? What relevance to they have? They are powerless to effect any change in the world. If the US wanted to turn sryia into a parking lot could they do anything? If Israel wanted to cleanse the west bank of palestenians could the UN stop them? If China wanted to annex taiwan could the UN stop them?
unless you define relevant as powerless, inept, and useless they are irrelevant.
If the UN is so relevant how come they will not try Saddam Hussein? How come there are thousands of "illegal combatants" being held without any human rights in prisons all over the world. How come there is a nutcase in North Korea starving his people.
War is necrophilia.
I have noted that Gar Alperovitz has illicited responses to his work ranging from praise to critisism that he is selective in chosing only reference works that support his topic, ignoring others that do not support it. In viewing other pages written by him, I find him citing ( he does not list the exact report, so it is difficult to check him, not proper history, IMHO ) reports done well after the wars end ( 1946 ) to support his conclusion. He also claims that the Japanese had decided to surrender, needing only to convince the "diehard Army Group" to surrender. Problem is, that "diehard Army Group", IIRC, were in charge and running things. Kinda like saying that the American Govt had decided to withdraw from Vietnam because 12 congressmen and a large part of the citizenry wanted us out. Doug Long's site refers to itself, and cites, in the main, a book by Butow. I have not taken the time to check the book references, but so far, I remain unconvinced.
I would suggest reading primary source documents ( like the documents written by the individuals involved at the time, and lots of them ) and some books outside the revisionist camp before you decide. It is too easy to see things in black and white and monolithic entitys that are anything but ( the Japanese Government, the American Goverment, to name just two ), and oversimplify on that basis. Think about what was know, to whom, what credence they gave to it, and other real limiting factors. Play devils advocate for yourself, and examine from both sides.
Regards,
emt 377 emt 4