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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."
They have nuclear weapons and they'll be able to place objects in orbit cheaply...
Twenties Retirement
I'm not certain if I should put ":-(" or ":-)" on this one.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
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.
What's probably the saddest bit about this is that the India/Pakistan cold war is proving to be just as much of a boon to technological development as the US/USSR cold war was. It's as if it's impossible to leapfrog in technology without the political motivation of an enemy to mobilize it.
In the US, for example, it's hard to imagine that considerations of intellectual property, patents, NDA's and the like would have been allowed to hamstring the development of strategic military technologies. But peacetime technological development is increasingly being stymied by such factors.
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
Just so you know: India is allied with the US client state of Israel. They have a common foe: Islamic states. India also shares a common "competitor" with the US namely: China. They are very much on the US "team."
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?
Ever been to mississippi? Georgia? Alabama? Texas? Wyoming? These all have levels of povery that make places in Mexico and India look rich.
India has substantial private wealth in the hands of its upper and upper-middle classes. English rule largely left the princely fortunes intact - there are still many families in India worth 10s and even 100s of millions of dollars. And below them families which have hidden stashes of gold and jewels they've been amassing for centuries. The 100 million best off people in India have wealth comparable to the 100 million best off Americans - even though there are also the 100s of millions of Indians living in such often-total poverty.
As more immigrants come into America to drive down the costs of servants and menial labor, we will come increasingly to resemble India - palaces for the rich and squalor for the rest. America is a young civilization yet, India an ancient and wise one. There is much to learn from them, especially regarding the institution of a caste system. Let us not be too proud, as they show us the way to our inevitable future.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Do yourself a favor, and visit India before you make hollow remarks based on some one-sided documentary made 50 years ago, or on the CNN documentary you saw.
I grew up in rural India. Guess what? Not only BASIC, but much more than BASIC medical care is available for FREE if you go to a Govt. run hospital.
My sister's a doc in India. It's a private practice, and if she feels that her patient can't afford it, she does't charge them. And most of the docs in India have the same attitude. Do you know what a Hippocratic Oath is?. So if you are comparing the US medical amenities & cost to India, there is one huge component missing in the US... compassion. Don't compare apples to oranges.
From importing most of the grains in the past 30-40 years, India is now the world's largest foodgrains producer, the second largest fruit producer, the largest vegetable-producer, and the largest milk producer. India can not only feed its entire population, but it exports too. CNN didn't tell you that did it?
Another fact for the news deprived: India has NEVER had an expansionist ideology. Go read up some history. How about a few thousand years back from 2004? India has always been attacked before she responded in every single war since she was formed in 1947. Can you say I-R-A-Q? Who's a hippocrite?
Back to the topic... this is for the thought-handicapped:
If this project is successful, then India will be competing with Boeing and Airbus, never mind the military applications. How is that bad? Isn't that going to get more money into India? Was IT bad for India? The US refused to sell us a Supercomputer (one of the Cray machines) back in the 90s. Surprise, surprise! We built one that was faster and much cheaper than the Cray we were looking to buy for Weather Forecasting. Thanks a bunch US!
Then the US blocked the sale of some rocket parts from Russia. We built it from scratch. Thanks again US! We should be partners!! Oh wait, that pisses off Musharraf, the Chinese Commies, half the fucking Arab world... never mind, we can manage it on our own...
Would the US be self-reliant and the leader of the world if the politicians here threw up their hands and sat on their asses after all the US residents all had running water? You sound just like the geniuses who screamed "WASTE" when the US space program was launched.
Flaimbait? No, just an Indian who is fsking pissed that people can be so fsking unintelligent.
____
Sometimes the voices in my head speak over each other. This is one of those times.
Pray explain what noise would make it audible before it physicaly arrives. It's Supersonic i.e, faster than sound!!
Faster than sound does not mean faster than light or electricity. If it travels more than 200 KM, there is plenty of time to bring most defenses on-line. Obviously, if it is only traveling 50 KM, then you are most likely gone before advance warning can happen. That simply begs the question of why did you allow somebody that close.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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
I was more looking at the fact that they essentially wrote the tanker contract that the AF didn't need, then improperly hired the DoD civillian who had managed it, and the $1 Billion in penalties paid because they ended up with all kinds of Lockheed documents so they could underbid them. The commercial portion of their business is too scared to try new designs until they realize they have no other choice.
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
OTOH, most of Pakistan's inhabited region is within 280 km of India.
"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.
Here is a rebuttal to your diatribe:
Govt. run hospital.
Tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria are the main diseases that India has to grapple with across the length and breadth of the country. For many years the government has been focusing on family planning programs to control population growth. Primary health care schemes have been on the agenda also but the services and facilities are stretched. There is a big gap between facilities available in urban and rural areas. Some of the urban private institutions have the most modern equipments and expert doctors, while the government run hospital are scraping for funds and facilities. Patients are overflowing into the urban hospitals at an alarming rate and the health infrastructure is unable to cope with it.
http://www.oneworld.net/article/archive/4509/
India can not only feed its entire population, but it exports too.
India is the second most populous country in the world and third largest economy in Asia. Since its independence 50 years ago, India has followed a policy of self-sufficiency in food production and has never been a major player in the world grain market. This is likely to change in the future due to economic growth, population growth, and resource constraints.
The adoption of market-oriented domestic and trade policies in 1997/98 has led India to an accelerated economic growth. If this growth becomes broad based, it is likely that there will be a significant change in dietary preference. In addition, projected higher population growth will make India the most populous country by the middle of the next century, increasing the pressure on food demand. More importantly, according to United Nations projections, more than 55 percent of the total population will live in urban locations in 2030, compared to 26 percent in 1996.
In contrast, India's agricultural production has slowed significantly in recent years. Historically, growth in agricultural production since the 1960s has been from a sustained rising trend in yields, with no, or slight, increase in area production. Three inputs--irrigation, fertilizer, and high yielding varieties--have accounted for much of the yield growth in the past decades. It has been argued that a declining rate of irrigated area and per hectare fertilizer application has been responsible for the slowing of yield growth. It is alarming to note that production growth is declining at a rate higher than the inputs in recent years.
In the face of the declining growth of agricultural productivity and likely increase in food demand, it is probable that in the future India will come to depend on imported food to meet domestic requirements. To quantify these effects, FAPRI evaluated India's grain demand and supply situation for 2015. Food demand is estimated by taking into account structural change in consumption due to urbanization and income growth. Strong income growth and urbanization are expected to significantly change the composition of the food basket. The average per capita consumption of cereals is projected to rise from 160 kg in 1993 to 168 kg by 2007, and then start declining after 2007, falling to 165 kg by 2015. Rural per capita cereal consumption increases throughout the period, whereas urban per capita cereal consumption until 1999, and then starts to decline.
http://www.fapri.iastate.edu/bulletin/oct98/indi a. htm
India has NEVER had an expansionist ideology.
GROWING MENACE OF INDIAN EXPANSIONISM
Indian state of late has been stepping up its Indian expansionist design over its neighbouring smaller countries. In the context of Nepal, not satisfied with physically nibbling away Nepalese border land bit by bit, stationing of it's military camp over Kalapani land and building illegal barrage in Laxmanpur, inundating thousands of Nepalese villages. it is trying to create psychological pressure of is domination by hook or crook! Take the instance of an Indian Airline plane that was
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.