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Planning Phase Complete For Indian Moon Mission
alphakappa writes "According to news reports, India's low-cost moon mission -- Chandrayan -- has completed its planning phase and will be deployed in 2007-2008 as planned. The interesting aspect is that the entire mission is expected to cost only around USD 88 million. How do you think space technology will change as a result of these low cost missions, satellites and space vehicles?"
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Firstly the mission is not manned. So the question of loss of life doesn't arise. Secondly, the costs are low probably for the same reasons that India can do most other tech work for lower costs (low cost of labor/manufacturing/r&d). Finally, like with any technology project, you can never be sure how much it actually costed until the project has been successfully completed. Such projects have high probability of shooting over the budget.
You don't really believe that if they would not put that money into their space program, they'd build a new university or hospital with that money, do you?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Why?
India was denied cryogenic engine technology(for the heavy satellites it launches(which is currently done by Ariane x) in 1992/3 by Russia because of the dual use potential.
So India started developing its own cryogenic technology. It was supposed to be ready by 1999. Now, 12 years later, it is still not completely ready. Its gotten there 60-70 % but there is still a ways to go.
Unless you see an actual launch in 2007 of this moon mission I would be skeptical.(Forget moon mission, sending a man into orbit itself will be a big deal for India, moon mission is a far off dream(pun intended.))
China took a long while to send a man into orbit. India is going to take an even longer time to achieve that. 2007 isn't even that far away when talking about time frames for space programs.
And finally, when the heck were space programs within on close to their budget? 88 million? More like 500-900 million $.
Until then its speculation, speculation and more speculation. Geddit?
6 comments and already half of them are whining about why can't India spend money on education and hospitals. So the USA and Europe have no poor people, no uneducated people, no sick people who can't afford healthcare? News to me. Any number of recent stories on slashdot have talked about spinoffs from India's space programme that have helped, and are helping, the Indian people (satellite education, improved weather forecasting and cyclone alerts, remote sensing and crop monitoring, etc...) And has it occurred to you that the moon project could be a money winner in the long run, if India can do it cheaper and better than others? India is already getting a non-negligible share of the satellite launch business, as well as saving a lot of money by doing its own launches instead of depending on Ariane and others. But no, next time an India story comes, it will be another "oh look at all those poor illiterate people, why are they running a space programme" flood of comments, mainly from Americans who're hardly literate in their native language, judging by the writing samples on display.
If you have walked or driven past some of the streets of south side Chicago, you would be asking yourself the same question about a different country.
I'm not making excuses for the lack of govt focus on infrastructure, I'm just pointing out that every country has problems related to poverty, bad/old infrastructure and corruption.
Yeah, its the obvious reply, that I could not help but make.
Short term maybe, but for the long term you need more to sustain this comfort level. One way to sustain is by making sure you have a sufficient knowledge level and spread it.
(e.g. the edusat part of their space program)
Jeroen
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I fail to see how this is substantially different from the US, other than by scale. There are a lot of people living in appalling conditions in the US as well (not *quite* as many, of course). For example, the $350 billion a year of military spending might have bought the country quite a lot of educational institutions, hospitals or whatever. Instead, it's blown through the chimney in a massive dick-waving contest.
This is applicable to money spent on space, too. Or what about the military uses originally intended for the Shuttle project? Was any of the money ever put to use at all, let alone for a purpose?
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It is a bit of international dick waving. On the other hand, with a country of over a billion people, it's like spending 8 cents per person on a huge national pride campaign. That's really cheap. The spinoffs could be huge... maybe it will inspire more people to get an education and boost India's GNP in technology-related businesses.
Besides, what was so crucial about the US's mission to the moon? Was it really crucial back then to know the composition of moon rock? Hardly. Your complaints are better aimed at the billions per month spent in Iraq rather than how a foreign nation decides to spend its money.
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Spacecraft have always been custom built for the task. While this may have its advantages, it also means that you are constantly reinventing the wheel - a costly and often unreliable process (Witness the Genesis and Beagle 2 probes).
I have always believed that the way to reign in costs of space missions is to use standardised components - you use the same delivery/landing system until you have something thta's proven to be better.
That means that companies can make thousands of the same components cheaper because they don't have to spend money redesigning them or resetting their production machines. The problems with each component are also well understood and can be planned for because of the extra experience with them, meaning a higher chance of success with each mission.
Still. But this 80 million dolar project will help in training Indian engineers an scientests for other future projects not to say that it will help to keep them in (and their knowlege) in India and not imigrate.
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maybe it will inspire more people to get an education and boost India's GNP in technology-related businesses.
Inspiring people in India to get an education isn't a problem,inspiring themto want to stay in/return to India once they have that education is another matter. Unless the spin-offs include a lot of well paid high prestige jobs in India, this isn't really a factor.
Well, atleast it's being used on something substantial like space travel, rather than on military funding some of the other countries.
Or, are you too blinded by your own prejudice to notice that development is development, no matter what? People need to be motivated, and this is just a means of doing it.
I guess you would rather spend it on conquering some poor nation for it's oil and natural resources, and brand it progress, rather than have a developing nation take steps to not merely enhance the quality of living of its people, but also it's science. FYI -- any progress is progress. NASA isn't going to give the blueprints of its flights to India tomorrow, and the only way that they are going to progress is to do it on their own.
Do you have any suggestions? Or would you rather suggest that until all of the billion people are given television sets and fat burgers so that they can sit on their couches, there should be no progress at all? They're trying to catch up with the rest of the world, give them a break and give credit where it's due.
But what is the point?
Space technology is important to improve the veritable sea of people is living in appaling conditions. Going to the Moon may not have any direct impact, it will definitely payoff when the technology learnt from the exercise can be used for good.
I think the point is that in the near future space will be controlled by the countries that got there first. And everyone else will essentially have to go through them. One day, space will be where the majority of our economies will be maintained with a large percentage of industries moving out there.
Any country that doesn't get a strong foot hold out there by themselves will have to rely heavily on those that did; and those that did, will eventually be able to tur na huge profit out of their advances.
At no point do I think the money spent now will help the current, or even the next few generations, but it will make a difference in the future.
If you believe that all the powers in space will be altruistic in the future, then maybe putting 88 million (or 500 if you look at their total space budget) into feeding everyone one will have more benifits. But then again, 500million dollers ends up being what, 50 cents per indian citizen, or maybe it could educate their citizens (though rough calculations put the percentage in the 0.00's)?
The knowledge gained from this should and will outstrip that 50c benifit in no time.
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Or is this solely a demonstration of power? A sort of an international dick-waving contest?
[[I could be wrong about my history here, but I believe the reason the US-Soviet space race was so important was to show the other side that they could send nukes across the globe without launching a manned bomber.]]
Think about it, NASA was largely developed by Wernher von Braun. The same man who brought us the V2 rocket. It is now said he built that rocket with the ideas of someday going to the moon. Either way, it is has been said that Hitler could have ruled the world with nukes and V2s.
Point: India has nukes. If they want to hold the world hostage or become a true nuclear power they need to be able to send rockets/missles around the globe.
At first it sounded good, but now it's somewhat scary. Dirty bombs don't scare me much, ICBMs... that is another story.
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Well, it is a great achievement for India. It is of great Indian pride. and I fully support it. As someone pointed out, calculate the cost per person and it comes out to 8 cents per person. Thats so cheap.
Most of the responses here are "why? what's the need? first take care of poverty.... blah blah" But many people just see india as place to outsource projects. Well, this is mission is just to prove India's ability to the world what it can do even if other nations don't give some technolgy to India. It is matter of self esteem and national pride to see an indegenious mission. Also, it is not the space where only U-S-A can work. It is about equal opportunities for everyone instead of keeping power with the few.
And poverty? Do you think they are just sleeping and doing nothing? Well, eliminating poverty in country over 1 billion population is going to take time. So, why can't these two missions go hand in hand? definitely yes!
Maybe, maybe not. Consistent with the primary objective of using space technology for societal benefits, Department of Science (DOS) has implemented the satellite sytems systems that form important elements of the national infrastructure today for providing vital services in the areas of telecommunication, television broadcasting, meteorology, disaster warning and resources survey and management. The progress made in the application of space technology during the year is highlighted in the following sections. If you want to know what those application are, take a look here
Secondly, such space missions may not directly affect the country's economy or the well-being of the people directly, but the knowledge gained is then applied to other areas. Such low-cost missions also enable the country to be self reliant so that they dont have to be dependent upon fickle, external, happy-to-go-war-for-oil powers who refused India cryogenic technology for ill-founded fearsM, which incidentally, had no long-term consequences excepting for some delays in India launching its indigenous rockets.
> Or is this solely a demonstration of power?
If that's what you think. We believe it is a step towards self-reliance.
> A sort of an international dick-waving contest?
That is the most pompous, ignorant, half-assed comment as any that I've heard. So developing countries should not try to break free from the shackles of poverty, by using technology? Or do you think such technology has just one direct application and no transferable by-products? Or that such technology is the domain of only the rich? What rubbish!
> You are not grown up until you send some expensive junk to the moon or something?
Just so you dont growel in your own ignorance that this is the only Indian space programme, here is the complete list to relieve you of your pain:
- Geostationary Satellite System
- Earth Observation System
- Space Applications
There are others. But I'm too tired to respond in far more detail. Oh, and just so you understand how old Indian space programme is, have a look here> Those eighty million might have bought the country one more university or one more hospital - which, I believe, have a better chance of saving / educating a person which makes an important scientific discovery than that pile of junk has of making a good return on its moon trip
Hospitals? You gotta be out of your mind. Just google about healthcare in India and the healthcare "tourists" that India attracts every year.
Sure, despite all this, I know it's a poor land. But to trample all over it, because you have a self-formed belief that it should focus only on hospitals, is being clueless
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India already have a significant stream of Indians moving back to the country as the number of "high paid" (by local standards) technology jobs have been rapidly increasing.
And a project like this could easily include a lot of well paid high prestige jobs - if it boosts India's reputation as a reliable partner for satellite launches, and local firms are prioritized for purchases for the project wherever possible, the return could easily be many times the investment.
So it is amoral and shortsighted to invest in developing local technology so that local industry thrive and help catch a pie of the multi-billion dollar satellite launch market by proving their capabilities, so they get foreign business, creating thousands of jobs in the process, and bringing in billions of foreign capital to grow their economy?
So it is amoral and shortsighted to invest in communications systems to help boost education levels in poor rural areas?
A space program isn't a pissing contest - all countries depend on space technology in one way or another. For a country with more than a sixth of the worlds population it would be lunacy to depend on other countries for things like military surveillance, communications, weather monitoring, etc. It would also be lunacy to let other nations cement their technical superiority and hold onto their grip on a market that is growing extremely rapidly, and will be a vital revenue source in a few decades.
And I think the hundreds of billions the US spends on maintaining a military and illegally invading other countries could be much better spent, especially in a country like the US where a lot of people don't even have access to basic modern comfort.
Is that so shocking ?. That's just the point. In the Cold War, the US of A and USSR were in an even uglier deadlock - Mutually Assured Destruction. Here at least India has a No First Use agreement .
Also there's the relgion angle .. Ever heard about Moksha ?. Think about a terrorist who believes in COMING BACK after death.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I guess you would rather spend it on conquering some poor nation for it's oil and natural resources, and brand it progress, rather than have a developing nation take steps to not merely enhance the quality of living of its people, but also it's science. FYI -- any progress is progress.
You guess wrong, actually, and you are trying to pin opinions on me which are not mine. Also, I disagree re: progress is progress. Things have been labelled "progress" wrongly before; hell, one could argue that the entire western world is currently not progressing, as we are wasting our limited energy resources without a clear idea of what to do when they run out. We are progressing like a hypothetical man who is trying to master chess while falling from a building - he would be better off trying to invent a parachute.
Does it surprise you that most slashdotters are racist?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Well done, India, that's what I say.
I've seen a lot of the other comments, which are all along the lines of general - and stupid - derision, asking 'why, oh why'. Yes, India has many problems with poverty etc, but so has USA, Russia and China; in fact Europe are the ones that have the best record on those issues, so perhaps only Europe should ever send things into space, don't you agree?
No I think all these objections are more to do with the fact that India is not America and most Americans hate the fact that others are able to do these things and rely on themselves rather than the scraps the US allow them. There was the same sort of sentiment when the European equivalent of GPS was launched: 'Why, oh why'.
Well I'll tell you why:
1. It's not American - people in the world often prefer to do things independently of America, often because they don't trust the benevolence of America.
2. In the case of India's space program - China and India are rivals in many areas, they are both on the verge to take the place at the top economically in the world. China has put a man in space and annouced plans to put one on the moon, and India feel they have to demonstrate that they can do it too.
I'm not sure you're all that aware of the kind of country India is these days. Their education system is clearly excellent. They already have an excellent health care system (hell, they provide a large fraction of the doctors here (UK) too), a good education system and vast numbers of university graduates.
What they need to do is develop their economy, local expertise and provide jobs for all those graduates beyond call centres. A decent space programme is a good way to do that.
You are one more reason Pentagon and its cronies are able to sell the idea of Missile Shield to the american people. The threat of a dirty bomb is far more greater than that of "axis-of-evil" lobbing a few nukes your way.
Seriously, we are going back to the cold war era, when everyone lived in perpertual fear of the commies nuking the heck out of us. Later we realized that Russians love their kids too, but now we just cant be sure about the terrorists (do they have kids too?).
Soon we will start looking in fear at the shadows, look with suspicion at our fellow human beings, believe everything our Govt tells us and close our mind to everything else. I wish we cease to exist by then, it would be a shame to live on like that..
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It's not the federal gov't's job to spend money on entitlement programs or education. It is their job to spend money on defense. One might argue those would be the job of the state or local gov'ts.
I'd also argue the invasion of Iraq doesn't approach the definition of illegal, since there were resolutions and treaties dating from 1991 that called for military action if they were broken, and they were.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
The reason this is so cheap is because it's unmanned. Sending humans out there is the big difference, that's what makes things so hugely expensive. I agree that concentrating on cost-efficiency and variety is a great way to foster creativity (if that's what you meant) but I think there should be a lot more advances made before manned flights will become cost-effective. And only at that time, I would argue, does taking that step makes sense in terms of scientific progress.
All these whiny messages miss an important point.
It's not as if India is sending a piece of metal worth $80MM to the Moon. The actual cost of the hardware is a minute part of that. In the meantime, building that hardware is:
1. providing local employment that otherwise might not have been provided, thus reducing poverty.
2. providing demand for local business and engineering
3. gaining engineering skill and experience, something that will be very useful for gaining inward investment from other nations
There's no point having universities if the people educated there just bugger off to the United States because there's no future for educated people at home. Projects such as this provide employment in the short term and in the long term they provide technical expertise that can be used to further business. It is arguable the long term effects of performing this mission in terms of what Indian engineers and scientists will learn is better than spending the money on a new university whose graduates will just leave India to work abroad because of a lack of opportunities like this one.
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I'm sure some poeple on /. are racist, but get a reality check. Most people are just ignorant. If the article was about Canada trying to send a probe to the moon, do you think that most people would have the first clue about the Canadian space program and its accomplishments? I'm sure we'd be getting lots of uninformed comments and jokes (the usual regarding beer, hockey, high taxes or how we pronounce something), but no accusations of racisim.
Just beacuse people don't know anything about the Indian space program or conditions in India in general doesn't make them a racist.
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Never, but never cite a Geocities page as reference. .
In this case, however, you are right
Gotta love a presidente that also has links to his books, poetry and songs. Specially when the books include Develompents in Fluid Mechanics and Space Technology