Slashdot Mirror
India Debating Manned Space Flight
alphakappa writes "India's moon mission and other space programs have been covered before on Slashdot. India is now debating sending a manned space mission and has acknowledged it's technological preparedness to do so in the next 6-7 years if given the go-ahead. The issues being debated before starting work on the mission include cost-benefit and other space priorities. (These missions also play host to international experiments) What does the general slashdot crowd think of these space plans?"
With Hundreds of Indians attached to the spacecraft in anyways they can fit in hanging off the edges blasing into space?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
why does it interest us? Because it is India? What about China, Canadian and other groups wanting to go to space?
Iraq wanting to go to space? That would be interesting.
There a few imbalances in the world that need to be sorted out and space is one of them. The more the merrier.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Of course being an Indian and having worked with ISRO I feel strongly about it. The space is definitely the next frontier. So far India has done incredible projects related to weather, remote sensing, etc. It's definitely time to venture into this. And this is not just showing technological superiority (and I definitely will see more posts on NASA outsorcing) but that's the proud thing that India can launch vehicles in space at much much lower costs. Putting this in perspective helps in going through further projects like star wars (when US is already thinking about making it a reality). Besides India also faces competition from its neighbor China in space frontiers.
Any offsite expainsion of the human race is welcome. We can't continue to depend of the Earth for everything.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
They manage to fit the American ego in there, so I don't see why not.
liqbase
a recent guardian weekly article states that it is not considered worth the estimated US$ 2 billion it would cost to put a man on the moon.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
In view of the problems we've had with the shuttle, I think the more countries that can send people into orbit and retrieve them, the better. We should make available to India and China our docking adapter plans and technical assistance, so all spacecraft can dock to a common interface.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I bet they do it about 25% of the price.
Although they'll have to outsource to Americans that used to work at NASA
NASA: "Hello? This is Gutmar."
INDIA: "Yeah, 'Gutmar', your real name is something like 'David' or 'Paul' isn't it? Damned Americans taking our jobs."
NASA: "My Friend, I cannot tell you where I am. It is not our policy My Friend."
With Brazil, Several Private groups, China, and India all now shooting for space it would hopefully put some pressure on our space spending which has dropped off considerably since the end of the cold war.
Perhaps if we convinced there was oil on the moon there would be more intrest but I belive the current compeition will help. It's bad enough our engineers are being squeezed out by cheap alternatives in other countries but losing out on our space program could have profound results elsewhere in our economy. We'll go from being a tech leader to a tech backwater. Were already there with our network infrastructure, were getting there with our engineering based workforces and high tech jobs going overseas.
Worse if you look at things you may notice that our society and economic structure may eventually destroy our country. With inflation on nearly everything it's becoming nearly impossible to compete with other countries. sure you can compare their living conditions vs ours but does everything here have to be so damned expensive? When I was born the average house sold for 55,000 dollars. Today you're lucky to see them in the 80's and the average is 250,000 where I live worse in some other areas. What justifies all that price jumping?
Worse is we have a president that went from a 5 trillion dollar surplus to hitting a 8 trillion dollar deficit. Where the hell did we spend all that money. IIRC those iraq spending bills were in the billions per year but looking at the deficit it's obvious that the money is going somewhere else unknown to the american public. Who are we paying and for what?
For India, this actually has a lot of benefits.
.. and pharmaceuticals in zero G environment without having to pay for expensive robotic equipment ..and yes lives on the ground will be saved by the economic and social benefits of being able to do this kind of research.
Ironically the USA at this point doesnt have the same benefit return on manned spaceflight that India has.
1) Commercial satellite contracts will be easier to get for a variety of reasons and insurance of those launches cost less as well
2) it will encourage indian kids to get into science
3) Reduce dependency on imported foreign technology by developing local talent in engineering and also the extensive IT etc. other support systems needed. Depending on imports is fine, but you need to have knowledge in case there is a loss for some reason.
4) Having a missile program is good for defense (sorry but its true given the way the world is, with all the whacko rogue states running around)
5) Be able to hook up with the ISS and carry out experiments in semiconductors (crystal growth)
Too bad all the nations can't get into an agreement, if there was a single space program for the whole world, it'd be both easier to swallow from the economical point of view and would be good from a scientific point of view, instead of reinventing the wheel scientists could focus on the real problems.
As long as India is concerned, it's a bit harsh to spend bilions of dollars to send ppl into space, when so many in India are starving etc. However the problem is well beyond my comprehension, I bet that if they actually did spend the money just to buy some food, next ppl would be starving again, if however they spend on research, with some luck they will develop technological means to overcome poverty.
What bothers me most with developing countries is the fact that despite spreading diseases, high mortality, poverty, bad living conditions, the law (as in China) there is still growth in population. I won't have a child unless I can secure his future up until University at least, they just don't care...
The more countries we have going to space the less chance there is of our own space program stagnating. Competition will keep our Congress people's attention. Even if they would rather put the resources into another payraise for themselves or Halliburton, they will have to think about the stigma of the US losing its place as the world leader in space on their watch.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
"As long as India is concerned, it's a bit harsh to spend bilions of dollars to send ppl into space, when so many in India are starving etc. However the problem is well beyond my comprehension, I bet that if they actually did spend the money just to buy some food, next ppl would be starving again, if however they spend on research, with some luck they will develop technological means to overcome poverty."
What I was thinking the other day was to have a governmental construction force, similar to the army, to build cities. Anyone who wants to volunteer for work will be given work to build a city. Houses/schools/places of buisness would be made that otherwise would not have been made, and not with a plan.
Make a governmental food program too, but it doesn't have to be tasty, just really cheap food thats nutritional. Most people wouldn't want to eat it except those who are starving.
With food and shelter taken care of, people wouldn't be in trouble and can spend their time on an education and bettering society themself.
God spoke to me.
India of course has a segment of their population that is tech-savvy, but that does not mean the rest of the country is doing well. They have about one billion mouths to feed over there and exploitation of space ought to be one of their last concerns.
That being said, they have an ocean on their border and it seems a much more worthy opportunity that would lead to being able to adequately take care of their population by exploiting that, and developing science that is marine-based, as opposed to space based.
I'm tired of all this talk I here about out-sorcerer-ing this and out-sorcerer-ing that. Are our own witches, warlocks and wizards not good enough? Do the incantations of home-grown covens no longer work? Is even "Charmed" to be produced in another country? I can't take it anymore !
"I'm frankly sick of all the damned jingoism and nationalist fever in the red states" ...whereas there's none of that in the red state of China? No self delusion and jingoism in China? None at all?
Eliminating the space program won't help him!!
.. that goes a long way compared to the additional 50cents that could be given to each individual in India by not having a space program.
.. that's just 50 cents per person in india (India has over 1 billion people).
The space program will help by providing jobs and encouragement to learn science
India's space budget is only 550 million
Please find less wasteful program to bitch about instead of one that encourages science and will improve the agricultural, health, and economic condition of people.
Comparing India and Pakistan is inappropriate. India is the world's largest secular democracy, with a healthy mix of various ethnicities and the like, with over a billion people. Pakistan is relatively smaller, and is an Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship with a military general.
While India's technological developments are said to be largely inhouse (they had a little help from Russia in the 1980s, but Russia had to stop helping them after pressure from the US), Pakistan's technologies are largely borrowed from China.
There is a big difference. India is a progressive economy with a very liberal-minded population, you can be fairly certain that they won't blow up anyone first. Pakistan is a conservative Islamic nation with a military ruler, you never know how they would react.
I've interacted with several Indians - but for the cultural "oddities" they are excellent people.
Vote for a Man, Vote for Bush!
Not a liberatarian flipflop hippie.
Imagine, Canadians in space. What a crazy idea.
Imagine if they put Canadian made parts on the shuttle or ISS.
The only hitch is that they dont' have a visa to enter space. :) If they do, odds are that is that the Gujus(Gujaratis) will have populated most of space with space motels in 7-8 years!
(speaking as one has to do visa submission for wife for every fucking country we have to go to) If India is so advanced why is indian citizenship worth shite? Gah.
sri
Will developing things like solid rocket booster technology be somewhat applicable to development of long-range missiles?
I know that some of the hubbub surrounding Loral's technology used in Chinese satellite launches was because of the supposition that it would enhance PRC's ability to lob nukes over longer distances.
Of course, since Pakistan is so close, I don't know how much of an impetus there is towards long-range missiles in India.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I am sick of such messages which regularly appear on the topic of some technological development in the developing nations. And these messages get moderated as +5 Insightful.
If I were to use the same argument, then US should spend a little less on defence and bring the number of people below povery line to zero.
Your comment is ignorant.
You can can toss all the money you want and it will not fix the situation and possibly make it worse. The issue isn't the squalor they live in, for some of those people they don't see it as squalor. Many live as those who lived before them and it is by OUR standards that their living standards are not acceptable. You cannot buy them a new lifestyle. You cannot pay them to think and act differently.
Sure spend some money, but also realize that the national pride will go a lot further for many Indians with a successful space program. It allows them to dismiss people who constantly call India "3rd world". Too many people see that country as "3rd world" while ignoring all they accomplished.
Why do people mostly complain about DEMOCRATIC countries that do this but give a pass to China who not only throws a ton of money into their space race, their military, and such and at the same time likes to whack 5000+ of thier own people?
India is progressing nicely, I don't think they need our Western standards to intefer with a job they are doing.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
That's not outsourcing; that's the hiring of immigrants. Outsourcing would be if the NASA facilities themselves were located in India, and the staff were paid in rubles.
>The average annual income in India is $450.
Yeah, and the buying power of each $1 is significantly higher.
You're an idiot if you compare USD to Rupee one for one.
$1 USD is ~ Rs. 48
That's a lot of money and significantly higher buying power.
Of course you have a very limited view. It is said "you need to spend money to make money". You are totally unaware of how much space missions from ISRO has helping Indian Villages, etc. By making something that is very cost effective India can bag contracts from other countries to launch their vehicles, etc providing them revenue. You should not just see expenditure but "net gain".
I am actually quite sick of people branding people about whom they hardly know anything even in jest. Just as there are blues and reds in the US, there are a variety of people in India and equating India = turban is just advertising one's ignorance to the world.
How would it be if one would say America = "duh"?
Don't forget, this particular wheel is a precursor to ICBM's. The US isn't going to share all the technology related to space flight, so China and india have to use a public program to get these technologies themselves.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The Race for Space was an expensive bugger, but it was also a time of great innovation.
I welcome the Chinese, and the Indians, and the Japanese. Go Arianespace! Whose idea was it to replace two lumbering bureaucracies with a single humongous multinational lumbering bureaucracy?
Nice to see so many techies falling back to racist sterotypes of Indians or worse (the person who made the comments about it being a shame that there were no visa restrictions to prevent Indians in space - I'm talking to you).
How would people react if instead we were talking about Africans swinging from tree branches into space?
I know I will get the typical idiot responses banging on about freedom of speech, but you know what? I don't care.... racism is racism is racism....
Boeing DOES do commercial launches for whoever wants to hire them and does it with their own facility launching from the middle of the ocean. Is this something like that what you had in mind?
Life is short: void the warranty.
on the same note considering US is a super power why does it need to put weapons in space?
And you don't agree with Indian because a third world country is rising beyond its stereotypical image? There are a lot of problems in this world be it a third or a first world country, putting an end to the development of science is not an answer to that.
And to your counter argrument that they are reinventing the wheel. well not everybody is cooperative enough to share their technology with the rest of the world. so countries like india have to restort to reinvention of the wheel.
Rumor has it the first Indian space shuttle will be equipped with six robotic arms.
http://www.sea-launch.com/organization.htm/
You were saying about Boeing and commercial space launch?
I can easily imagine canada becoming a major technological power if the US continues its race to the bottom. I don't think it is just an issue of national will. The US and USSR both diplomatically pressured other nations(i.e. Germany) not to develop orbital capability. Part of it is the notion that _only_ large countries can do anything to do with space development-though the X-Prize went a long ways towards dispelling that. If the US implodes, I can easily imagine Canada, New Zealand and Australia developing space capability. For that matter, despite deindustrialization, a lot of the US industrial capacity is in "Blue States" that are immediately adjacent to Canada-and many of the residents of those states might prefer association with canada to association with a fascist, fundamentalist United States(if that develops).
From your post I can tell two things:
1. You're ignorant. Sorry for being so blunt, but it's true.
India might have a population of a billion, but they're not all "poor, illiterate and starving", far from it. As for things like "an ancient infrastructure and horrible pollution", well I have two words for you: Union Carbide.
Seriously, put down Half-Life 2 for five minutes and read a book. Perhaps then you'll have a better understanding of the world beyond your own nation's borders. And perhaps you'd also appreciate that you don't even have to get a passport, or even get into a car, to see real abject poverty: I'm sure there are plenty of people living hand to mouth existences only a few miles from your doorstep.
2. You have no appreciation for the benefits that technology can have for even the simplest people, or the role of technology in elevating people from poverty.
Farmers benefiting from better weather forecasts is just one example of what I'm talking about. Solar panels providing electricity to even the remotest regions is another. Water filtration and recycling techniques are yet more.
Sorry, but the only thing that's asinine here is your attitude. I've been there and seen the country too, so I know that you're talking out of your backside.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What does the general slashdot crowd think of these space plans?"
Out of this world!
The world can be a better place if we leave nationalism behind, and think collectively in terms on the whole mankind.
The world would also be a better place if we were all transformed into magical fairies with wings so that we could fly wherever we wanted to go. What's your point?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I'm an Indian, and
everytime I see a "technology is good" post from
people who watch "60 minutes" or some report on
CNN, I say "IGNORANT optimistic FOOL". I say
the spending by any government should be aimed at
helping the largest number of people at lowest
cost. Better roads, better water supply systems,
better schools, and a better food distribution
system will help more people than will a space
program.
Someone on here said that a successful space
program would enhance Indian national pride.
I see no pride in having to import technology,
know-how and knowledge.
Most kids in India do aim to get into science.
And most of them that do end up in science, end
up in the US or other countries. Those that ARE
left behind are insipid, uncreative people that'd
rather plagiarize stuff off of google than come
up with innovative solutions to problems.
Corruption is still a big problem in India.
And big money government projects like these are
perfect targets for the beaurecrats and ministers
to make amoral money.
GRRR. BLAH!
"Na - Sa"
really will be called Apu...
ISRO.
First of all, I did read that you'd been there: if you bothered to read my reply as well as I read your original comment you'd notice that I said that "I've been there and seen the country too", a clear acknowledgement of your claim.
Poor is a relative term. Of course there are poor people in India, just as there are poor people in the US, in the UK, and everywhere else in the world. India certainly doesn't have a monopoly on poor, and it certainly doesn't have "about a billion poor, illiterate and starving people" as you claim. If nothing else, the number of technology jobs being moved their from the US and elsewhere should blow your argument out of the water.
According to the CIA World Factbook, India has posted an average annual economic growth of 6 percent since 1990: see if you can find any other comparable nation that's making those sorts of strides. And the distribution of wealth isn't as bad as in, say, the US, with the bottom 10 percent of the population having 3.5 percent of the wealth (compared to 1.8 percent in the US). Life expectancy is rising just as it is in the West. Etc, etc. The idea that India is still a poor backward nation is just that, an idea, whereas the reality is very different.
As I've said twice now, once in my original post, once again in the previous paragraphs, I've been to India too. The reality is that I've never had a problem phoning the West (maybe 20 years ago, but not now) and the infrastructure is visibly improving year on year. Pollution, the other issue that you mention, is hardly something that's specific to India either: I've experienced smog-filled days in the developed as well as the developing world.
I've been to India several times. My last trip to India covered everywhere from the northernmost states down to Mumbai and then onto Bangalore, and lasted 13 weeks. My next one, scheduled for early next year, will cover New Delhi, Agra, Rajasthan, Gujurat, Mumbai, Goa and Kerala over six weeks. My hindi is a bit poor in places, but my gujurati is spot on, and I can converse with the average man in the street anywhere in the country without a problem. So, please, don't presume to tell me I'm the one who's ignorant about the Indian subcontinent. Because what you know about India that I don't probably isn't worth one fucking rupee.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The more countries who can get into space, the more chance there is that the people who get up there will look down and say, "Wow... That planet down there is really something special. We should take more care of it - and the race that got us up here to appreciate it."
You must think in Russian.
I tend to agree with you ... the current controversy over H1Bs, outsourcing and all that aside, I've worked with a number of Indian engineers and found them, to a man, to be competent, hardworking and ethical. And, alas ... relatively inexpensive. But that will change for India and China as it did with Japan. People (particularly cultured, educated, talented people with families) will work for peanuts for only so long.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.