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Indian Moon Mission to Have Landing Component
Anil Kandangath writes "Last month, it was announced that the Indian moon mission Chandrayan I would have a component that would land on the moon to function as an impactor. For all those who complain about India spending big bucks on its space program, The Scientific Indian has a list of updates about the space program's plans for this year which includes two cartography satellites, a satellite based 'total disaster management system', a few communication satellites and a satellite launch for the European Union."
You can't use Ariane rockets in France. No Ariane was ever launched in France ;)
All Ariane rockets are launched in French Guyana, a french DOM (departement d'outre-mer, overseas district) on the coast of South America.
Unemployment in the U.S. holds at a steady 5% (give or take), which is far better than even in the EU. In India, by contrast about 300 million people, or 29% of the population, live on less than a dollar a day. (Note that the entire U.S. population is about 280 million.) These are the people who do have jobs. The government was able to count 40 million workers who cannot find jobs at all. While this makes for an impressive 3.8% unemployment rate, as mentioned above, many jobs pay very poorly. The conditions are so bad that as many as 3,000 Indian farmers in a single state (Andhra Pradesh) have killed themselves over the last six years because of debt and drought.
This is not to say that India should not be building a space program. Indian universities produce more than 1.5 million graduates each year. There are nowhere near enough jobs to employ all these people entering the workforce. India's tech industry employs only 1 million people total. Industry and grand capitalistic vision will help to produce jobs.
Capitalism is not a zero sum game. India's "pie" is increasing rapidly and will continue to get bigger. Its economy is forecast to grow 8 percent this year. India is already home to thousands of millionaires and nine of the world's richest billionaires. By the way, another name for rich people is "employers." That's good news for the lower classes.
The sad reality is that there is no quick fix to India's massive poverty, space program or not. India has more people in poverty (we're talking literally dirt poor) than any other country. It's been that way a long time, and it's not going to get better by scrapping a space mission.
If priorities are your concern, consider this: Indian teenagers spend $3 billion a year on fashion accessories. And you've heard of Bollywood, which churns out twice as many movies per year as Hollywood. But then again, if Indians were to restrain spending on fashion accessories and movies, those industries would shrink, and many Indians would lose their jobs. Consumerism is the engine of wealth.
There are many things hindering India's progress. The people speak hundreds of languages; religions and customs also vary wildly by region. It is like several countries within a country. Its population of 1.07 billion is both a blessing and a curse; it is a reservoir of great potential, but right now, it is dragging the country down because most are uneducated (or undereducated) and poor.
Source: "India Surprises," The Commission, November 2004, pp. 30-35. (printed magazine article contains more information)
EUA has giving more attention to Brazil on the Satellite Vehicle Launching, because the base of Alcântara is so near the Equator line reducing the use of gas to launch the roquets.
http://www.michel.eti.br
p0 asks WTF is a crore?
It's from the (older) Indian counting system, A crore equals 100 lakhs; a lakh equals 100,000. So a crore is 10,000,000. In dollar terms, a crore of rupees is approximately $233,000. So a 384-core project is around $90 million. Not a big chunk of change here, but pretty big in context.
To get an idea of the purchasing power equivalent (not the rupee equivalent according to the conversion rate), just multiply a $ amount by 10. So, an outsource engineer earning $6000 per year in India can live like one earning $60,000 in the USA and possibly better.
Thus a 384-crore project would be "equivalent" in cost to a $3.84 billion project here. But NASA would not be able to do a moonshot for that amount.