Slashdot Mirror
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."
Plenty of people in the US have no job, no home and no health insurance. One could use a similar argument to advocate shutting down NASA until all US citizens reach a decent standard of living.
Personally I think space exploration is a worthy cause for mankind and see no wrong in diverting a reasonable level of funding toward it.
Bleh. Why do people always argue the "big picture" concept against the allegedly "small picture" argument? It'll never get traction - it isn't ignorance stopping people from agreeing with you, it's indifference. How tangible is the notion of a "better" society? Bleh.
No, the argument is people starving and money spent on a space program being wasteful so address it as such. A NASA engineer requires a lot of expertise, and is employed, therefore the Indian equivelent very likely requires a lot of expertise and is employed. Said expertise requires higher education - you've just employed a professor or five. Said expert's income can go towards housing and food - you've just employed a carpenter and a farmer... yes. Noone is going to eat a space module, but the persons responsible for mining the materials to construct it are, as are the people who constructed it, support it...
Great Depression in the US was at an impasse because economic thinking before then was the immature cognitive process that produces the fallacy of immediate needs spending. Sometimes you gotta borrow money to make money ("You gotta spend money to make money." well if you've got no money...) - and on the scale of an economy, borrowing money is national jobs no matter how "crazy" - artists on government payroll, eccet.
Wait a second, this is 101% wrong. India does spend money on poor. But as you know for spending money you need to generate it first. And no indian satellite program is used for "educational" purposes unlike western countries.
Now coming to Western countries, well in the name of free trade agreement all the western countries have done is to ensure that the latest technologies are so costly that developing countries are forced not to use it. The whole Drug patent thing that India had to subscribe to made our generic drugs costlier than what a person would earn in a whole months of work.
In terms of technology transfers it is pathetic even mundane things like a microwave oven is a thing of luxury for many Indians.
Talk about environment we have all the players like Mercedes, Chevvy, Hyundai, Toyota none of the companies give clean cars to India. If they do its cost is equal to 20 years of a common mans salary.
Moral of the story If the western counrtries dont help us we help ourselves.
I have had enough of crap about India.
It is time you all woke up to and figured out that USA is as bad as any other country.
We may have more illiterates than any other country in the world, but you forget that India also has the largest number of engineers. More Indians can speak English than there are people in the entire USA. Think about that.
We are not poor due to our stupidity. We are poor by design. Just a 100 years ago, we were the richest nation on earth. Then we were split up into two countries and made to go at each other's throat. The Indo-Pak cold war has cost us an entire civilization.
Our political system is bankrupt. Most politicians are plain goons. But we also have the vision to elect a woman to rule us. Every second President of India is from the minorities. How many black presidents, how many women presidents has USA had? How about a Jew for the Prez?
I find it very surprising that most of the posts talk about Indian Poverty. It certainly points to the assumption that money according to American values is what defines a person. That is simply not a simple truth for many places in the world.
The purpose of all philosophers was to impress women
Wow! All this concern for the welfare of the poor starving Indians on Slashdot! And yet, when an Indian programmer gets an outsourced tech job, supposedly "stealing" it from a good ol' American programmer who is thereby forced to live a slightly less affluent lifestyle, he's pure evil.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.