India Planning Reusable 2-Stage-to-Orbit Vehicle

WoodenKnight writes "India's ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair recently gave a brief description of a fully-reusable 2-stage satellite launch vehicle that is being planned at ISRO. From the article: 'This is in its initial stages of vehicle configuration and the first stage is configured as a winged body configuration, which will attain an altitude of around 100 km and deliver nearly half the orbital velocity. This stage after burnout will re-enter and will be made to land horizontally on the runway, like an aircraft. The second stage after delivering the payload in the orbit will be made to re-enter the atmosphere and will be recovered using airbags either in the sea or land. This is only in its conceptual stage.'"

Comments

Space Shuttle, Again

[ntrfug]

Wow.

Doesn't this sound like a Space Shuttle?

Re:Space Shuttle, Again

[vertinox]

No it's the reverse of a space shuttle.

The part of it that launches the space craft flies back to earth, while the space craft comes back like it would a regular rocket via chutes.

Think of it as a rocket that piggy backs a jet airliner and launching from 100km up.

Re:Space Shuttle, Again

[Catbeller]

Actually, it the Space Shuttle as it was originally designed. I remember: two stages, the first to bring the joined craft up to high altitude, then release stage two and airbreathe back to earth on a runway. The second stage was supposed to fire up to orbit, then come back down as an airbreather and land on a runway.

The whole concept had to be scrapped because Congress wanted to kill the whole program after Apollo. To survive, NASA shopped the Shuttle to the Air Force. The Air Force had no use for the two-stage, small payload shuttle which was designed for mostly passengers, not freight.

The Air Force wanted something to lift the Keyhole spy satellites, which were pretty damned big -- the Hubble Space Telescope is essentially a Keyhole, just pointing away instead of at the license plates of evil Russians -- so NASA redesigned the Shuttle into a heavy lifter by getting rid of the flyback first stage, adding a disposable external fuel tank, and tacking on two solid rocket boosters to get the whole mess into orbit.

The Air Force signed on to add their weight to lobby for the new system, and lo! the idiot Shuttle, good for nothing but lifting Keyhole telescopes into orbit. NASA engineers probably cried themselves to sleep for years.

The Air Force later stopped using the Shuttle for spysats, leaving NASA with the flying boxcar that no one wanted to use.

Most of the above is from the book Enterprise, by Jerry Grey.

And remember this: it was the solid rocket boosters, and later the external tank, that destroyed two shuttles. Air Force: our thanks...

We never got an actual cheap shuttle, because Congress (the american people) didn't care about it, and the Air Force barely got a bastardized version built. They've been underfunded and unused by an American public who doesn't understand about what could have been done -- read The High Frontier by Gerard K. O'Neill to get an idea of what we've lost -- and the funds to build a successor went into an insanely expensive scramjet program in the nineties that merely made aerospace companies richer by a few billion bucks. There have been shoestring programs, like the Delta Clipper DC-X single-stage to orbit prototype that never was developed, as well as rotor-landing concepts that never got past the testing stage, because Congress (that's us, in toto) constantly whittles NASA down to a state where only ONE development program can proceed at one time. It's a fake zero-sum game, where decades go by while NASA is chastised for it's "waste" while the military and new off-shoots like Halliburton drain trillions withut stay or let. NASA would love to have multiple programs testing different systems, like railguns supplanting the first stage, or winged dual stages like India's concept, or Pournelle's Delta Clipper one-stage vertical launch and land, or laser assisted takeoffs, or an advanced spaceplane, or just dirty old Saturn V's to get jobs done... but the US does not have a citizenry that has the education, the imagination, or the spirit necessary to fund even one program thru final operations, let alone multiple concepts.

The US is just not the country to do this. We did Apollo because we hated the Russkies so much that price was no object. After Apollo reached 17 (there were supposed to be 20, then the Selene permanent lab on the moon along with the Zeus Mars missions -- atomic powered, that one) there simply was no political pressure to keep going. Even today, NASA tries to get one-off Mars manned landers because they think that that is all the public will buy -- and they're right. Americans won't finance space colonization or L5/L2/L4 space industry. They don't even know what an ORBIT is, much less what all the rest means. And "sci-fi" in movies and TV sure as hell didn't help. Without the science, it's just WW II in space. Space has advantages for industry and solar energy transmission to ground, but you have to have a special kind of education and imagination to understand what the ideas mean -- and we don't have it

Re:Space Shuttle, Again

[Hynee]

Informative comment, but...

And remember this: it was the solid rocket boosters, and later the external tank, that destroyed two shuttles. Air Force: our thanks...

Well, the design with the solids and external tank was the economically acceptable plan, and design/use problems with these components did lead to the destruction of two shuttles, but that doesn't make it the Air Force's fault. Maybe the original pre-Air Force would have had problems too, space vehicles complex designs after all.

Maybe that's what the author said, I don't know.

Re:Space Shuttle, Again

[Catbeller]

Well, the Air Force was the cause, but does not have the blame, if you get the distinction. The blame was in not retiring that fiasco before disaster set, and that blame lies with the American people and their representatives.

Perhaps a different disaster would have befallen a two-stage flyback shuttle. A jet engine might have fallen off, or the heat sink on the belly might have failed. Something ALWAYS goes wrong.

But, the NASA engineers did not like the external tank and unthrottleable SRB's, and they were right to doubt the design. But they were forced to make it so per the Air Force's needs. QED, thanks AF.

But like locomotives or airplanes or cars, development has to proceeed, and quickly. Older models should be retired every ten years or so and new models, better and safer, should replace them. Better and cheaper and faster.

But NASA, builder of the most complex machines in the world, has to build spaceships on a shoestring, then use them until they explode. This is no way to run an airline.

NASA doesn't want to do it this way! There seems to be a deep antipathy for manned space flight in the American mind, excluding enthusiasts. The unmanned space probe community has been indoctrinated in the belief that manned flight saps their field. People are told they can have bread or spaceships, but not both. All false zero sum conclusions. We've enough money for both; we just won't spend it.

And to make wealth, you have to spend wealth. Space could give us hundreds of gigawatts of solar electric power, day and night, beamed via microwave from geosync orbit from solar sats made of lunar material. How much would total energy independence from the oil fields and coal mines be worth? We're to spend two trillion on Iraq alone. How many solar sats could we have build for two trillion? We could have put railgun material launchers on the moon, catchers in L4, processors making aluminum and silicon from the captured material in geosync orbit, built as many powersats as we wanted, once the infrastructure was in place. Two thousand billion dollars, according to official estimates, Iraq and its oil will cost us. We'll spend trillions more buying the oil we commandeered from the oil companies which now own the fields, or at least China and Japan will. We've more than enough money to do anything we want. We are just blowing it on keeping things static so that the oil kings can keep control and make more trillions. That's the bottom line.

We're an extremely militarized society. We spend trillions on weapons we use on goat herders. We've made the wrong choices. Time to step back and remember what Eisenhower warned us about as he left office.

Re:Space Shuttle, Again

[brokenbeaker]

i believe that Feynmen wrote (after being on the panel investigating the first disaster) that there were two companies bidding for the solid booster contract. Norton Thiokol (sp?) won the contract - something about senators, i belive. unfortunately, their factory was nowhere near the Shuttle launch site, so the boosters had to be broken into three pieces, so they could be shipped by rail. had the other company won, they would have floated them to the launch site - single piece, no o-ring, no challenger explosion.

sorry if i got the details wrong, and unfortunately i don't have any of the references.

Hrm...

[vertinox]

Sounds a good deal like Spaceship One.

Maybe its better than firing rockets straight up.

Re:Hrm...

[dabigpaybackski]

A nice idea, but they ought to use a ramp. Sooner or later, the economics will compel some party to do just that.

Here. Check out this link. Imagine the possibilities: long inclined launch ramp = low launch costs = pervasive human presence in space. Nuclear propulsion would be nice, too.

And I seriously wonder if the Indian aerospace industry is up to the task of building this thing. But if they are, then bully for them.

Re:Hrm...

[Anonymous Coward]

...except it goes into space.

Re:Hrm...

[91degrees]

So did SS1.

In much the same way that flying from the south of Spain to north of Marrocco is an intercontinatal flight, but it did get into space.

Re:Hrm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Skyramp huh? You mean like this? :)

a launch a day keeps high prices away!

[Thud457]

The NAZIs did it why can't you dopes figure it out? The secret is to bang the rocks together guys!

Re:a launch a day keeps high prices away!

[Thud457]

Moderators, read the motherfucking link before marking that as a Goodwin troll. The "LEO on the cheap" study uses the NAZI V2 program as a case study. Their program was sixty years ago . If you can't improve upon their efficiency, maybe you should study how they did things.

So, we'll be offshoring...

[IAAP]

NASA's stuff to India now?

Re:So, we'll be offshoring...

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, and I thought losing my job to an Indian worker on this planet was bad!

Re:So, we'll be offshoring...

[shakesbeer]

Yes, for some time now. In fact, NASA supplied sounding rockets and telemetry equipment during ISRO's initial days. See launch log of Thumba -- India's first launch site.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the same thing.

How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[ip_freely_2000]

I think they can spend that money a tad more wisely.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[forkazoo]

Everytime there is a post about India, some know-nothing decides to chime in with just such a comment. First off, there will always be a problem somwehere. So, if you insist that progress is only allowed to occur after all old problems are dealt with, nothing will ever be accomplished. Second, what the hell makes you so qualified to comment? You were posting on Slashdot when you could have been helping backwoods Indian villagers! (And, so am I!) You express a concern about it, so I'll assume you do volunteer work, and donate just like I do. But, neither of us dedicates 100% of our time and money to helping others. Nobody does. So, no government does for the exact same reason - governments are made of people!

Lastly, India uses the space program to do a lot of very real good. Weather satellites save lives. Earth observation satellites can help see how crops are doing, and make it easier to get better yields. They can help find where water is, and help make maps to figure out how to get it where it needs to go.

Jerk.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[dotslasher_sri]

give it up dude! this kind of argument is getting old..

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[HermanAB]

The poor will always be with us.

Have you ever been on the wrong side of the tracks in a US city?

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[theheff]

Have you been to India? I used to believe the same thing- people in poverty in India are responsible for their own demise. I believed that right up until I was there for three weeks this past summer. I was in that place without clean water. Let me tell you something, until you too don't have basic human necessities available to you, like clean water, you have no idea what it feels like. Yes, the whole space thing is great for India and will probably help it overall, but let's not overlook the importance of human life. It's not like the Indian government is going out of its way to help people in need, although progress has been made recently.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Have you ever been on the wrong side of the tracks in a US city?"

Yes. I visited Washington many years ago. I had a perfect Sunday afternoon meal against the picturesque backdrop of marble buildings and rolling green lawns while a band played. I strolled around Arlington cemetry, payed my respects to the heros and watched a show in the evening, all courtesy of my fairly well to do connected friends. The next day I wanted to see more of the city before we left for Gettysburg, but I got the feeling my friends were trying to hide something, something they were ashamed of. So I took a bus out by myself. Now I'm no wet baby, I've been to places in the world that would scare the living shit out of some people, I've seen dead bodies and violence. But nothing prepared me for the shock of the real Washington. There's no point in telling all the story of human misery, racism, filth, decay and horror, I expect you can see much the same in any American poor ghetto and witness it yourself. All I can say is that dogs live better lives. The difference between India (or any other poor country) and America is that in America nobody gives a shit. Through a mixture of weary apathy, denial and defeatist capitulation the white American manages to block out the very existence of this circus of death and suffering. I've never looked at America quite the same way since that day, when I finally understood why my friends were ashamed and frightened. America lacks a most basic humanist instinct to look after its own. The philosophy is "as long as I'm alright then fuck you". That is why I do not consider America a civilisation despite all its trappings of achievement and might. It is a completely schizophenic society.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should send them Ayn Rand novels so they can become libertarians so they can whine and cry about everything and propose half-assed ideas.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[hooeezit]

It is very easy to point at a problem. It is often very difficult to suggest a solution. Yes, clean drinking water, toilets (mind you, I said toilets, not 'clean' toilets - that'd be the next phase!), electricity, transport, assured employment are the issues that need to be tackled more or less in that order in India. But as it often happens with difficult problems, the solution lies at an altogether different level. A couple of NGOs can probably pool up enough money to ferry water in tankers to some remote villages - but that model is not sustainable.

The issue then is not to provide a patch, but to root out the problem itself. And that makes you think deeply about the problem itself. The real problem isn't actually lack of the resources but utter mismanagement of them. Water is available everywhere in India (you'd have to agree to that cuz people aren't dying in huge numbers - and you know that water is essential to survival!), but the distribution channels are horrible and people aren't aware of how to use it optimally.

India's 2 core problems are (in order) population and corruption. In fact, the 2 feed each other. As population grows explosively, resources become scarcer, and as a result, those who control the resources become more corrupt. Literacy/education fits right in the barrier between the 2 problems. If the electorate was literate and aware enough to elect good, honest representatives into positions of power (i.e., the ones that control the resources), a negative feedback cycle will ensue and the system will stabilize. Unfortunately, education itself has always been a scarce resource in India. Hence the people in power have a vested interest in keeping the resource scarce so as to manipulate the electorate.

If you remember Renaissance in Europe, you'd remember that the middle class played the biggest role in the overhaul. This will have to be true in India as well if the alternative of complete destruction followed by rebuilding is to be avoided. The middle class is literate enough at present - but they aren't aware enough and they aren't large enough in numbers. When the middle classes reach critical mass, they will be in a position to bring about true change.

The way the middle class grows is through the infusion of more money into the economy such that it truly trickles down to the bottom. As the Indian economy grows, more of the poor will graduate into the middle class. And simply by the law of large numbers, there will end up being some of the 'newly educated' who turn out to be intellectuals and leaders. It's only when a new breed of intellectual leaders crops up in India will there be any true change there.

The point where my analysis ties in with the article above is the economy. Space is a huge revenue generator. Space tourism is inevitable within a decade or 2. Given that only about 10 countries in the world have the technology to handle that, there is a lot of money in it for them. India has a lot of very talented scientists - heck, the President himself is literally a Rocket Scientist! The 2 areas where real research is being done in India are space science and missile technology (go figure!). India needs to leverage that advantage to jump into the space tourism industry. So, it is great to hear that progress is really being made towards that.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime there is a post about India, some know-nothing decides to chime in with just such a comment.

And then some mentally dificient retard like yourself makes a pathetic attempt at rebuffing the comment, failing miserably.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Jesapoo]

But of course the US couldn't spend the $500million of each shuttle launch a tad more wisely?

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Know-nothing?

Real life should be played like a game of Civilization (Computer game)

You shouldn't be able to launch space craft until you master indoor fucking plumbing.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Know why you wouldn't be able to count all the houses that don't have indoor fucking plumbing in Mississippi and Louisiana (to mention just two states)? You'll run out of fingers and toes and won't be able to finish you count - that's why.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Catbeller]

Yep. Washington DC is... amazing. Two blocks from the Capitol Dome, and you're in hell.

It's metaphor drawn in real life. The fact that legislators won't fund the rehab of the neighborhood two blocks from their office -- that they work every day in a slum -- pretty much illustrates what is wrong with America, government and citizenry alike.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[ross.w]

That didn't stop the US space program did it? Or did they house all the homeless people first?

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't stop the US space program did it? Or did they house all the homeless people first?

So it's your contention then that the US in the 1960s is comparable to India today in terms of the level of poverty and basic services available to the poor. My but you are a stupid bastard.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Fengpost]

True, but I think they can do without the nuclear weapons.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[William Robinson]

Your concerns about clean water are valid, but space program has its own importance and place, that can not be stopped because of some domestic problems in some corners of the country.

In fact, space program helps to solve these problems in many ways.

1> It gurantees news channels that can bring awareness to masses.
2> Weather satellites play important role for forecasting.
3> Creates a huge entertainment industry (marketing, advertisers, graphics designers, cable manufacturers, operators, actors, musicians....) that can afford spending some resources to tackle poverty issues.
4> Opportunity to market technology to third world.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Heembo]

Could be worse. Someone could have tossed in a terrible comment like, "I hope they don't build rockets like they build software" - see, his comment wasn't really THAT bad, ey?

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[bingo777]

so u mean those people working in the labs shd go dig those pipelines??? i guess its very much better than sending those youths to baghdad to waste their lives as well as those of others

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone told u yet that u r a real asshole!! If not, I m telling u...u r!!

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[The Cydonian]

And most of all, ISRO's yearly grant is barely a blimp in the National Budget; I'd be more concerned about wastage in the Public (food) Distribution Scheme than I would be about spending a few extra zeroes for some worthwhile science.

Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas?

[narsiman]

Got no mod points but you should be atleast an insightful +3.

Yes.

[AoT]

In fact we will

Re:I don't get it.

[SolFire]

The Western Nations (US,Canada, UK, etc.) also have starving and homeless people and yet they also send things into space and spend billions of dollars on defence. It may not seem like a worthwhile endevour but the technological fallout from a project of this scope (in experience, new materials, new technology, etc) will benefit everyone in the long term.

Re:I don't get it.

[MindStalker]

Strangly enough history shows us that government spending on large projects like a space program are very good things for an economy. They provide jobs mostly and encourage spinoff innovations.

Private financing?

[dada21]

I've not spent much time on the issue of space -- I do want to go, and I will pay almost anything to do so in my lifetime.

My question is -- why do all these innovations come from governments? Are there regulations or requirements that prevent private investment into the new inventions?

Space tourism will be a huge business. Just from discussing it with customers of mine (who pay $150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?), I bet there are at least 100,000 people in the world who would pay $50,000 to travel.

I just can't see why a country has to pay for space research. India is gaining wealth, does that mean taxing the new business owners to go to space? How about stopping that, and letting these new business owners be the ones who want to go to space and fund it themselves?

For anyone who has done more research than I could, what are the obstacles to private research? There's a market, there's a will, so there must be a way. Who is putting the kibosh on it?

"I've kiboshed before, and I will kibosh again." -- Crazy Joe Davola

Re:Private financing?

[batura]

please see Xprize http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-prize and Virgin Galactic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic.

Re:Private financing?

[Yartrebo]

It is extremely expensive to go into space with conventional rockets beacause it's near the limit of what's physically possible. Had our gravitational well (product of surface gravity and planet diameter) been twice as deep, we'd might as well forget about launching conventional rockets into orbit.

Spaceship One didn't go into orbit. It had enough oomph to get about 100km of altitude. That's only a few percent of what's needed to get into space, and the cost increases exponentially as the delta-g needed increases, with a doubling constant of about 2km/sec or so, the exact figure depending on the reduction and oxidizing agents used with hydrogen and oxygen giving the largest constant.

Additionally, for-profit businesses have virtually no incentive to invest in long term research. Their discount rates tend to be around 10% (even in this era of uber-low interest rates) and that's for a sure bet investment. Risky multi-decade investments that might or might have a huge payoff in 30 years are not what they like. Governments and non-profits (like the Mars Society) are the only groups that have the necessary long-term thinking to develop this field, and even then they miss more often than hit. There are plenty space shuttle-type boondoggles for one Sputnik or Soyuz or Apollo victory.

As far as I know, private space research is either lightly encouraged, or treated neutrally. It's more that few people are so foolhardy to invest in it at this point. Rutan might make money because of publicity and there being a limited tourist potential for sub-orbital flights, but his research is a dead-end that will not bring us any closer to routine orbital space flight.

Re:Private financing?

[simishag]

My question is -- why do all these innovations come from governments? Are there regulations or requirements that prevent private investment into the new inventions?

I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd summarize the reasons as:

1) Launches should take place somewhat near the equator, and not over populated areas, limiting the number of launch sites. Maybe not a huge concern since the use of already established launch sites could be negotiated.

2) Private space programs need to be organized in countries with free market systems that encourage investment and risk taking, again limiting the number of suitable places to run this sort of thing.

3) In the US, space travel falls under the purview of the FAA, meaning any space tourism is going to be at least as regulated as airline travel. I want to see space too, but if I have to take off my freaking shoes to go through security, I may say screw it and use a telescope.

4) No one can quantify (or at least, no one has yet) the expected ROI for something like this. Any number of companies (Microsoft, Dell, etc.) could drop $1 billion cash into space travel without much pain, start a space tourism business and probably make it work, at least on some level. The problem is that the shareholders aren't going to be to happy about it without knowing what they can expect to make in the long run.

Zillionaires like Branson can afford to do this kind of thing now but there aren't many people like that in the world. However, I don't think it will be too long before major private investment efforts are made. Someone came up with the $7b for Iridium; I'm sure someone else can find that kind of money for private space travel.

Re:Private financing?

[rtaylor]

Space tourism will be a huge business. Just from discussing it with customers of mine (who pay $150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?), I bet there are at least 100,000 people in the world who would pay $50,000 to travel.

The catch is that $5B isn't nearly enough to design an orbital space craft and launch it 10k times (10 people per trip).

Re:Private financing?

[dada21]

This is true.

Yet we spend billions (trillions?) on going to war and there are tons of defense contractors licking their chops every day. Doesn't it amaze you that these are the same companies that develop all the weapons to kill one another?

I'd love to see a day when the populations of the world arm themselves and say no to the elite warmongering imperialists. This is nothing directed solely at Bush, Clinton and every other president, PM and world leader in 60 years has had war ambitions (war is the health of the State and all).

I think we should de-finance defense completely, by threat of personal arms. I'd rather see my money going to guys like Gates and Jobs and other bazillionaires, who can then get together and compete to be the first geek in space.

Make orbit, not war! Just don't do it publicly funded :)

Re:Private financing?

[Rakishi]

The best you can get right now to send things into space, using Russian rockets, is around $1000 to $1500 per pound. So for $50k, you get to send half to a third of a person one way into space with no accommodations. Not exactly what I'd consider fun.

The cost and complexity starts to go up as you add re-entry mechanisms, life support and so on. Probably millions per person if not much more, yhe Russians I believe charge 20 million for a week on the ISS. That is not counting the billions probably needed to build and research the thing in the first place.

Keep in mind that the only thing making this even feasible is because governments already spent billions figuring out many of the problems, such as how to properly make a zero-g toilet.

Re:Private financing?

[hey!]

My question is -- why do all these innovations come from governments?

Simple. The time discounted value of future, excludable rewards exceeds the cost of doing space exploration. Up to now at least. It follows there is no entrepreneurial incentive to invest in new space technologies without public support.

Consider the significance of Spaceship One. The chief innovation of this system was financing. Scaled recreated the capabilties of the X-15 from fifty years ago with private money, which is a milestone for private financing. Granted that milestone is a money losing one and easily an order of magnitude away from orbit, but it is still signficant.

Governments invest in this sort of thing for different reasons. One is of course that things that benefit humanity as a whole but can't be in a reasonable timeframe privatized are a reasonable sphere of public investment. But more to the point governments invest in this sort of thing for national prestige. The Russians put Sputnik up to show the world the superiority of their economic system. We put a man on the moon for the same reason.

Whether India should or should not is not a simple question. National prestige is not just chest thumping, it creates credibility for a country and its businesses. They may have reason to think that they can begin to bring space related business to their country in the way that they've brought IT related business.

There may be other reasons we aren't privy to as well. It wasn't lost on Cold War planners that the ability to put things into orbit was closely related to the ablity to delivery weapons to other people's countries. India may wish to obtain an intercontinental nuclear delivery capability.

$150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?

This is money losing math. You have to account for costs and the effects of competition as well. If you don't recoup your marginal costs (e.g. it costs you $160,000 to send those $150,000 passengers into space), you lose. Even if you do recoup your marginal costs, the marginal surplus has to be enough to recoup the opportunity costs of investing in your space system.

Finally, the unobtainability of something is closely related to its value. People would pay millions of dollars to be uncomfortable on a orbital flight because it's practically impossible to get on one at any price. The fact that you have a business doing this makes it less exotic. Furthermore, if you can make a go of it, competition can as well. They may be people already in aerospace with subtantial capabilities; or they may just be hard knuckle investors who wait for you to make all the technological and marketing mistakes for them.

In any case, once there is a space tourism business and it has been running for a couple of years, prices are going to plunge.

The bottom line is that risks are against purely private space ventures as of this date.

Re:Private financing?

[TGK]

It's not a coincidence that military ambitian and space exploration go hand in hand.

What message do you think the Soviets got when we hit the Sea of Tranquility with a rocket? "We can hit the moon, we can for damn sure hit Moscow."

Re:Private financing?

[Professor_UNIX]

Space tourism will be a huge business. Just from discussing it with customers of mine (who pay $150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?), I bet there are at least 100,000 people in the world who would pay $50,000 to travel.

What we need to do is take the money from these people that have so much of it to frivilously throw away and redirect it to more worthy causes like educating our children or feeding the hungry.

Re:Private financing?

[eericson]

Okay, just to clarify.

You're saying that we (the untrained, out of shape, great unwashed)
should via force of personal arms (i.e. me and my AR-15)
defianance (to which I assume you mean prevent our tax dollars from being used to finance)
the defense industry (i.e. the folks that make all of said personal arms, AND the REALLY BIG and wizbang toys our military uses)?

Umm. So, does anyone else view this as a losing proposition on three fronts?

1) Even if we get rid of our defense industry, all those other countries (i.e. Russia, China, Argentina, hell even South Africa) will still have healthy military industrial complexes.... which would be all too happy to supply whatever groups or nation states that have the cash.

2) The Military is VERY good at what it does. Whatever shades of October revolution you might be seeing, aren't really feasible in this day and age. As much as I like my AR and USP, I am fully aware of what my odds are if I incur the wrath even the most inexperienced infantry squad.

3) Fighter planes are really cool.

Not to be flamebaight material, but as much as we may complain about the huge amount of our GDP that goes into the military (people that kill people and break their stuff) most of the world outside the west doesn't share our opinion.

Re:Private financing?

[rufty_tufty]

I shouldn't feed the troll, but that's what taxes are for and is what they do already.
Where else does over 50% of my income go if not on the national heath, benefits, education etc etc.

This Makes A Good Drinking Game...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time a grandiose Indian press release is on Slashdot (and they're all grandiose), take a drink. Like "Hey Bob" for the chronic insecure.

New slogan.

[CCFreak2K]

India: The Future of the Past.

You're not kidding..

[IAAP]

FTParent'sFA:The United States has shown keen interest in placing a payload aboard India's first spacecraft to the moon, Chandrayan-I.

AND why the US supports it: India considers its missile, space and nuclear programs to be closely interlinked, with nuclear deterrence against Pakistan and China and benefits to the people through satellite technology and nuclear energy being critical factors.

Oh, fuck, does this mean there's another Cold War starting? If so, I agree with my sig.

Re:You're not kidding..

[AoT]

I doubt we will see a cold war in Asia. Pakistan does not have near enough resources to compete with India, and China really is pretty indifferent to India. China is focussing on economic development and economic expansion, politacally speaking; though they are building their military, that is more in response to the US.

India just has their few nukes for deterence, and they really have pushes for a comprehensive, enforcable ban on nukes. Not that that is likely, but hey, they seem to be doing all of this in good faith.

Re:You're not kidding..

[scheme]

Pakistan does not have near enough resources to compete with India, and China really is pretty indifferent to India. China is focussing on economic development and economic expansion, politacally speaking; though they are building their military, that is more in response to the US.

Pakistan may not have enough resources but enough nukes and they have a credible deterrent. True they may not be able to go offensive in a war but they can encourage action in Kashmir & Jammu which is the point of contention right now.

The Chinese and Indians have fought a border war in 1962-1963 and the border regions are still contested. There have been talks but no resolution. Things have been quiet but without a resolution, the dispute could heat up again.

The biggest potential point of conflict is the need for energy and strategic materials by both India and China. Both sides want access to the Central Asian gas and oil resources for their economies. How much friction this causes remains to be seen.

Re:You're not kidding..

[AoT]

Pakistan already has enough nukes to have a credible deterrent. And yeah, they may encourage more action in KJ, if the US does not put enough pressure on them or if Pakistan decides they do not like the US so much anymore. (see recent civilian deaths)

The Chinese and Indians did fight a war but it was pretty much a route of the Indians. And I really do not see the Indians disputing some mile high real-estate at this point. They are a much more mature Democracy not that in the sixties.

Spot on with the last point. I have a feeling that we will see more conflict in the region, as we will in the world. But I think there is a chance that India and China could form an Asian Axis to counteract western influence on Asia and the Middle-East. With the declining prestige, if not power, of the US it does not seem too absurb a possibility. Note that both China and India have petro deals with Iran.

I am just waiting for the Iran Oil Bourse to open(march), assuming the US does not invade first.

Re:You're not kidding..

[sanman2]

and China really is pretty indifferent to India.

Heh, who do you think gave Pakistan their nukes? Wasn't the People's Republic of Japan. So much for indifference. The Chinese are like the Romulans. They prefer to stay in the shadows and have others do their fighting for them.

Re:You're not kidding..

[HiThere]

...The Chinese ... prefer to stay in the shadows and have others do their fighting for them.

Like any sensible predator. Check out the way lions hunt sometime. (Not the way TV pretends they do.) Generally they drive some other predator away from his dinner, because they can, and because it's easier and less dangerous than hunting themselves. (Once a pride of lions shows up, the hyenas that made the kill slink away, to wait until they've finished. Similarly for leopards, except that leopards try to carry their prey up into a tree where the lions can't reach them.)

Re:I don't get it.

[91degrees]

This will provide employment to hundreds of scientists, and engineers, as well as the general low level staff needed to do all the jobs in the space centre. It will mean that they will have developed their own space technology, which they will be able to licence out to industry in other countries, and they are bound to have a handful of spin off technologies, as well as a low cost launch vehicle to offer for commercial launches.

Re:I don't get it.

[IAAP]

They provide jobs mostly and encourage spinoff innovations.

That's short term. Long-term, it inspires kids to one day enter science, engineering, and other activities that will hopefully better the human race.

I've grown up watching Star Trek: can't you tell?

buncha rocket scientists...

[Thud457]

Way to crash Firefox, thanks dingus!

Re:I don't get it.

[wahgnube]

This is not zealotry, but an informed comment.[1]

Unlike other societies that do have a lot of money to throw at such problems, ours does not (as you've noted). The difference is the way in which scientists in India go about designing these stages. All stage designs are done as efficiently as possible to allow reuse in multiple tasks---for instance between stages of missiles and rockets. The individual projects are not large scale, and built by using small addons to previously existing technology. This is not as expensive as you might imagine.

[1] This is stuff I cite from a couple of books I read by the Indian president, (really) a rocket scientist.

Re:I don't get it.

[Astrorunner]

And best of all, vindaloos to the International Space Station.

Reasonable design

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA and others have talked about similar designs in the past; it's definitely a reasonable way to go.

SpaceX is hopeful that at least some of the Falcon variants will be fully-reusable, although they haven't been saying that as loudly as they've said that they think the first stage of every Falcon variant will be reusable. (All of the Falcons will be two stage vehicles.)

If Falcon 9 works (big "if," since even Falcon 1 hasn't gotten in to orbit yet) I suspect it will own a huge fraction of the world launch market within five to ten years of first flight. They'll be able to launch any current satellite model, and I doubt that even the Russians will be able to launch for similar prices w/o massive changes in their launch business.

I hope the Indians pursue a two-stage concept... it's a good concept, and I'd love to see more good launch options.

A friendly neighborhood astrophysicist

Re:I don't get it.

[caffeinemessiah]

The developed world seems to have a notion that every last penny of the budgets of developing countries should be spent on eradicating poverty and hunger. Unfortunately, it takes more than throwing at money at the problem to make those things go away (why hasn't the US eradicated hunger and poverty in that case?). I think India realizes that one way to a better economy is by utilizing that massive amount of engineering/IT/science brainpower that all its universities are spewing out every year. Better economy leads to better infrastructure, which is the first step thats needed on the road to curing the other problems. So no -- their priorities are not messed up, and it's not like they're snatching money from the poor to send rockets up in space. Your view of economies and development is overly simplistic.

Wrong!

[AoT]

From "Global Studies: India and South Asia, Seventh edition" Norton, James H.K.

Annual Population Growth rate: 1.44%

GDP Growth rate: 8.3%

The figure for # below poverty line are correct, though falling.

Pictures of vehicle

[Anonymous Coward]

In a variety of configurations.

Re:I don't get it.

[IAAP]

I'm trying to find the article on Scientific American's website.

An Indian economist, IIRC, wrote an article explaining why the population in his home country is increasing like it is. In a nutshell, it's because there's no provision for retirement, or for that matter, taking care of people in their old age. So, folks rely on their kids to take care of them in their old age. The more kids you have, the better off you are in your old age. Of course, in the meantime, taking care of all of those kids is a strain.

As libertarian as I am (notice the small 'l'), I can see the wisdom for having some social programs. In this case, it helps reduce population explosions.

: See this book

The Space Shuttle: Promises left unkept

[maillemaker]

Well, we had our boondoggle, now they can build one, too.

Steve

India "planning?"

[ScentCone]

...and then, "This is only in its conceptual stage."

Huh. No offense to India (really!) but, there are high school nerds in New Jersey who are also at this stage of work on their own personal space programs.

Re:India "planning?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have profitable existing space industries?

This is a hell of a lot more likely to happen than, say, Chinese moon landings.

Re:India "planning?"

[Anonymous Coward]

That surely must be a joke. personal space programs?

Re:India "planning?"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.isro.org/

I bet those 'high school nerds' better research their comments rather than propagate speculation rooted in inherent bias.

Re:India "planning?"

[HiThere]

That was a bit of a let down, yes. Still, every project that gets started goes through that stage at some point. The problems are with those projects that either get stuck there, or that leave it behind them.

Re:India "planning?"

[ScentCone]

I bet those 'high school nerds' better research their comments rather than propagate speculation rooted in inherent bias.

Leaving aside, for the moment, any sense of humor that you may or may not actually have, try to see my comment in some context. It's not a question of whether or not India has a space program (they do) or the capacity to build a shuttle (they do), but whether or not the conceptualizing mentioned in the summary (and the way it was mentioned) is news, per se. The point is that if every time an entity got Slashdot coverage when they had a conceptual notion of how they might tackle a particular space flight challenge, that's all we'd read about. Everyone has conceptual approaches to it, and most will not take place. My personal opinion is that the concept described is only of marginal use, but hey - it's Indian money, and they can and should pursue whatever concepts they think make sense. But I'd rather read it as "news" when the, say, award a contract to someone to actually start up such a program... or start actually training and simulating around a particular project's actual finalized design.

Re:India "planning?"

[The Cydonian]

Blame the spin, not the intent.

That said, speaking as an Indian, the positive spin over ISRO is nauseating at times; the Indian press, in particular, loves to fawn over those guys for no apparent reason. I suppose every country needs its heroes and positive-news-generators.

Re:India "planning?"

[ScentCone]

Blame the spin, not the intent.

That said, speaking as an Indian, the positive spin over ISRO is nauseating at times; the Indian press, in particular, loves to fawn over those guys for no apparent reason. I suppose every country needs its heroes and positive-news-generators.

You are right on all counts. I think my comment needs a little more context than I thought it did. My larger point was that reporting on a conceptual-stage idea about a possible plan for a program isn't really news, in that such concepts are forwarded by all sorts of people, all the time. ISRO may have more resources and a more likely shot at actually doing something about their space shuttle, but I think I'd prefer a program just a little farther along before it's treated as news and discussed, on slashdot, as a measure of India's wisdom. Whether or not India does it (or starts to do it) will be worth talking about. Otherwise, I want equal coverage on my concepts (to wit, I own a dog that can almost reach escape veolocty... hmmmm).

Re:India "planning?"

[The Cydonian]

(to wit, I own a dog that can almost reach escape veolocty... hmmmm)

That's funny; out here, it is I who reaches velocities to escape dogs!

Attempts at levity apart, point taken, but all I can say is, welcome to Slashdot and Rediff! :-D

Re:I don't get it.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

In fact, look at it this way. Out of all the nations that have dragged themselves out of poverty into First World living conditions -- Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and so on -- how many can you think of that did it without a vibrant high-tech sector?

India's Pace of Change

[Malangali]

I've been to India a few times over the past 22 years, and I am absolutely amazed at the changes that have been taking place there. India continues to have millions upon millions of people living in dire poverty, but the country is taking aggressive steps to address its problems. Meanwhile, the infrastructure is improving by leaps and bounds. For example, no matter where I've gone in India I've been able to find local calling centers where I can make calls throughout the country for reasonable prices - and a functioning telecom system is vital for participation in the global economy.

Sure, India has a long way to go. But the country has some of the world's best scientists and has become a significant center for global technological innovation. Why shouldn't they put their skills to work in space?

Of course, it all may be about ego, about promoting national pride. Americans, though, are hardly in a position to judge others about that. After all, our entire space program was built on beating the Soviets to the moon!

Re:India's Pace of Change

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't they put their skills to work in space?

India continues to have millions upon millions of people living in dire poverty

Incredible - two quotes from the same posting that ask and answer
the most important question of the issue under discussion...

And to think that the rest of the world disses the USA for the same reason!

Re:India's Pace of Change

[david.given]

Sure, India has a long way to go. But the country has some of the world's best scientists and has become a significant center for global technological innovation. Why shouldn't they put their skills to work in space?

India has the potential to become one of the world's next great economic powers, if they play their cards right. They have two huge things going for them: firstly, they've got a massive workforce with a strong work ethic (unlike most western countries), and secondly, they have a leadership who are absolutely focused on building the infrastructure to let them use that workforce effectively. That's a killer combination.

All I can say is, it'll be an interesting couple of decades. Watch this space (pun intended)...

making money, right?

[putko]

Indians will use this to make money, right? This isn't some ego-building thing like the Chinese space program, right?

I think that's really neat. I can imagine the Chinese govt. has something to prove. I can also imagine the Indians are too poor (and not despotic enough) to irresponsibly waste the money. In China, even if it is a waste, if the big men say do it, you do it.

My only thought is that the inherent dishonesty of Indian organizations will lead to the rockets not working and lots of fingerpointing and ass-covering. And no real accountability.

Re:making money, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys have been using those satellites that were sent up in space over the last decade or so for some really good causes. No reason that this will not continue so in the future:

* Seasonal monsoon and rainfall information obtained from the remote sensing and weather satellites allow the farmers to plan their crops suitably, besides enabling the meteorology folks to give advance warning to fishermen in case of impending storms.

* The geostationary satellites that were sent up allow for brodcasting television signals deep into the rural/remote reaches of the country, allowing for the transmission of Educational and Literacy Programs, Women's and Children's Health awareness Programs e.g. Immunization for infants, basic hygine and health guidelines, AIDS awareness etc, to name but a few.

Re:making money, right?

[Colin Cordner]

Indians will use this to make money, right? This isn't some ego-building thing like the Chinese space program, right?

It's more than likely a bit of that, combined with good, old fashioned geopolitical paranoia. India has been leery of the the People's Republic of China (PRC) ever since that little war the two of them had, and that India lost.

And, there's also the issue of the PRC's counter-balancing of Indian's growing power in the region through military support to Pakistan and Burma. And the support China provides to Maoist insurrgents & terrorists within India (the Naxalites). And the PRC's support for the North Korean regime that sold nuclear missile technology to Pakistan...

So, I personally tend to think India's space program is as much about countering the PRC, as it is about building national pride.

Re:making money, right?

[AtomicBomb]

Stop the China bashing, mate. Space program is an ego-building exercise for the Chinese government, so as the US, Russian, EU and the Indian. Space program burns money. Everyone tries hard to arouse commerical interest once after the show case stage. But, satellite launching is a pretty politcally sensitive business. Don't you find it unusual that China actually seldom launch commerical satellite for foreign countries in recently, while they were much more active about 10 years ago? Don't tell me their technology was more advanced at that time.

Re:making money, right?

[putko]

I thought the interest in Chinese launches ended after they had a few costly explosions:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=643

Also, the US got tighter on technology transfer after the Loral case. Hasn't that made it difficult for them, as now they have to do it without the USA's help?

Re:making money, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of prejudiced crap- India has been launching rockets for decades now and since the 80s has had its own satellite launchers. It also has a good IRBM program. Some people like to reveal their ignorance here.

Re:making money, right?

[The Cydonian]

We're the first country to use satellite technology to improve our agricultural standards. The INSAT series of satellites spawned an entire telecom revolution; we're one of the fastest growing markets for television and mobiles. We also had, what was until sometime back, the most powerful spy satellite in the world; apart from presumably using it for security, I know for a fact that they're used in urban planning.

I'd love to hear more about this inherent "dishonesty" of Indian organisations and how they lead to malfunctioning rockets.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

In case if someone is wondering if this is true...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Kalam

Re:Waste!

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of Americans live in poverty: 12.7%

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.htm l

Love the babelfish translation

[SmallFurryCreature]

The second stage after delivering the payload in the orbit will be made to re-enter the atmosphere and will be recovered using airbags either in the sea or land, he said adding, "This is only in its conceptual stage."

Reminds of that recovery mission by the nasa (the one before this weekend) where it ended up halfway to china.

India rocket science. Oh yeah there is an image that doesn't have a tiny bit of a mismatch. Offcourse by now they probably turning out more rocket scientist then the rest of the world but I was raised by "It ain't half hot mum" and old prejudices die hard. BTW the idea of English rocket scientist is just as funny.

And what the hell is up with the figures quoted?

"we need to bring down the cost to access to space to 1/10th of the current per kg cost -- that is something like $500 to$1,000 per kg,"

Now matter how you put that it doesn't seem like the current costs can be that high. The end line:

The present cost of the space transportation system hovers somewhere between$12,000 to$15,000 per kg.

Doesn't make it much clearer but no matter how you look at it doesn't seem that expensive now does it? Sure sattelites can be more massive then you think and weigh easily in at a metric ton but 15million is hardly going to break the bank now is it?

So what the fuck is up with this? What are the real prices and what are the prices they hope for? I mean you could read it as as little as 500 dollars per kg. That is cheap.

Sounds like one of those advanced concept plans the NASA and ESA etc put out when it has been a slow month and there are no cute mars robots to keep the press intrested. Very nice but I seen such stuff promised since I was a kid and we are still stuck with the old rockets and space shuttle. GIVE ME MY MOONBASE!

Re:Love the babelfish translation

[meringuoid]

India rocket science. Oh yeah there is an image that doesn't have a tiny bit of a mismatch. Offcourse by now they probably turning out more rocket scientist then the rest of the world but I was raised by "It ain't half hot mum" and old prejudices die hard.

The impression I have is that Indian culture places a great premium on education and intellectual achievement. I'm certainly not surprised they can build rockets and develop a space programme.

Meanwhile American culture places a great premium on beauty and athleticism and its catchphrases include 'Oh, I never understood math' and 'Let's teach intelligent design in biology class'. If the Germans hadn't taught you all how, I doubt American rocketry would have got too far...

The next Simpsons Road Rage

[peektwice]

is gonna be great if Apu has one of these that we can drive on our xBox 360.

Liek Pegasus

[amightywind]

Maybe its better than firing rockets straight up.

Indeed. The Pegasus launch vehicle has been proving this for years. Being hauled to 40,000 ft by a carrier aircraft and having wings to provide lift in the lower atmosphere atmosphere dramatically shrink the size of the launch vehicle. Only program is the idea doesn't scale very well. Pegasus can only carry about 1000 lbs to LEO. There aren't any jets that can carry a much larger vehicle.

I am a little suprised at the naivete of the Mr. Nair's comments. The quote could have come from a NASA administrator back in 1969 when they proposed the Space Shuttle. The idea of reusable, winged launch vehicle has been pretty well discredited, both by the US with the shuttle and by the Russians with Buran.

Re:Waste!

[Anonymous Coward]

What, has feeding people gone out of style?

No, it hasn't.

Next...

Half velocity is only quarter energy

[redelm]

Sure, air breathing engines can go fast. But not nearly fast enough. And then there's the ole square law. I'm more worried about rocket structural integrity. Tanks see very different stresses horizontal vs vertical. Even prestressed.

Ugh

[idonthack]

They use a Java applet for every single link on the page. Please us before posting a link like that.

Re:Ugh

[dabigpaybackski]

Uh...yeah. There's the rub. The Skyramp people are their own worst enemy when it comes to marketing. They shoot themselves in the foot with their horrible website.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF????

This guy, A rocket scientist!? I can't believe it..

Hello, Mr. President!

Oh, wait. Never mind: wrong country...

Failure guaranteed.

[Baldrson]

ISRO is India's NASA. Every time NASA has said they'll lower launch costs with some development project they have actually raised them.

The only thing that will lower launch costs, other than the threat of loss of something like the cold war is incentives for private enterprise.

Re:Failure guaranteed.

[renjipanicker]

Big difference.

NASA costs are compared against it's own previous costs. India's costs are compared against NASA's.

Re:Waste!

[corngrower]

Yea. Most people these days feed themselves with forks, spoons, and chopsticks.

Can't stick around here. Got to go out and feed the cows.

$12,000 to $15,000 per kg.

[heroine]

That sounds the same as other countries with much higher labor costs. What are they paying these ISRO employees? Enough for a house?

If it's a NASA article, the cost is mainly from retaining the permanent staff between launches. If it's an ISRO article, the only explanation besides Indians being independantly wealthy is the hardware costing 10 times more.

Another Avatar

[sanman2]

Bah, India always comes out with these hare-brained ideas that it never delivers on. There was that Avatar scram-craft, and all the other ideas that have sprung forth from ISRO, DRDO, etc. Talking the talk is a lot different than walking the walk.

The only thing I can see that might have prompted this announcement, is due to India's successful testing of a scramjet on the ground -- in a wind tunnel. The US had done that nearly a half-century ago.

One scramjet windtunnel test, and already people are conjuring up castles in the sky. Silly.

a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[sanman2]

Thank you Kanye West of Asia. My whole family happens to come from the rural part - shacks, huts, and all. I'll tell you that the stifling oppression of socialism has kept far more people in poverty than has space program spending.

But hey, since charity begins at home, why not start with yourself, and ask your own president to send more bucks to urban ghettoes where the murder rate is higher than in any 3rd world country, rather than sending poor youth to die over in Baghdad.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[Catbeller]

The real problem is that India is way, way, WAAAAY too overpopulated. All the capitalism is the world won't save a country doubling in size every thirty years. Poverty can't be reined in when the majority of the population is teenaged, underemployed, and competing for ever-tighter resources. Trees? Almost gone. Burned for fuel. Wildlife, doomed. Political unrest? With half a billion teenagers? Guaranteed.

It's a problem mirrored from Malaysia to Africa to South America. The arguments are always about "socialism" and "capitalism", but the problem is people, way too many people refusing to stop having large families, either for cultural or financial reasons. Humans just have an innate inability to see the damage they can do by overdoing the numbers game. We've moved from 3 billion to more like 7 billion people in my lifetime, and most of them are born in places that are too strained to support them. The world can't all be Manhattan, no matter what real estate salesmen dream. Forests can't all be cut down to make arable land. People can't spread out where the farms used to be. Water -- now, there's the BIGGEST problem. Fresh water is the oil of the 21st century -- Enron was busy buying up wells around the world, no joke.

Tech can help with a lot of this, but it won't be given to the poor - that's the capitalist dilemma -- because they have little to offer for it. Food won't be shipped, water won't be cleaned, because there is no profit in it --

But the problem is too many people.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[tinker_taylor]

I couldn't resist. [[[The real problem is that India is way, way, WAAAAY too overpopulated. All the capitalism is the world won't save a country doubling in size every thirty years. Poverty can't be reined in when the majority of the population is teenaged, underemployed, and competing for ever-tighter resources. Trees? Almost gone. Burned for fuel. Wildlife, doomed. Political unrest? With half a billion teenagers? Guaranteed]]] Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that the old bastions of "Civilization" -- viz. Europe and the West are dying nations -- declining populations and negative growth rates (of population and of economy). What maintains the balance? The reason you see such a stark difference between what Indian population was before 1947 and after is because before Independence, the Brits had manufactured an environment of famine and poverty in India. India used to be 50% of the World economy before the Brits descended down on it like locusts. When the Brits left and their oppressive policies starving and stifling people went with them, the Indian population thrived; it began to grow, the average life span increased. This was a natural and good thing to happen -- where humanity is on a decline somewhere, it is on re-ascendance elsewhere. That is the way nature balances itself out. If you and I are alive in 50 years, we'll probably see someone on slashdot.in posting about the "oppressive and rotting cities of the West" and how the West destroyed all the resources of the world in it's all-consuming frenzy to Industrialize and "modernize"... :\

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[Liam Slider]

Hell, people keep complaining about population, world population even....you could fit the entire world population into Texas, with a population density about the same as that of Manhattan...which isn't exactly an unpleasant place to live last I heard. The Earth isn't exactly overcrowded yet. Some places have a hell of a lot more people than others, but they aren't overcrowded.

I'd say India's main problems have been matters of economics, and politics...not population. Fact is...India's space program saves lives, helps farmers produce more food, more than likely helps them with their environmental issues, and helps educate their people....so I'd say it's a pretty damn benefitial program.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[HiThere]

The world may not be literally overcrowded, but when cities are built on the best farmland (standard practice in the US, and also, I understand, elsewhere) then, Yes, we ARE overcrowded. When populations sprawl rather than compact, then, Yes, we ARE overcrowded.

And when we overfish and overfarm and drive an increasing number of other species to extinction, then Yes, we ARE overcrowded.

I'll agree that the overcrowding isn't inherent, but is rather an artifact of the way we structure our societies, but unless we change that, then it remains overcrowding the earth. Personally, I favor archologies, but I'll acknowledge that the knowledge of how to build and operate them so as to be humane environments for people to live in hasn't yet been developed. I consider this an important area, but it's so expensive to do experiments that I don't expect any actual progress until we are approaching the singularity closely enough to construct good models of human society from an individual perspective. (Not quite psychohistory, but as close as we're likely to get this side of the singularity.)

So. But cities take a long time to build, and so would an archology. When is the singularity? It may not be appropriate to start working seriously on the problems yet, but rather to start with smaller and more tractable problems. More tractable includes human overpopulation, and that is soluble, as the US, Europe, and Japan all have negative or declining birth rates.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[pinka]

The real problem is that India is way, way, WAAAAY too overpopulated. All the capitalism is the world won't save a country doubling in size every thirty years. Poverty can't be reined in when the majority of the population is teenaged, underemployed, and competing for ever-tighter resources. Trees? Almost gone. Burned for fuel. Wildlife, doomed. Political unrest? With half a billion teenagers? Guaranteed

Eh? The most densely populated part of India, the Gangetic plains, is less densely populated than netherlands. It *is* socialism, no matter what you think; and now with the Gandhi family back to the feeding trough with the help of the communists, prospects for poverty alleviation don't seem as bright as before. Exhibit 1: Reservation in educational institutions. Recently, the topper in a medical exam could not get a position because of reservation. Welcome to socialism!

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[Liam Slider]

The world may not be literally overcrowded, but when cities are built on the best farmland (standard practice in the US, and also, I understand, elsewhere) then, Yes, we ARE overcrowded. When populations sprawl rather than compact, then, Yes, we ARE overcrowded.

Cities may be built on the best farmland...but hardly a vast amount of it. And there's plenty of other "best farmland" around just as good as we put cities on...and we farm it. And, at least here in the US, agricultural technology has been advancing so that we use significantly less land to produce significantly more food year after year. Heck, we have vast tracks of unused farmland that have reverted, or is reverting, to forest. And before anyone says that we mooch off the rest of the world's food supply to have our great, rich, advanced nation...we're a net exporter of food. And populations sprawling....that's simply a matter of wanting space (plenty of it avaliable), but not a sign of actual overcrowding.

And when we overfish and overfarm and drive an increasing number of other species to extinction, then Yes, we ARE overcrowded.

Maybe globally we overfarm....because most farms worldwide are still third-world, ox and wooden plow, starving family style farms that don't use modern agricultural methods. In short, the problem there is economics. On the other hand...we do overproduce...we actually produce more food globally than we can eat (which, incidentally, is no sign of overpopulation). As for overfishing....some species we do yes, certainly salt-water species we do unfortunately. However, the last fish I ate I either caught myself (locally, of species which couldn't be overfished if you tried...rabbits of the waterways)....or were farmed fish, raised in aquatic pens exclusively for market.

But cities take a long time to build, and so would an archology. When is the singularity?

I think it's supposed to be around 2015 or so. Hard to predict exactly though, singularities are funny like that.

It may not be appropriate to start working seriously on the problems yet, but rather to start with smaller and more tractable problems. More tractable includes human overpopulation, and that is soluble, as the US, Europe, and Japan all have negative or declining birth rates.

Which is entirely due to standard of living. High standard of living equals low birth rates. Humans get rich, well fed, comfortable, living in a high tech world with advanced medical care where if it kills you it has to be something nasty rather than something like...chickenpox, get educated, get access to virtually any information they want access to, and birth rates drop through the floor.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[narsiman]

Got no mod points dude, but yours is definitely informative and an interesting post. All the idiots who rave about the rail road tracks and modernization that the british brought about to India should read indian economics prior to the european invasions. Heck the economy thrived even during the mughal rule. Thanks for making India a heroin bastion of yester years plundering the gold fields and destroying any semblance of international trade that india was well known for.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[narsiman]

And I thought sewers in Manhattan were bad. With your idea, you will probably need all of New Mexico/Nevada/Utah and Lousisiana to just service the Texas-Manhattan life. Like NJ/NY.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[tinker_taylor]

[[[I'd say India's main problems have been matters of economics, and politics...not population. Fact is...India's space program saves lives, helps farmers produce more food, more than likely helps them with their environmental issues, and helps educate their people....so I'd say it's a pretty damn benefitial program.]]]

Right on! India's problem was Socialism and a pseudo-communism bullcrap that kept everyone down and the politicians ruling (which (socialism) is intrinsically anti-thetical to the Indian psyche in the first place). With the "opening" up of India's economy in the early 1990s, the effects of globalization are evident (and I do not refer to the paltry few million jobs that got outsourced/are getting outsourced). The key to everything was information -- with information flowing back and forth freely (between India and the rest of the world), it was only a matter of time before things got back on track. India today (similar to the US) is a net exporter of Food. And India too, produces more than it consumes (so consider the magnitude of agricultural production). And a lot of mistakes that were made in the West (in the heydays of Industrialization) are not being repeated in India.

First -- A History lesson:

There is a popular myth about the productivity deficit of "Third world agricultural practices" vs "First-world practices". It is infact untrue, and in India, with the traditional knowledge systems being revived, it is only a matter of time before agriculture is again returned to it's rightful and honored position at the top of priorities. The British indulged in large scale conversion of Indian agriculture (the aftermath of which we still see today) -- in changing the staple foodcrops (that were farmed before) being replaced by "Cash crops" (like cotton and jute).
Historically speaking, by changing the complete "Physiology" of the farming world in India, the Brits created a situation of deficit, and famine. Indian Cotton was used to manufature clothes in England and sold back to the Indians at exorbitant prices.

Agricultural canals (that were created throughout the Indian countryside were neglected and "Railroads" were developed as the new "saviour of the Indian savages"). As this age-old irrigation system fell into neglect, abuse and eventually disuse, they clogged. A lot of the open "sewers" one might see in India today are remnants of these irrigation canals...

So, coming back to the topic now --
while there has been political negligence in getting this excess food to the poor people and providing adequate infrastructure to help these people step out from behind the poverty-line; there have been efforts started by the previous government (of India) to build infrastructure, recreate/revive the old irrigation systems, etc.

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[HiThere]

I feel that you are much too complacent about, e.g., US farming techniques. Data that I've seen (a few decades old now, admittedly) indicate that the irrigation of crops is leading to a build-up of salt underneath the surface of the ground. There are other potential problems, basically most of them could be solved by long-period crop rotation...say every couple of decades take the fields that had been used for field crops, and move them to orchards, and simultaneously you rotate an orchard back to being field crops. (Field crops still need to observe the 7 year crop rotation cycle.) O, and the orchards aren't irrigated after the first year. Pick trees that will grow locally once they get their root systems established.

Unfortunately, the changes have largely been in the other direction, i.e., LESS crop rotation. Fortunately the water conserving methods of irrigation (drip and spray irrigation) slow down the accumulation of the salt layer. But slow down isn't stop.

Then there's the problem of mineral depletion. Healthy soil depends on a good blend of minerals, and plants eat those minerals, and we eat the plants. This process removes the minerals from the soil. Planting orchards, and, at the end of the orchard period chipping the trees and mixing them back into the soil would help here. I'm less sanguine about adding powdered granite, etc., but it sounds plausible. Usually, however, some kind of refined mineral solution in easily digestible form (for plants) is what's added. This is undesirable as a long term strategy, even though it is fine for a one-year band-aid. Unfortunately, we seem to be using the band-aid approach everywhere, which means that one failure and the whole thing collapses.

I'm not a extreme believer in organic farming, but some of it's approaches are certainly more plausible than the "solve everything with more chemicals" people. However it's not clear to me that large mono-culture fields are practical without considerable use of chemicals, and *I'd* certainly never volunteer to be a farmer. Some people like the life-style, but I was raised on a farm (part-time) and I sure discovered that I'm not one of them. (I guess the "raised on a farm" shows a bit in this post, but it's where I, partially, come from...and from is how I like it.)

Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste

[Liam Slider]

There is a popular myth about the productivity deficit of "Third world agricultural practices" vs "First-world practices".

I wouldn't really agree here. In the US it is not unusual for a single farmer, perhaps with one or two helpers at most with modern equipment to be farming many hundreds or thousands of acres of land, with fairly high crop yields, without backbreaking labor. Food animals like pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other animals are also raised by the tens of thousands per facility in what can only be described as "meat factories" (one near here raises 17,000 hogs, this is just one of 6 facilities owned by one farmer). We can produce far more food, using modern biotechnology and agribusiness methods, per person actually working in agriculture, than any country using old fashioned 3 world agricultural methods ever could. And we're improving all the time, finding ways to imrpove crop yields, reduce the amounts of chemicals needed, improve meat quality and quantity per animal, and so forth. Heck, we're even experimenting with robots to work in the fields now.

Such a reduced population working in agriculture allows us to have that population working in other productive areas of our society. This is an advantage we have over the typical old style agriculture.

Re:I don't get it.

[Enkiduo]

Indian's population growth is primarily an issue of social change taking longer then technological change.
The influx of western medicine and in particular the adoption of mass vaccinations reduced the child death rate by about 80%, however a society used to having many many children to compensate for a high mortality rate has taken much longer to adapt.
In the west it took a long period of time for western medicine to develop to such a level, and much of our society changed in pace with it.
However in many other parts of the world where the technology was suddenly introduced, india in particular, societal change has lagged significantly.

I'm planning to have Catherine Zeta Jones...

[melted]

I'm planning to have Catherine Zeta Jones as my wife. The project is in a conceptual stage right now, but I'm planning real hard. If only I could get some private funding to make myself fiscally attractive, I'd be all set.

Yeah but...

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll probably outsource the construction jobs to some overseas company. Oh wait...

Airbags?

[Jozer99]

Airbags work great on Mars (population 0, size 2/3 earth size), but would a 60 ton bouncing spacecraft work in India? (population ~1,000,000,000, size 1/50 earth)

Typical India

[Anonymous Coward]

First, quote what others in the US are doing or have done. Pretend you are inventing it, talk it up, then do nothing or do it with low quality and give up. Sorry India, but crashing spacecraft is worse than crashing software.

Re:I don't get it.

[sidles]

Another thing these projects do is teach the science and engineering community how to federate their technologies. This federative engineering requires both advanced technical skills and federative social and political skills (the latter being what America increasing lacks).

Pop Quiz Question:: which is longer:

-> cell phone manual:
http://direct.motorola.com/manuals/v3_manual9491A4 7O.pdf

-> NASA SA-503 Saturn V flight manual:
http://history.nasa.gov/ap08fj/pdf/sa503-flightman ual.pdf

I could hardly believe it, but the two manuals are of comparable length.

PS: the Saturn V manual is 15 MBytes, so I hope NASA doesn't get too slashdotted.

The Rocket Company?

[StCredZero]

2-stage makes it sound like the craft from The Rocket Company. But the wings break that mold. And, if you ask me, are probably a bad idea! Why? Read The Rocket Company. (Just about the best near-term Sci-Fi book about building reusable rockets, but with *tons* of meaty science & engineering factual tidbits!)

Just like Civilization IV

[Anonymous Coward]

European GPS system. European search engines. Indian space exploration. It's just like Civ IV. You've got the technological edge, then suddenly all your resources get diverted by a war, you're too busy being annoyed at the fact that your tanks are occasionally losing vs early gunpowder units, and the next thing you know all the other races have caught up. I'm hoping we get a great person in the next turn or two.

The credibility of Indian space research

[ravee]

India has made great strides in Space. Now when I say it I am not being rhetorical. The space (satellites) program of India has helped bring cheap education to far flung, hard to reach areas. It gives upto the minute accurate weather reports and is one of the sources of weather forcasts of TV channels in India, India is aiming to jump into the select club of countries which have the capability of launching commercial sattelites over a specified weight thus bringing much needed foreign exchange. The sattelites give credible data which aids the scientists in the search for untapped (new) water bodies in the country. And these sattelites are the backbone for the mobile (telecommunication) revolution that is taking place in India at present.

So it is not just national pride that is making India take up space research seriously. It has put the technology to credible use which has brought a lot of comforts to the people living there.

Defeating the Rocket Equation

[StCredZero]

Some links on getting cheaply to orbit with near-term technology. Mostly Google cache of PDF and slides, I'm afraid. But no nanotubes required! (This is not for the typical science-ignorant /. rube. Nothing flashy, and the words and pictures require imagination and actual physics knowledge to appreciate.)

• Lofstrom Loop
• Modular Laser Launch
• Hypersonic Airplane Space Tether Orbital Launch (HASTOL)

Call me bitter, but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given my experience with support organizations that've been outsourced from the US to India (which, I'm sad to say, is pretty significant), I can't help but suspect that their first attempt (at least) will explode on the launch pad, probably claiming upwards of 3 dozen lives.

To be fair, tho', I'll say this to any member of the engineering team working on the deployment solution who may be reading: your launch vehicle won't require an Oracle CRM implementation, so don't buy it .

Heh. "...please type the word in this image: pred ict ..." Man, that's synchronicity.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus they prolly like to get it on! Warm weather, spicy food, generally hot babes, gets you horny you know!

The Russians had Spiral

[Latent Heat]

Before the Buran shuttle vehicle, the Russians had a project called Spiral, very similar to the India proposal for a high-Mach carrier aircraft first stage followed by an orbital stage and a small lifting body orbiter.

But before going down that path, the folks in India should listen to this guy http://www.dunnspace.com/home.html#Columns. Getting into orbit is fundamentally different than flying an aircraft, and this Arthur Schnitt fellow argues that the max performance route used in aircraft is too costly. He got this idea of Minimum Cost Design from the Thor-Agena launcher for the Corona-Discoverer spy satellite -- the Thor booster was a lot cheaper than the Agena upper stage on top -- that cost had little to do with size in rockets, and by building big rockets with cheap methods (the Big Dumb Booster), you could reduce the cost of space launch

Re:I don't get it.

[lawpoop]

Uh, the United States is the only western country that has starving homeless people. The other western countries, including Canada, the UK, Scandinavia, continental Europe, Australia, have extensive social programs that prevent people from starving and being homeless. You may disagree with socialist policy and philosophy, but it is factually inaccurate to say that rates of hunger and homelessness are in the US and the rest of the western world are comparable.

Also, 'fallout' from technological innovations from the space programs helping everyday people is something that has been frequently debunked -- about the only thing we got is teflon for our frying pans. The US engaged in the space program in order to perfect ICBM, rocketry, and satellite technology in order to have a good chance of winning WWIII.

If you want to actually improve the lives of eveday people, invest in research in that area, instead of space. That's like saying deep sea research will eventually pay off in your everday. Sure, it might, but if that's what your goal is, just go ahead and fund it directly. Otherwise, stop trying to make it seem like shooting rockets into space is helping the average American. It isn't, and we don't have to beat the Ruskies anymore.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use the technological fallout from our space waste.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no homeless people in the usa starving. If they are they choose to starve. In most cities theres probably 10 handout shelters in a mile radius that will give free food and clothing.

Re:I don't get it.

[lawpoop]

"There are no homeless people in the usa starving. If they are they choose to starve."

Logical contradictions in the first two sentences will get you far in slashdot.

But I'll take your bait. The US has a large population of insane homeless people -- they get messages from outer space, they work for the CIA, etc. etc. In the rest of the civilized world, they put them in hospitals. We used to do that here, but then Reagan came in and de-funded all of these huge wasteful government programs, so now we have paranoid schizophrenics wandering the streets.

Because, as you pointed out, a guy who gets radio signals in his brain from the FBI is choosing to wander the streets instead of working.

Re:I don't get it.

[Bad D.N.A.]

Right.....

We all know that the investment in space has done nothing to enable silly little technologies like weather satellites, telecommunications, etc... things that certainly don't improve the lives of people.

And Tang... Don't forget the Tang

Re:I don't get it.

[lawpoop]

"We all know that the investment in space has done nothing to enable silly little technologies like weather satellites, telecommunications, etc... things that certainly don't improve the lives of people. "

If you want improvemets in weather satellite technology, make investements in weather satellite technology. If you want improvements in telecommunications, make investments in telecommunications research.

I'm not saying that we have gotten *no* benefit from the space program, but that *it's very little*, and *less than proponents have made it out to be*.

If the reason we are going into space is these everday life improvements, then we are better off investing the money directly into those areas, instead of wasting it on rocketry a zero-g research and areas that are only applicable to space.

It's like saying we need to send team after team to the bottom of the ocean and establish a base down there to make our everyday lives better. Anyone can see we're better off not building the submarines. But somehow with the space program, sending up shuttle after shuttle to watch plants and ants grow in zero G makes food and fuel cheaper or something crazy like that.

Lots of private ventures...

[everphilski]

... you just havent looked hard enough:

xcor

blue origin (Jeff Bezos, Amazon)

spaceX

Armadillo Aerospace (John Carmack)

(Not mentioning the obvious: Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.)

And don't forget about America's Space Prize a $50 million dollar prize for the development of a reusable vehicle to service http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/">Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space hotel. (Robert Bigelow owns the "Budget Suites of America" hoetl chain). Several contendors for the prize at the moment.

And actually the american government is quite progressive on commercial space travel. They have an office: the office of Commercial Space Transportation. They actually recently put out a 120+ page proposal on regulations for human spaceflight, open for suggestions from the "players". Revisions are being suggested from companies and actually heeded. The system is working quite well.

Just from discussing it with customers of mine (who pay $150,000 for a week in Vegas for 2 people, what's $150,000 to hit space?), I bet there are at least 100,000 people in the world who would pay $50,000 to travel.

I've read studies that have similar numbers of people willing to pay bigger dollar amounts. The market is there; thats why the companies listed, among others, are working on a solution.

For anyone who has done more research than I could, what are the obstacles to private research? There's a market, there's a will, so there must be a way. Who is putting the kibosh on it?

Money. Gotta get those venture capitalists to see the vision. There are safer investments than human space travel. The companies that are most likely to succeed are the ones that are self-funded (see the ones with big names next to them) or the ones that handle both commercial and govenment contracts (for example, Xcor does government research, and spaceX does government launches. It pays the bills and bolsters investor confidence.)

-everphilski-

How about fixing American health care system?

[typidemon]

I think Americans can spend their money a tad more wisely.

only if....

[Anonymous Coward]

...they can consistently come up with enough stuff to trade for oil and raw materials. And that's a big "if". China is in the same position, except it has a lot more native raw materials to draw from, and a heckuva lead military wise, and hands down a huge lead in manufacturing capacity for stuff the rest of the planet is willing to trade dollars or other stuff for, like oil and raw materials. and they have been going any place on the planet that will have them and buying up natural resources and moving in "engineers and businessmen", half of whom are probably soldiers on the side if push comes to shove. Because today, they got the money, end of story.. India is on some pretty shaky ground long term right now, despite their advances. They've recently signed some energy cooperation treaties between the two nations, but I see them as similar to the pact signed between Germany and the USSR prior to hostilities starting. In diplomatic circles, the more large smiles and photo ops and hearty handshakes and pieces of fancy scrolled edges paper needed, the more actual true tension exists in the background.

Re:only if....

[HiThere]

That "smiles" thing isn't always true. It is a good rule of thumb, though. Just remember it could also be a "photo op" for consumption by their electorate. (I.e., the tensions could be internal rather than external.)

Off topic my ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is shit that all the ignorant slashdotters need to know.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

It's...well...unusual. What's the name of your act again?

THE ARISTOCRATS! (Insert snare drum here)

Funny you say that about a third of NASA,,,

[Anonymous Coward]

A survey several years ago identified the following statistic in the United States of America where it was found that:

38% of Doctors in America are Indians.
12% of Scientists in America are Indians.
36% of NASA employees are Indians.
34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians
28% of IBM employees are Indians
17% of INTEL employees are Indians

A great majority ( over 85% ) of these people are foreign born, ie they are naturalized citizens of the US, and had a good deal of their early education abroad.

So when you are sceptical about the abilities of people of Indian origin, you are questioning the very same brains that built the operating system that runs most desktops, as well as helped put the rovers on Mars and drive our space program.

Retard.

Sovsem ohueli.

[andreyw]

Before jumping into space, I'd concentrate on the whole, you know, like... third world deal - poverty, starvation, destitution, banditism, diseases that doesn't exist elsewhere anymore, steam engines, mud huts...

What's next? Rhodesia (*cough* Zimbabwe) building a Mars colony?

Re:Sovsem ohueli.

[VoidCrow]

So, what's your plan?

Re:Sovsem ohueli.

[bit01]

It's a country of a billion people, more than three times the size of the USA's three hundred million. India is sensibly using the expertese they have to do all of the above and much, much more.

Investment in a space program now will give them long term dividends, both now and into the future. As just one example now weather and resources satellites give them a big per capita payoff. Other posts here list more.

---

Are you a creator or a consumer?

Re:Sovsem ohueli.

[The Cydonian]

Now then, Slashdot being a tech news site and all that, you'd naturally expect only tech news related to India. For policy discussions on economics or poverty, you'd want to go an economics blog site, or a South Asian news portal; other parts of the site linked here, Rediff.com, have lots of material on that. You could also go to Indian Express, which often has very informed commentary on what you call as third-world issues.

Wait, you didn't think making satellites was all that we were doing, did you?

No, no Space Shuttle, but a Sänger

[RealNecator]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4nger_(Raumtran sportsystem) Sadly, the english wikipedia delivers no relevant hit for this topic. So, try babelfish.

The principle is: Take a plane which can gather height quite fuel-efficient and then launch a specially designed spacecraft from this plane.
Saves a lot of fuel, might proove safer (the accellerations needed are not so high) and allows a complete reuse of the whole system.

But great ideas (this idea (I think it's even completely caculated through) for more than 40 years.) alwas rot in favour of inferior ideas.

NASA? Hah! I can make it at home for nothing!

[Pandamonium]

with perhaps a small aubergine...

Re:NASA? Hah! I can make it at home for nothing!

[VJ42]

It's been years since I saw goodness Gracious Me, but that still made me spill my coffee on my keayboard. Damn you, now I'll have to clean my keyboard ;)

NASAThink

[XNormal]

To bring back these launch vehicles safely to earth, we have refine the science of aerodynamics and special materials," he said."
...
For orbital missions, as the vehicle needs to deliver Mach number of the order of 25 (25 times the speed of sound), it becomes mandatory that rocket-based systems have to be combined with air breathing systems leading to what is termed as Rocket Based Combined Cycle System, for meeting the total orbital velocity requirement.

This attitude is exactly what makes NASA stuff so expensive. There are credible space experts who believe a cost reduction by a factor 10 to 100 is possible with proper application of nothing but existing materials, engineering and aerodynamic designs (and in particular no heavy airbreathing engines). In fact, use of mature technology and not confusing research vehicles with operational vehicles is a prerequisite for any significant cost reductions.

If this NASAThink has infected the ISRO I'm afraid the only cost reduction they will be capable of is because of somewhat lower labor costs.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Less horny than these naked western bitches ;)

Re:I don't get it.

[Redwin]

It is kinda on a different scale though, 25% of India's population are below the poverty line, or 270 million people in the US it is 12% or 36 million and in the UK it is 17% or 10.2 million (All from the CIA world fact book btw, didn't google for other sources) As such comparing over the numbers of starving and homless people probably isn't a good metric, although I would say that investment in sending things into space if only for the technological fallout and the knowledge gained is a good thing.

I suppose this is more feasible than...

[aapold]

using a rope trick and a really long cable to build a space elevator...

Re:I don't get it.

[Bad D.N.A.]

I understand what you are saying and I do think that things get way over-hyped sometimes. However the investment in space takes decades to cash in on. Had it not been for the investments in the technology, there would be no weather sateliites today. The low-power low-mass high-performance instruments we invest in today will enable technologies in the future. The isotopic mass-spectrometers or the miniaturized neutron detectors being designed as we speak may well be the security devices used in airports in the future. It's not a invest now, cash in tomorrow type of investment and (I agree with you) we should not claim that the reason for doing it is to make your life better. The reason we do it is for the science, that is the purpose. The spin-off technologies that will happen are a natural outflow of the investment.

The political end of it

[Anonymous Coward]

The military requirements are a huge part of made the shuttle unworkable. But OTOH the military did not really want to launch via the shuttle.

The short history of the space program in the 1970s:

Apollo/Skylab winds down. The goal of beating the Soviets has been achieved. Congress is eager to cut the space program's budget (and so Apollo 18-20 are cancelled) but NASA has has big dreams.

NASA asks for money to build a space station and a dozen or so space shuttles to service it. Congress says, you can either have a space station or a shuttle program; not both. So of course NASA has to choose the shuttle.

In addition, Congress mandates that all US space launches will have to use the shuttle. The idea is that this will save money, since there will only be one type of launch vehicle to build and maintain.

So of course the military has a list of requirements: large cargo space, one-around capability, downrange landing capability, launch complex from which it can reach polar orbit (i.e., SLC-6 at Vandenberg).

And so we wind up with the shuttle we have today.

Mudak.

[andreyw]

I sense you're trying to imply that my honest opinion on this "tech matter" is somehow off topic and inappropriate in this forum.

Re:Mudak.

[The Cydonian]

I'm saying you seem to be assuming that India's science happens at the expense of other more pressing needs. I happen to think that's not the case; because, we discuss science and science-policy out here on Slashdot to the preclusion of, say, discussing India's bad infant mortality rates, international observers might get that impression.