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India Planning Reusable 2-Stage-to-Orbit Vehicle

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the the-next-space-race dept.

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.'"

16 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. How about getting clean water to rural areas? by ip_freely_2000 · · Score: 1, Insightful

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

    1. Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:How about getting clean water to rural areas? by hooeezit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. Re:I don't get it. by SolFire · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:I don't get it. by MindStalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:I don't get it. by IAAP · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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?

  5. Re:I don't get it. by caffeinemessiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
  6. India "planning?" by ScentCone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...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.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:India "planning?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do they have profitable existing space industries?

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

  7. India's Pace of Change by Malangali · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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!

    --
    If you build it, they will come...
  8. making money, right? by putko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
  9. Liek Pegasus by amightywind · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    --
    an ill wind that blows no good
  10. a mind is a terrible thing to waste by sanman2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste by Catbeller · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:a mind is a terrible thing to waste by tinker_taylor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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"... :\

  11. Re:I don't get it. by Enkiduo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.