India and NASA to Explore Moon Together

hotsauce writes "NASA administrator Griffin on a visit to Indian space facilities in Bangalore has signed an agreement to explore the moon with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This agreement will see NASA instruments on a 2008 Indian moon mission, and further cooperation is being explored. An Indian paper has a different take on the visit. Interesting answer by Griffin on NASA outsourcing to ISRO."

Comments

Griffin's answer

[pq]

Since most people won't bother to read TFA to get the answer to the tease:

Griffin said NASA was not looking to outsource some of its work to ISRO. NASA was looking to combine the resources both agencies to undertake ventures of mutual interest.

(Yeah, yeah, I know I'm enabling bad behavior, but slashdot needs all the help it can get.)

Re:Griffin's answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Highest isn't best. You want to be as far from the earth's axis as possible (aka The Equator). The Himalayas are really tiny vs the shape of the Earth. If you made a globe to scale you wouldn't be able to see a bump. You probably couldn't even free it.

To get into orbit, you can't just go up. You need to go sideways. Watch a space rocket launch and notice how soon they start to tilt the rocket. Ever bit of velocity you get from the Earth's rotation is free.

Oh, and no one wants to haul a rocket up a mountain anyway.

Re:Griffin's answer

[plantman-the-womb-st]

Correct Mr. Coward, "highest" isn't the issue. Height from sea level is, I'll give you a hint why, it's called friction. The height matters very little but the density of the atmosphere matters lots.

Not quite

[CXI]

The summary author would have been more correct in linking to the following story rather than attempting to make commentary by selecting the link they did: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14200860

It's not "another take" they link to, but rather "another story". Related, yes, but lets try a little harder (yes, it's slashdot, etc, etc but it doesn't hurt to try)

Indian Space Units

[TubeSteak]

I think that, when they talk about lifting sanctions on "Indian space units", they mean relaxing/removing the sanctions imposed on high-tech exports to India.

1998 was when the U.S. flipped out over India's nuclear tests.

Re:This Assumes That We're All Still Here...

[oni]

The minimum shown there is based on a three-sigma variance - there's only an 0.03% chance the comet fragment will come closer than that. So, one in ten thousand. Don't lose any sleep over it.

Re:NASA is aware...

[nganju]

Flying carpets come out of Persian or Arab folklore, not Indian. I know you think they're all the same, but you're just displaying your typical Western ignorance, as are the moderators that modded you funny.

Your joke is equivalent to if NASA decided to work with the French Space Program and I made some jokes about German stereotypes (all the astronauts will have to eat sauerkraut, etc). It doesn't make any sense, and I doubt it would be modded funny.

Re:Minimum Miss Distance, etc.

[Retric]

FYI: Roche limit does not apply for three reasons first the fragment is probably held together by chemical bonds not gravity and second on a near miss there is little time for such effects to take place. (Yes over time a glass of water will evaporate in a low humidity room but it take more than a few min for that to be significant.) And finally even where the fragment to break apart each fragment would continue more or less on the same path which would cause it to miss the earth.

As to why you ignore the earth's gravity in all but the closest near miss: With a V relative of 15km(km/s) and a distance of 15,360 KM the object is being accelerated by a force of (12,756.3/(12,756.3+15,360)) * .0098km/s/s = 0.00445km/s/s and that's tangential to it's path but it's passing the earth at that point so it makes little difference. Steeping back to 30,000 KM the object is accelerating at .00111km/s but most of that vector is not pulling the asteroid into a collision course. You can think of it as a large vector along it's path and a much smaller vector pulling it into a collision course. The further out you go the smaller the net force and the smaller the fraction that's pulling the object into a collision course.

Earth's gravity is important when you want to know how the object is being deflected but it does little to alter the probability of impact for objects with a high relative velocity.

PS: Feel free to calculate the two vectors at 30,000KM and 60,000KM on a near miss.
(Now with line breaks...)

Re:Japan vs. India

[ThreeE]

Like there is any comparison between poverty in the United States and poverty in india... Comparing the poverty in the United States to the poverty in indian is like comparing a pinprick to decapitation.

Re:Japan vs. India

[The Cydonian]

Not to mention, India's budget allocations for space exploration is miniscule compared to, not just imperial Japan's war-budget, but also to India's own spending on poverty alleviation. Perhaps not compared to primary education or healthcare in some parts, but hey, you weren't complaining about the state of schools in Bastar region were you?