Indian Rocket Blasts into Space

Quacking Duck writes "Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched it's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) rocket from the Srikharikota launch-pad. The rocket carried 4 satellites into space, 2 Indian and one each from Argentina and Indonesia. Interestingly, one of ISRO's payloads, Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), expected to return to Earth 13 days after launch, will be the first test of its re-entry mechanism. This is a step towards ISRO's ambitious goal of designing and building a cheap reusable launch vehicle. ISRO is also planning a manned mission to the moon, Chandrayan-1, which is expected to use a modified PSLV rocket which was used for this launch. This successful launch comes close on the heels of the failed July 2006 GSLV lauch which had ended in an expensive fireworks display over the Bay of Bengal. Another GSLV launch is planned for later this year."

Comments

idiot pedants (somewhat OT, sorry)

[Flying pig]

Apart from the fact that life is too short to argue over this one, consider that it arises from an inconsistency in English.
HIS book (not HES book)
HER book (you have it wrong - it is NOT "hers book")
ITS book
MY book
John's book
See the pattern? His, her and my are inflected, not formed by adding an S onto he,she and me respectively.

To form a possessive by addition, we add apostrophe s

So what do we do with "it"? "its" is not at first an inflected form. It appears to be formed by adding an S onto "it", and by the usual rules would therefore be "it's". Applying the same rule backwards to the other forms would give hes,shes and mes books respectively.

This is an example of a case where the uneducated thinks one thing, the partly educated thinks another (because they were taught a half-understood rule at school) whereas the highly educated professional (like my English teacher, a first in English from Cambridge) with a deeper understanding of grammar, points out that the rule in use is arbitrary and you could do things either way.

Grammar Nazis. Sheesh.

Re:idiot pedants (somewhat OT, sorry)

[Petrushka]

whereas the highly educated professional (like my English teacher, a first in English from Cambridge) with a deeper understanding of grammar, points out that the rule in use is arbitrary and you could do things either way.

Well, be fair, it's not arbitrary -- it's for very specific historical reasons, to wit, that many nouns in English used to form their genitive by adding on an extra syllable '-es', but as time went on it was easier to skip out the 'e' ("syncopation"), so that the apostrophe is quite regularly acting to indicate that part of the word has indeed been abbreviated, as apostrophes always do in English; while on the other hand 'it', as a pronoun, was always irregular and had 'its' (not 'ites') as its genitive.

But this is all hideously off-topic (and wouldn't be worth commenting on if not for the extraordinary self-centredness and narrow-mindedness of the sibling responses to your post that have gone up so far). To get back on-topic, India's Space Research Organisation officially rocks.

WRONG!

[YA_Python_dev]

Chandrayan-1 (the correct spelling is Chandrayaan-1) isn't a manned mission.

Re:WRONG!

[junglee_iitk]

And it is "Sriharikota" and not "Srikharikota"!

More info for interested:
Sri ~ Mr.
hari ~ Hindu God
kota ~ some name (I don't know :) )

Re:Re-entry capsule != ICBM

[corpsmoderne]

The purpose of a re-entry capsule (for maned flight) is slightly different from a ICBM re-entry vehicle. The capsule is supposed to land at speed ~= 0 The ICBM re-entry vehicle impacts Earth or is detonated at a speed of Mach 10 or 15 . It's definitely not the same thing.

Re:no less then 4 stages for leo?

[imsabbel]

Generally, more stages== more efficient.
If you can manage to keep them reliable, and keep the additional mass because of the seperate engines/ect small.

to be noted...

[TheCybernator]

the PSLV is quite different from GSLV. If am not wrong, the PSLV is powered by Cryogenic Engine developed ingeniously after Russia declined the technology transfer.

Re:to be noted...

[metalcup]

not true actually..the PSLV is powered by a NOX/solid fuel combination ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launc h_Vehicle) while the GSLV is powered by the cryogenic engine.

Reason for 4 stages

[amightywind]

The US built LTV Scout used for stages, all solid motors. If you use lower Isp engines you tend to need more stages to loft the same payload.