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India Brings Back Orbiting Satellite to Earth
bharatm writes "In a pathbreaking event heralding its arrival as a space power with capability to recover an orbiting satellite, India today successfully brought back a spacecraft to earth, giving a new impetus to the proposed manned mission to space in the next decade."
no mention on /. of China's newfound ability to shoot a satellite that is in orbit.
Monstar L
Is test an ASAT missile.
(I'm sure that's coming.)
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Holy Cow!
Now we can have cheap interstellar labour!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
When I first read the headline and blurb I thought India retrieved a satellite. As in how the Space Shuttle can go up, retrieve a satellite that otherwise is not designed for reentry, and bring it back to earth. This craft was designed for reentry in the first place, so they didn't really "bring" it back - they commanded it to return on its own.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
I was in India last year; the poverty and malnutrition in the outlying areas is simply heart-breaking. Worse than anywhere else that I've been. Call me old-fashioned, but before a gov't starts acting on all of their world-stage aspirations, shouldn't they feed their citizens?
I guess that one could make the case that India's space program is an investment in the future, but I wouldn't want to be the one to try to sell that to people who don't have enough food.
Ya know, I just had an epiphany on outsourcing to India...
We all know the popular press about issues regarding process, quality, et al. with Indian Outsourcing. However: I recall that once upon a time, Japanese manufacturing was the butt of many a joke until the early 1970s.
Just saying, I would suggest that any smirking in the direction of the Indian Outsourcing phenomenon is a little premature because I imagine it is inevitable that these issues will eventually be worked out.
Wikipedia has a pretty good page on reentry technologies. Not that trivial to get all the systems perfected! A developing country like india needs this impectus to excite younger generation about science and space.
"Feed your children India!
(Score:0, Troll)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22, @09:16AM (#17709874)
why dont these heartless hindus use some of their engineers to design sanitation systems, water purification plants, food preservation technologies etc? This sorry excuse of a nation has the world's largest concentration of hungry people without access to clean water or toilet facilities. Shame on them!"
He does have a point however. "The World's Largest Democracy" (tm)
India spends a lot of effort on developing military capabilities. Feeding their people is obviously not a priority.
India spends a lot of effort on developing military capabilities. Feeding their people is obviously not a priority.
Again: see my first post on this.
It's well and good for us Westerners to wag our fingers at them, but we're not the ones sharing borders with their potentially hostile neighbors (Pakistan, China).
You know, there are millions of undernourished people in the U.S. too. It would have been nice if our government fed it's citizens before acting on all of it's "world-stage aspirations."
Katrina happened after we got into the Iraq War.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Shouldn't US have rebuilt New orleans and Missisippi devastated by Katrina before jumping into the Iraq War?
Yep. I think most people here are not going to argue that the Iraq war is worth the expense.
Each nation has its own priorities, and while you spout an altrustic question, the same was true in 1969 when UJS landed a man on moon.
The poverty in US at that time was high enough.
No, it wasn't. I think parent's argument isn't that you have to completely wipe out poverty, but that the level of poverty in India is so bad that a space program really is a waste of money. The poverty in the US in 1969 is still exponentially less than in modern-day India.
Best to retrieve it before China shoots it down I guess.
Nothing witty
> India Brings Back Orbiting Satellite to Earth
n dc/la-fg-satellite19jan19,0,2329821.story
You think they're going to leave it out there for China to shoot it down?
It's like when you see someone practicing reverse parking on your neighbors car.
You briskly move yours into the garage.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingto
Good - the world needs more competition fueling peaceful space industries. And more stakeholders across national borders in space property, so there's more complex consequences to blowing stuff up out there.
Now, where will the quality ratings come from? A "Consumer Reports" or "JD Power" testing report for these services of varying cost and quality?
--
make install -not war
I do volunteer work in the inner-city and in rural Appalachia so I've seen first-hand the things that your link indicates, but the poverty in these places simply does not compare to what one will see in some of the places (India, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Pakistan) that I've been.
Yes, there is work to be done in the US but it's mostly treatment and/or education. Your post, however, glibly trivializes the dire circumstances that exist in many parts of the world where there simply is not enough food.While anyone can cook up stats about hunger, there is a simple test that can indicate the true level of hunger in an area: offer a half-eaten sandwich (or whatever) to someone in the street and see the reaction. In the inner-city area near us where I serve, that will at least get you cussed out, if not get the crap beaten out of you. However, we have had six-year-old children at an outdoor restaurant in Oaxaca, Mexico, gratefully eat the last bite of our salad. Similar results in the countries listed above.
The fact is that there is hunger in some instances in the US, but it is more often due to parents' mental illness or drug/alcohol use than to a general lack of food availability. Often there is enough money but it is squandered on other things. In many cases in rural Appalachia, we have gone to houses where the kids truly do not have enough to eat and yet the parents have Marlboros (not even generics) and/or satellite TV. There's not much that can be done when parents care more about smoking and television than feeding their kids. Also, have you never heard of the Hunger/Obesity Paradox. Read up, becuase in America, the poorest kids are also the fattest.
" India Brings Orbiting Satellite Back to Earth"
Shouldn't US have rebuilt New orleans and Missisippi devastated by Katrina before jumping into the Iraq War?
The US was in the Iraq war before Katrina hit.
The poverty in US at that time was high enough.
I do not think that word means what you think it means. The poverty line in India is a whopping 1 US dollar per day according to the world bank, and the government on India puts it at around a third of that. About 75% of India is under this level. In the US however, the poverty line is $9800 per year, about thirty times that of India, and only 12.7% (as of 2004) of the population fall beneath that. Comparing the US investment in space with the Indian investment in space given their relative domestic situations is a bit ludicrous.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I just started humming the theme from "Moonraker"
> India launches them. China shoots them down.
I believe that it should be:
"India launches them. The United States, Russia and China shoot them down. "
First laugh of the morning... A +1 Funny for you!
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
I'm very sure that the budgeting issues between these two activities are so insanely far apart, that any sort of comparison would be impossible to make.
Tossing a rocket into space with a vehicle built for re-entry would be a lot easier and cost a lot less than making sure everyone in a country containing 1.2 billion people will be fed properly.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Let's see, how much food is wasted in building a satellite? Unless the rocket burns flour or vegetables, I can't see how not launching it would contribute to feeding anyone.
Or do you mean the money spent in the program should be used to buy food and give it to the needy? In that case, perhaps not launching one rocket would ease the hunger of a few million people. Today. But what about tomorrow? How do you propose to end once and for all the chronic problems of malnutrition in India? The Indian space program is giving their people a future, something that's infinitely more valuable than a plate of food.
The same can (and has) been said to all nations that spend money on space travel.
From "Whitey on the Moon" (1969) by The Last Poets:
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
As if all that shit wasn't enough
A rat done bit my sister Nell
(and Whitey's on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made last year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain't no money here?
(Whitey's on the moon!)...
"I'm very sure that the budgeting issues between these two activities are so insanely far apart, that any sort of comparison would be impossible to make."
Laughter hits the hardest when you're not expecting it. Hilarious!
I suggest investing in crop science to produce more food with the same land resources. It's worked here.
Epiphany, huh? Actually, if you read even popular press, you'll see that countries such as India and China are commonly referred to as "developing" countries. This means that some day soon they are widely expected to be on par with other "developed" countries such as Japan, South Korea, etc. If this sort of thing interests you, pick up the Economist or a similar magazine and you'll get some estimates about when this might occur.
On another tangent, if you go back in time a little further, you'll learn that Japanese manufacturing was considered world-class after their battleships knocked out most of the Russian west fleet around the turn of the century and was continued to be considered so until the Americans came knocking thirty-some years later.
I think you're right about Americans being arrogant, however. There are a lot of other people smarter and harder working than the average American out there, and global trade doesn't care if you think you're superior if someone else can do the same job better for less money.
From the 2nd article:
I guess that's ONE way to do it. <grin>
please dont make joke of our Gods (Its a Request).
It can hurt many.
*Sample sentence. Opinions expressed within may not reflect actual opinions of the author.
sic
So, how about the USA sharing with Third World nations some of that science? Why should a poor country like India have to reinvent the wheel when so much food surplus is sitting in warehouses in the rich countries?
Let's face it, all that advanced agriculture has a *negative* return in investment. India doesn't have those hundreds of billions of dollars that Western Europe and the USA spend in farming subsidies. Not to mention the ecological disaster that is erosion and fertilizer run-off.
Less developed countries do export cash crops. But rich farmers are the true benefactors of the "Green Revolution". Poor farmers cannot afford the patented seeds, tractors, fuel, and everything that's needed to produce the crops American science has developed.
To feed the starving, many small social actions are needed, such as better education, professional training, crop diversity using native plants which have evolved to be resistant to local pests, etc. This is an effort that does not compete and can perfectly well coexist with and profit from space science.
Dont comment without godd statistics at hand! makes you look like a fool!!
So, if everything should be done to feed the hungry right now, without regard to the future, what are you doing in Slashdot? Sell your computer, give up your internet service, spend *EVERYTHING* to feed a starving Indian child!!
Why are you scoundrels unable to feed half your children
You seem to be under the impression that I'm an Indian. I'm not.
FTA: A Coast Guard helicopter located the spot, and a team drawn from Coast Guard and Navy was soon at the job of retrieving the spacecraft, which they did, and uploaded to a ship "Sarang" to be taken to the spaceport of Sriharikota via Ennore Port.
Did the U.S. Coast Guard pick up this satellite or was it some sort of Indian Coast Guard? And India has a "Coast Guard?" That article seems really confusing. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the government has sent the U.S. Coast Guard overseas... nothing surprises me any more relating to the deployment of American forces in places they shouldn't be.
Looking at your words i believe you have no idea on what is really happening in India,
India has the most amount of meal in school schemes and all sponsored by the government,
All these meals are of course nutritious, India is no more a hungry country,
It is required to remove all poverty which would take another 10 years if it grows at 10 % PA.
A strong pointer is India's Space technology is used for delivering education to remote places,
Weather Prediction and Satellite broadcasting.
A country to progress has to concentrate on all core areas, you would accept this if you understand how an economy works !! Science is important and India's space program and Nuclear Program are very important not just for this country but for the whole human civilization as it reduces it dependence on conventional polluting energy resources.
You have to understand India is no more an under developed nation , and if you think the country has to go to each Indian's home and feed them, its not possible nor is it practical, when it starts to grow in all spheres those unfed Indians will find a way to feed themselves, and thats the way its supposed to happen .
So is it your claim that India is one of those places that have this "true level of hunger", where "there simply isn't enough food"? On what basis do you make this claim?
You'll find that hunger in India has the usual causes: unscrupulous businessmen and government officials beholden to them. (Hmmm, sound familiar?)
And, to bring this back on topic, do you seriously believe that unless you've solved problem A you can't work on problem B? In other words, as long as there are starving children in India, India can't work on, say, computers.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Why is it India's responsibility only ? Why is it the responsibility of India to feed Indians ...oh just because you were born in a different country gives you the right to throw away resources. Who gave you this right ?
the Indian scientists and the army is just doing what Europe and USA is doing consuming a lot of resources per capita.
Be oblivious as much as you can !
Your post, however, glibly trivializes the dire circumstances that exist in many parts of the world where there simply is not enough food.
Umm, the biggest problem in India is not production but storage and distribution.
And oh, these satellite thingys have helped improve agriculture by weather forecasting, geological and geographical surveys, communications etc. Amongst other things, such as education, industrialization, early weather warning systems and the like.
But hey, you go ahead. In your total idiocy and lack of vision, sit there mocking at technological achievements which are the crux for the foundation and development of any society.
But before you go, you should consider reading a little something about economics and Japan before and after WW2.
People have won Nobels for proving that you cannot solve any economic problem by throwing money at it -- oh, and the guy who won it happens to be an Indian. Turns out that you actually need a grassroots system, and a system capable of needing and sustaining higher order tasks and needs within a society.
What sheer stupidity. Denying a man his dream is the worst kind of sin one could commit. To quote Oscar Wilde, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
But hey, if the gutter smells wonderful to you, who am I to stop you from sniffing at it. Those that can dream will dream.
People in the US who are not impoverished are loaded with propaganda that there isn't much poverty in the US. Just like we are made to gasp at the elitist class in evil communist nations that hold all the wealth; it is rare to have anyone pay attention to the fact that 95% of the wealth in the United States is in the hands of less than 10% of the population.
The middle class in the United States is only as large as it is because the numbers are twisted to include lower upper class and upper lower class individuals in the middle class. But even more than that, it because the US simply has such vast amounts of wealth that the crumbs from the loaves being handled by the upper class still amounts to quite a bit of bread compared to crumbs seen in other parts of the world.
Nomadic, for the love of all that is fluffy and adorable, will you please stop misusing the word "exponential"?
You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Exponential means doubling (or halving) in a constant period of time. Period. It does not mean "a lot".
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
And oh, these satellite thingys have helped improve agriculture by weather forecasting, geological and geographical surveys, communications etc. Amongst other things, such as education, industrialization, early weather warning systems and the like. Good point. Seriously, I hadn't really considered that. I wonder if going to the moon helps too.
But hey, you go ahead. In your total idiocy and lack of vision, sit there mocking at technological achievements which are the crux for the foundation and development of any society. Way to go, Strawman! I never mocked technological achievements. Not once.
What sheer stupidity. Denying a man his dream is the worst kind of sin one could commit. Such an asinine statement, that it doesn't really need to be refuted...but what the heck. A man (or woman) doesn't have the right to fulfill his/her dream on public money. Public money is presumably for the public good. If it is his/her dream, let him come up with or raise the cash like Jeff Bezos.
But hey, if the gutter smells wonderful to you, who am I to stop you from sniffing at it. Those that can dream will dream. Dream on then, Oh Great Strawman Dreamer!
Less developed countries do export cash crops. But rich farmers are the true benefactors of the "Green Revolution". Poor farmers cannot afford the patented seeds, tractors, fuel, and everything that's needed to produce the crops American science has developed.
To feed the starving, many small social actions are needed, such as better education, professional training, crop diversity using native plants which have evolved to be resistant to local pests, etc. This is an effort that does not compete and can perfectly well coexist with and profit from space science. I agree. My wife and I have been very active for over ten years in efforts to bring this training and technology to third-world countries. I travel outside the US to teach certain aspects at least twice a year. More help is needed, especially from the type of technologically savvy people you find on
BTW folks India happens to be one of the bread baskets of the world, isint it ironic ?
In one of my early Civ3 games, Ghandi surprise attacked me with a nuke. For some reason that has stuck with me. (It was a bad move as I had several nukes and wasted India...he apparently had only the one.)
> Umm, well then use the money to build infrastructure.
Infrastructure needs engineers, resources and a system that can produce such people.
> Good point. Seriously, I hadn't really considered that. I wonder if going to the moon helps too.
Oh, I do not know - maybe the fringe benefit of discovering all these other technologies along the way. Not to mention a technological know-how that brings business to launch satellites for other countries into space. Something that helps the economy, you know?
> Way to go, Strawman! I never mocked technological achievements. Not once.
Umm, India did something technological (i.e. bring a satellite back from orbit) and you said that the money was better spent on poverty blah blah (classic troll) - if not mockery, perhaps derision? That, or stupidity. Sorry, I just couldn't figure out between all those, "Oooh, sit back and live mundane lives without any thinking or progress till you have solved every problem in your country" statements.
> Such an asinine statement, that it doesn't really need to be refuted...but what the heck. A man (or woman) doesn't have the
> right to fulfill his/her dream on public money. Public money is presumably for the public good. If it is his/her dream, let
> him come up with or raise the cash like Jeff Bezos.
Ever strike you that a lot of people in India maybe proud of what is going on? Ever strike you that a large chunk of the "tax payers" maybe folks who are in the middle class who would like to see their nation make it big? It's called national pride, d'oh.
> Dream on then, Oh Great Strawman Dreamer!
Hey, being a strawman dreamer than a party pooper.
Well as a liberal who believes the more unequal the distribution of wealth, the worse off we are, and as someone who believes the wealthy should be more heavily taxed to provide more welfare spending, I still stand behind my statement. I think there's a substantial difference between third world poverty and first world poverty. Poverty as it existed in 1969 America could be fought while you also explored space. It could be argued that poverty as it exists in rural India in the present day is incompatible with ambitious, unnecessary government programs.
And, to bring this back on topic, do you seriously believe that unless you've solved problem A you can't work on problem B? In other words, as long as there are starving children in India, India can't work on, say, computers. Actually, at this point, I'm not sure. There may be an overlap that I hadn't considered. I'm not so sure about going to the moon, but as someone else pointed out, satellites have benefits for food production (weather predictions, etc). I wonder if it can be quantified.
In all fairness, I could be reacting more out of emotion and despair than straight logic. It is really a horrible thing to see so many people in so much need and realize that you can do so little about it.
Shouldn't US have rebuilt New orleans and Missisippi devastated by Katrina before jumping into the Iraq War?
Yes, if you live in a crazy world where time runs backwards.
A lot of Heartless Hindus did actually work on such technology. Problem is This tech is too expensive for India . Maybe you use such tech without realizing that some indian engineer had a hand ( mind??) in the design. WIndows , Intel , AMD , Nasa , Theoritical Physics, Math ??Part of the so called developed world was developed by people from the third world.Mebbe they should have stayed home and you wouldnt be typing this so glibly.Perhaps you dont know that India has the worlds highest population density. That India is working peacefully to solve her problems is no reflection on another larger richer country that seems to wage war in other nations for their oil or in retaliation or lead the world in plundering and polluting the environment or in it's wasteful use of resources.
Isn't the Sarang a Vulcan ship?
I didn't say the Hindus are heartless. Please think before you lash out.
I merely rescued the AC's post from (-1 Trolldom because they are making
a valid point here and somebody obviously didn't like it.
The main reason that many folks in India go hungry is due to the failure in part of the food distribution system due to corruption at the lower levels nearer to the point of distribution to the masses. As a result of the Green Revolution during the 70's and 80's India has had surplus food production for a long time allowing the export of food products.
...but as I said due to corruption at the lower levels .. the benefits do not entirely reach the masses. Spending more money is merely going to make the corrupt more rich .. what is needed is to make the system more efficient, not pour more money into it.
The Indian government already spends a lot of money on feeding the poor
I cant believe this got modded troll. Parent makes a valid observation. Talk about double standards.
Unless of course you want to be President and become so - which happened with a guy from an "untouchable" caste who obviously couldn't have done it without popular support. The attitute to women there isn't perfect either but they have also had a woman in charge of the nation. Any other misconceptions you want to talk about?
US and Australia didn't exist as nations in 1499. the people who lived there were subsequently the victims of European exploration.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
So, when India absconds with an orbiting satellite it is heralded as a positive event, and when the Chinese merely slam a rod into one, it's a very serious threat! Is this a recycling thing?
Oh, how the Pentagon will quake in its boots should China and India ever decide to blind the eyes above Asia.
I'm pretty sure we've brought back satellites back to earth before, such as Skylab. Oh, they didn't mean cratering it? That's a little different.
No, because the Iraq War was started on March 30, 2003, whereas Hurricane Katrina didn't make landfall until August 29, 2005. Despite all the money that the US "squanders" on high-tech stuff, the US still hasn't managed to invent a time machine.
Well, it already provided everyone a free, compulsory education, and you didn't bother to learn the difference between "it's" and "its". There is only so much the government can do, and beyond that, people have to help themselves.
In the United States, it's really damn hard to literally go hungry. I know this because I've known people who couldn't afford to feed themselves without government assistance, and I've seen what the government provides. Heck, I even been to the grocery store several times with one guy I knew who paid for essentially 100% of his food with the public money available to him as a single guy. It wasn't super, super generous, but he was able to get enough to eat despite his penchant for buying $15.00/lb salmon and the most expensive organic free-range chicken you can buy and despite his tendency to shop at the high-end grocery stores in town, all of which is, incidentally, perfectly legal when buying food on government assistance.
Oh, and speaking of legalities, this same guy would also sometimes have some credit left over at the end of the month and be in a "use it or lose it" situation, so he'd try to get people he knew to go to the grocery store with him, buy their groceries with his remaining credit, and get them to give him cash. (The astute reader will have noticed that I described him as a "guy I knew" rather than a "guy I still know".)
And this all happened in Texas, which is not exactly on the "hey, let's tax people to institute more government programs" center of the universe. So tell me again: why is it that you think there is a hunger problem in the US?
China just did this last week. Old news.
it doesnt make much sense to reply to someone who looks up facts on some unknown website and making racist comments here as an ANONYMOUS COWARD !