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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."
Holy Cow!
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
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.
I think it would be better if they gave up their nuclear weapons research rather than their space program. Better to cancel a destructive program than a constructive program to alleviate poverty.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Yes, but you are presuming a causal linkage between the two if you suggest this (i.e. Money for Space = No Money for Food for the Poor).
I'm certain that a few things are on the mind of those who advocate the Space Program for India:
In the end, I think India is reaching for the stars to make sure there is a way for those people to be fed.
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
I'm sorry, but that's silly. Money is not a "zero-sum game". You are thinking of "money" in a pure balance-sheet, consumption-level sense. Remember, money is a carrier of value, a representation. If the value of a thing increases ten-fold, do you still pay the same in money for it?
As an example, let's say that by India being able to launch its own satellites it is able to improve its communications grids and make great savings in the cash sense, without relying on Western launchpads and satellites.
Don't you think they're saving money in the long run? Don't you also suppose that by saving that money, they can re-invest those savings in programs that assist the poor?
In India they speak English, which is not exactly the same as American. To Indians, India is 'home' and they may even have a government department known as the 'Home Office' or even a minister of 'Home Affairs' - that is the English tradition anyway. Therefore, on a grand scale, 'home built', simply means 'Made in India'.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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.
What is it about space stories (whether it's the US, or elsewhere) that always brings out the "Won't somebody think of the poor?" comments?
I knew I'd see something like this as soon as I saw this article - and indeed, two comments in the top ten posts.
Why do people not make the same charitable "Think of the poor" suggestions for other things? Most notably military spending, but Governments spend all sorts of money on things other than helping poor people. No one complains then. Indeed, usually you get the opposite response - "Why should I have to pay for poor people?"
One of the interesting side effects of the cell phone explosion in rural India is that these farmers negotiate deals with big city wholesalers directly and skip one, two or sometimes even three levels of aggregators. Savvy farmers are cutting out the commissions to the middlemen by a large extent.
Of course weather prediction is another huge factor for Indian agriculture.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Let's go back to 1499. European countries were launching voyages of exploration, seeking out new trade routes and discovering new countries. Guess who else was doing that? China. Until their government decided that they should fix their problems at home before spending excessive resources on maritime exploration.
So where is China today compared to Europe in terms of domestic poverty? If you're going to stay at home until your domestic problems are solved, you're going to stay at home forever.
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So after they feed their people today, what do they do tomorrow? Welfare is a luxury for countries who have enough money that they don't need to make hard choices between economic progress and social well-being. For a developing nation, spending money on welfare for today's population is a sure way to perpetuate poverty to future generations. Investing in the economy, on the other hand, at least gives the hope that fewer people in the future will need welfare, and moreover that the government will be able to better afford welfare for those who still do need it.
There is also something to be said for the importance of a nation having ambitions on the world stage. Let me use as an example Bangladesh, where my parents were born, and which I still visit on occasion. Bangladesh has no ambition as a nation. Bengalis have no national pride to speak of, aside from a generally provincial sense of moral superiority. Their poverty is something that doesn't just manifest itself in the lack of food on the table, but something that infects their very mindset. They accept the state of affairs in their country, the political corruption and the social instability, because they lack the pride to believe that they are entitled to something better. Of the various problems the country faces, this lack of pride is far worse than flooding or hunger or disease combined. India presents a very stark contrast. If you look at the villages of India, you'll see the same hunger and disease you see in the villages of Bangladesh. But Indians have a great pride in their country, and in its long history of civilization. Their ambition drives them to improve their economy, invest in their infrastructure, and preserve their democracy. It is this ambition that makes it likely that in another couple of generations, India won't have to choose between improving their country and feeding the hungry. There is no similar hope for Bangladesh.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It is a valuable deterrent, especially given that India is surrounded by China on one side and Pakistan on the other - both of which are quite trigger happy.
Secondly, India has a no first use policy, which Pakistan does not share (I am not sure if China has a no first use policy).
Given the region, I'd say it's better to have a deterrent than none.
Besides, if there were no deterrent, there would be more frequent skirmishes and the like which would cost more money in the long term. With this, folks are afraid of any serious incursions because it could escalate into something bigger. So, you save more lives, money and resources that may have been spent on war.
It's not a zero sum game.