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India and US to Cooperate in Space Exploration

Posted by Zonk on from the friends-offworld-and-on dept.

p1234 writes "India and the US plan to cooperate in the exploration and use of outer space. India's first mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, is scheduled to be launched later this year. This is the culmination of long-term planning on both sides of the Atlantic. Apart from India's moon mission, Nair said a probe of Mars by India was very much on the agenda.'Our scientific community would like to see what new things we can find. It is not just for the sake of sending a probe to Mars. Yes, we have an agenda by 2012, by then we should have a Mars mission.'"

40 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Cooperation? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Funny

    India gets permission to use our moon landing sets in the American desert far from prying eyes :)

    1. Re:Cooperation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      India gets permission to use our moon landing sets in the American desert far from prying eyes :)
      Yep you know the one, right next to the secret government weather control complex and the Roswell flying saucer testing facility.
    2. Re:Cooperation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      The Indian version will be a musical.

  2. Call centers in space... by owlnation · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now we are outsourcing NASA?

    1. Re:Call centers in space... by Joaz+Banbeck · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, we are cooperating with the Indians because they are the natural opponents of two of our probable future oppoenents: China and Pakistan. Pakistan is most likely to be the source of an islamic nuclear bomb, and China is on track to become a true superpower to contest the US like Russia did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
      This is Machiavellian geopolitics. Having a friend on the Asian continent will be useful much like having Israel for a friend in the Mid-east.

    2. Re:Call centers in space... by flyingsquid · · Score: 4, Funny
      "Bangalore, we have a problem..."

    3. Re:Call centers in space... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Having a friend on the Asian continent will be useful much like having Israel for a friend in the Mid-east. Gee, I sure hope not.
      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    4. Re:Call centers in space... by supremebob · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...and YES, we already tried rebooting it!

    5. Re:Call centers in space... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yet another propagation of the misquoted phrase.. It was never "Houston, we have a problem;" it was:

      Houston, we've had a problem.

      </pedant>

    6. Re:Call centers in space... by Nemilar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pakistan is most likely to be the source of an islamic nuclear bomb,

      They are islamic and they do have a bomb already.

      --
      Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
    7. Re:Call centers in space... by XchristX · · Score: 3, Informative

      Even at the peak of anti-American sentiments after the invasion of Afghanistan, the hard-liner Islamic political parties never got more than 11% of the popular vote. The Muttahida Majilis-i-Amal and their Islamic brownshirts, Jamaat-e-Islami, control enough arms, ammunition and al-Qaeda/Hizb-ut-Tahrir/Tablighi-whatever-whatever-glorious-Fidayeen-Lashkar-Hizbul support to stage a nationwide coup very soon. Even 11% supporters is enough for a sufficiently fanatic bunch to gain power by force.

      Most political parties in Pakistan are moderate, and the nukes are buried deep in the military chain of command, which is secular. No, large sections of Pakistan army, as well as the ISI (Pakistani secret police) are controlled by generals covertly sympathetic to Islamic fanatics. Pakistan is an Islamist ticking time bomb. Add to that serious grievances raised by Pakistan's Muhajir Urdu and Baluch minorities being discriminated against and systematically marginalized by the Punjabi majority, full blown sectarian conflicts between Sunni and Shia Muslims (the Shilpa-e-Shahaba is not dead), as well as full blown civil war from independence activists in Balochistan and Waziristan (so what really happened to Nawab Akbar Bugti?) , and we have a dangerously volatile situation there. And not everyone has forgotten 1971 Bangladesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_atrocities ).
      --
      l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
    8. Re:Call centers in space... by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Seriously, I don't think anyone on either side of the Atlantic is considering the possibility of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.

      If that is true, then there are a lot of government officials being grossly negligent in their duties. If I were the US president, I'd already have a military strategy for destroying or smuggling out those Pakistani nukes in case their government were replaced with a radical islamic government.

      Even at the peak of anti-American sentiments after the invasion of Afghanistan, the hard-liner Islamic political parties never got more than 11% of the popular vote. Most political parties in Pakistan are moderate, and the nukes are buried deep in the military chain of command, which is secular.

      11% is more than enough. And we don't know how secular the military chain of command will remain. Given what has happened in the past with the Pakistani nulcear program, this isn't something that I'd rely on.

      Pakistan remains firmly in the pocket of the United States. And there's enough inertia from both Pakistan and the United States to make sure that these traditional allies remain that way.

      Pakistan isn't firmly in anyone's pocket. And given how shaky (and illegitimate) their government is right now, you're whistling in the dark.

    9. Re:Call centers in space... by PHPfanboy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, you're right.

      Stick with the Saudi's, they make a good market for your multi-billion dollar defense deals and keep your dollar high. Unfortunately they don't tend to show off the fireworks for your enemies' buddies to covet and last time they publicly demonstrated the capabilities of American industrial technology, you got a few thousand dead civilians in New York and a recession.

      Better luck with poverty-stricken Egypt, Baathist Syria, little poor Jordan, crumbly Lebanon and war-torn Iraq.

      --
      29 mpg. YMMV.
    10. Re:Call centers in space... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe he meant a bomb which works by compressing Muslims until they reach critical mass? Do they then split into a Jew and a polytheist and emit a high-energy atheist (which then collides with another Muslim causing a chain reaction)?

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    11. Re:Call centers in space... by amorsen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      11% is more than enough. Better than the US though, where the militant religious party has been known to get around 50% of the popular vote.
      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
  3. It's just a plan to get CHEAP astronauts! by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    -1 troll

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    Table-ized A.I.
  4. mutual benefit? by peektwice · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not trying to troll here, but it would seem that India could use our already sizable knowledge of space exploration, and we can use cheap engineers. I wonder if this has anything to do with the general decline in engineering enrollment at US Universities?

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    Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
    1. Re:mutual benefit? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      and we can use cheap engineers.

      You must not be a US engineer.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:mutual benefit? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Studies by the Rand institute and other research organizations have shown there is NO "engineer/sci shortage". Thus, it is a corporate myth that the US is not graduating enough. However, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if offshoring drives down wages in those fields.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:mutual benefit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have you ever seen what kind of mathematics is teached in American colleges?

      Math110 has less content than most math classes in the first year of high school in Europe!

      Maybe there are enough US engeeners around, but are they good for anything?

    4. Re:mutual benefit? by maxume · · Score: 2, Funny

      Correctin spalling on /./

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    5. Re:mutual benefit? by protobion · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I propose a different perspective. Have any of you actually thought, that all instances of cooperation of the US with China or India may not necessarily involve the other two countries supplying the "cheap labour". If you RTFA, NASA is actually providing 11 instruments to be on board the moon vehicle. No doubt , it will provide its knowledgebase as well. ISRO and NASA have a long history of co-operation.

      Satellites are not launched everyday, moon missions still more infrequently. The usual way to obtain access to space for whatever reasons is often to provide some payload to a party who's going to launch a vehicle anyway. Not too long ago, India launched a military satellite for Israel. What India is providing here, is the excellent satellite launching infrastructure it has due to an active space program. The US space program was always geared towards manned-missions.

      Let me end this rant by saying that developments in all fields do not have to reflect the trends in IT (where India does provide a cheap back-office). It's time people got off the idea that the US always provides the money, the knowledge, while other countries are sources of cheap brainless workers. Appreciate the achievements of others.

      --
      Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
    6. Re:mutual benefit? by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have a sweet job at a small biotech startup in Silicon Valley. I was born in Philadelphia and I'm as white as white guys come. So who else works at this company?

      The CEO, the CFO, and one of our principal investors are all from Iran. The CTO, the DBA, and my supervisor are from India. (The CTO is writing a tech book for a well-known publisher; I expect it will be reviewed here in a few months.) The principal database curator, the statistician, and three people on the dev team are Chinese nationals. The product manager is from the former Soviet Union; so is one of the UI devs and our street-smart IT guy. The head of tech support is Indian (OK, technically Canadian); she manages an offshore team of scientists in South America who import data into the system all day. We also just hired two additional Indian employees whom I haven't really met yet.

      And then there are three white guys including me- AFAIK the only U.S. citizens. Maybe a few others are too (I've never really thought about it). Half of the people where I work came from a company that was originally started by another white guy. He lost faith in the future of the United States a few years ago, sold his business to a Fortune 500 corporation here (which promptly mismanaged it into oblivion), and took something like 10 or 20 million dollars back home to Australia.

      I read threads like this one, I watch the news, and I listen to all the bloviating over Iran, over India and China, and it all just seems surreal to me. I wonder what the future holds for this place.

  5. Re:NASA Offshoring? by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now that's what I call REAL offshoring!

    I coineth a new term: "Moonshoring"

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    Table-ized A.I.
  6. This is geopolitics 101 by miletus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Like the previous deals on nuclear power, this is an attempt to bribe India away from getting too friendly with China and Iran, and buying U.S. arms instead of Russian. Science has nothing to do with it.

    1. Re:This is geopolitics 101 by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't think Iran's in any position to bribe India at the moment.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    2. Re:This is geopolitics 101 by evilviper · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Like the previous deals on nuclear power, this is an attempt to bribe India away from getting too friendly with China and Iran, and buying U.S. arms instead of Russian.

      China and India are likely to be very serious rivals, rather than friends. Both have huge populations, and are developing countries trying to break into high-tech. Being right next to each hurts rather than helps.

      Iran seems an extremely unlikely partner as well. India is an open democracy, with a far freer society, and are not predominately Muslim. I also don't see much that Iran could offer India to begin with, as India is technologically much further along.

      Russia... Maybe... Though India has much stronger economic ties with the English speaking western world than it does with Russia. Are Indian car makers trying to buy the Range Rover and Jaguar brands so that they can sell such branded vehicles to Russia? China? Iran? Not likely.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:This is geopolitics 101 by XchristX · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Iran seems an extremely unlikely partner as well. India is an open democracy, with a far freer society, and are not predominately Muslim. I also don't see much that Iran could offer India to begin with, as India is technologically much further along.
      India's greatest strength over Iran is it's liberal education, particularly in colleges and universities. That is why the technocrat generation in India is much larger and better trained than the ones in Iran.
      Interestingly, a lot of Iranian students are now interested in pursuing higher education in India, particularly after Ahmadinejad expelled liberal professors from Iranian Universities, and Iranians have a harder time getting into western universities because of political problems. I spent a summer in the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India and there were several Iranian students with very progressive and liberal outlook , unlike the Ayatollahs (they got me hooked on Dariush Mehrjui http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts/iranian_cinema_2595.jsp films) who were all cursing the Islamic theocracy in Iran.
      --
      l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
    4. Re:This is geopolitics 101 by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oil is a fungible resource. If Iran won't sell to them, someone else will.

      How dare you accuse other countries of infecting our oil with mold!

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    5. Re:This is geopolitics 101 by miletus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Iran has gas, India needs gas, and there was a pipeline deal from Iran to India through Pakistan, which pretty muched got nixed because of U.S. pressure.

      Russia has historically strong ties with India and still sells it a lot of weaponry. With the rise of a the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an emerging military alliance between Russia, China, various Central Asian countries, and now Iran, India has to choose whether to ally with her neighbors or the U.S. The stakes are pretty high geopolitically.

  7. Astronauts have had it too good & expect too m by walterbyrd · · Score: 2, Funny

    They expect their employers to train them, then they expect these huge salaries starting from their first day in outer space.

    NASA really had no choice. Either NASA had to get around the H1-B laws, or hire illegal alian astronuts. And Sigourney Weaver advised against that.

  8. Jokes by Teun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I see several jokes about cheap engineers or bad education, the scariest example of the latter is probably the statement in the summary about 'both sides of the Atlantic'.
    It really makes me wonder where India borders the Atlantic...

    A likely indication the summary was done with some US-style geography classes :)

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    1. Re:Jokes by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

      'both sides of the Atlantic'. It really makes me wonder where India borders the Atlantic...

      The borders have been offshored too.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  9. Sharing of knowledge will help US and India by mohanbabu · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is a great opportunity for both countries to share the best scientists on both sides. This mission http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/about_chandrayaan.htm is very critical and challenging for Indian scientists. They need every help they can get to pull this. In the past, when US denied supercomputing facilities, Indian went and reinvented the wheel http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2906865.stm (although the effort was worth it).With relations improving between two countries, it will be foolish and immature not to accomplish.

    This effort will NOT face any opposition like the Nuclear deal. The nuclear deal went down the drain because the stupid "left" politicians played the "Indian congress government is surrendering to US" card. They also threatened to withdraw their support which would have collapsed the Congress ruling party http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/wm1688.cfm. This time, they will make sure this deal is made and take the bragging rights for landing India on the moon. Yes, the Indian politics is screwed up. But they are not fools to let this deal go away.

  10. Re:GOD DAMNIT by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stop being a racist! You ass hole!

    I think the anti-offshoring sentiment is more an anti-corporation movement than an anti-Indian movement. I've seen in detail how corporate lobbyists manipulate the facts to create a "shortage". The bad guys are really the corporate lobbyists who hype free-trade and bribe politicians with campaign donations. We are not a democracy if lobbyists control politicians to such a degree.

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    Table-ized A.I.
  11. Re:Wrong country to learn from by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    who gives a shit when we can waste billions on exploring space?

    Do you have any idea what you talking about, what the value of near-Earth space efforts have been? Billions upon billions in economic returns (hell, weather monitoring alone is worth the price of admission.) Space research is hardly wasted. Could all of us do better at managing our world? Sure. But shutting down space programs isn't the way to do that.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  12. China? by donutello · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you're going to title your post geopolitics 101 you should know that there is no danger of India getting too chummy with China. The two countries have several issues including a long-standing border dispute. India is not going to get chummy with China anytime soon. It's more likely the US wants to build India up to be a stronger foil to China in the region.

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    Mmmm.. Donuts
  13. Both sides of the atlantic? by jmdc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um ... India's not on a side of the Atlantic.

  14. comments here remind me of blue collar miners by sunilarjun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sad to see the types of comments posted here---remuind me of blue collar miners etc...who would talk of "college educated" guys in the same way---because they were scared their way of living is being disrupted. If you're getting your butt kicked by India and China, learn to innovate---that's what America stands for---I don't hear Bill Gates or Steve Jobs whining like the pathetic folks here.

  15. Re:Do NOT expect a civilized society in India... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As per BBC, 80% of the Indians live on 20 rupees (25p) a day. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6946800.stm And that matters how?

    20.00 INR = 0.511247 USD as per http://www.xe.com/ 20? My that's different from a few years ago. Has your currency fallen to half its value in comparison to ours in such a short time? Huh. I know you got screwed with Bush and all but damn, some of that rise is our doing.

    And do NOT expect a civilized society in India... I'm sorry for you. Your ignorance is astounding. I apologise if you've experienced the hillbilly backward-ass Bihar or UP but if you're talking anywhere else, dude wtf? Glass houses eh. All these people, presumably Americans talking about 'bad education' and all, lol wut? Our education system is tough and the students are too. From experience I can tell you that almost any developed country Indians go to, they have a much easier time keeping up. Our idiots are your 'average'. Ultimate was when I was watching 'Beauty and the geek' the grad level questions that they asked? It's the same level as our high school.