India Launches 10 Satellites At Once

freakxx writes "India sets a world record after launching 10 satellites in one go using its workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). All the satellites were put into their respective orbits successfully. It was the core-alone version of the launch vehicle weighing 230 tonnes with a payload of 824 kg in total. Two of the satellites were Indian satellites, while the rest were from different countries. By this launch, the ISRO has proven its credibility and it is going to boost India's image in the attractive multi-billion commercial market of satellite launches. This was the 12th successful launch of the PSLV."

Comments

Building a ... Cluster?

[adpsimpson]

Suddenly, I'm worried I won't have to imagine a Beowolf cluster of satellites...

Sorry.

Leave it to India

[elrous0]

You ever seen how many people they can pack in a single traincar?

Re:Leave it to India

[Anonymous Coward]

they still can't beat THIS, yet...
http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

Re:Leave it to India

[phorm]

It may be marked as funny, but I find it fairly true that India is definitely a country where the "more-in-less" concept seems to fit. I have a room for rent in my condo, and recently got an email from an family that is moving here and wanted to rent my room (not a small room, but it's still only a single room in a 3bdrm/1bthrm condo) for the parents and their child. When it comes to space and comfort VS saving bucks, the common mentality seems to go with the latter.


I'd imagine that the packed human-conditions may very well affect an overall thinking of how to best-fit as much possible into a small space. A lot of other highly-populated countries seem to be very good at miniaturization for similar purposes.

Re:Leave it to India

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, wait... just ONE family? Two parents and one child? The last apartment I lived in, had a two-bedroom one-bath unit next door.
I was able to count 14 people living in it. The conflict I had was this: There was a single water heater for the entire complex. It would have been sufficient for normal occupancy. This, not the lure of low interest rates, was the lash that beat me into home ownership.

Re:Leave it to India

[Anonymous Coward]

they still can't beat THIS, yet... http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html Come to delhi, we'll show how we can beat this vibrantly.

Re:Leave it to India

[ozbird]

You ever seen how many people they can pack in a single traincar?

Indeed; the real question is: how many other satellites fell off during launch?

Re:Leave it to India

[Mex]

Ah, yes, the US keeps making jokes while everyone else races ahead of them in the tech field...

Good for India.

[master_p]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

Re:Good for India.

[alxkit]

did you not read the article? maybe with this new program they will be able to feed them all.

Re:Good for India.

[Fear the Clam]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

Leave it to a Mac fanboi to make everything into a joke about Vista tech support.

Re:Good for India.

[ajs]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions? 1. 1 billion is nearly the entire population of the country (1.12 billion est.)
2. What better way to improve living conditions than to become a hub for space technology?
3. I think you may be under some misconceptions about the state of Indian rural life as compared to, for example, the state of Mississippi.

If you're not sure that you know what you're talking about, perhaps you should do some research. If you had, you'd be able to say something like:

India has twice the poverty rate of, for example, the U.S., though that has dropped substantially since their independence and is widely seen as a potential model for a rapid exit from third-world status for other nations.

Re:Good for India.

[adpsimpson]

<sarcasm class='troll-feed'>
It's terrible, isn't it, that all foreign people are starving to death in their billions.

Just as well there aren't any poor people in the USA - and hey, those little adventures in the Middle East have really paid off there, haven't they?
</sarcasm>

In seriousness, there are much better ways to phrase what is, essentially, a valid question.

Re:Good for India.

[JaredOfEuropa]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

1) Commercial launches such as these pay for themselves and help defray the total cost of the India space programme.
2) High tech stuff like this creates jobs for academics and skilled workers, who'll be part of India's growing middle class. I believe that creating wealth top-down, by having wealth trickle down from an affluent and productive middle class to the poor, works a hell of a lot better than forever "giving that man a fish to eat".

Re:Good for India.

[somegeekynick]

I think this is an argument similar to those put forward by some Americans against NASA's space programme. And I think the reply to both is the same: The respective Governments are not wasting the entire nation's wealth in the development of space technology and exploration - they do that elsewhere!

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop whining ... everytime someone (esp India) does something worthwhile, all of a sudden poverty is visible and no other accomplishments. Have you done home work on the % of people who live below poverty line in US of A ? Get a grip and stop the rant, for once admire something, even if it is for few seconds.

Indians will eventually solve their problems.

R

Re:Good for India.

[esme]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

I'm always amazed by this kind of arrogance towards developing nations. This kind of comment is seen any time there's a post about the OLPC project, for example.

Do you really think it would be productive if the government of India spent its entire time trying to directly alleviate hunger and poverty? Don't you think that encouraging industries that provide high-paying jobs is a good part of a long-term strategy to improve people's lives?

More to the point, did it never occur to you as a (presumably) well-educated, technically-inclined person that education, science and technology were part of the solutions to the developing world's problems, not just a distraction?

-Esme

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's like; every time Ubuntu releases a new version, people asking how is it going to stop US from going to wars :-)

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that money makes you happier you are very wrong.

After having travel led many countries I can find people in rural India may not have electricity, may not have great roads but definitely they are happier than a lot of us folks.

The simplicity of rural life sometime make me wonder whether what we do is really worthwhile.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

India has jumped ahead to ventures such as this without constructing an infrastructure for the system. Its not just poverty and being poorly fed, its roads..hospitals..power..water. Of course everyone loves to say we've launched satellites into space. But I'm sure the people of India would rather have food on the table than satellites in the sky.

Re:Good for India.

[kgskgs]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

Every time I read a comment like this, I don't know what to say.

Do you know what is the single biggest thing that has helped poor farmers all across India? Please visit http://www.echoupal.com/

It is a website for small farmers. Even for those farmers who don't have Internet, there are kiosks in villages where volunteers explain them and help them use the website.

Using this, the farmers network and help each other solve problems. Single biggest benefit of this has been spotting and eliminating corrupt middlemen who give unfairly low price to farmers and sell it for high price to traders. This one advantage is worth entire effort behind this initiative.

Unfortunately Western media does not find these stories interesting. They love to show poor hungry children begging for food. Then they get to portray the Western world as the noble minded donor.

The truth is even poor people want to work hard and improve their lifestyle. Information technology, Internet, communication infrastructure, is what will give them a chance. It is absolutely right thing if a poor country with a billion hungry people launches satellites. It is better than a rich country launching wars.

Re:Good for India.

[JrOldPhart]

Indians will eventually solve their problems.

Hell, they may well rule the world. They already rule the world of customer service, and Quick-E-Marts.

Re:Good for India.

[ArcherB]

2) High tech stuff like this creates jobs for academics and skilled workers, who'll be part of India's growing middle class. I believe that creating wealth top-down, by having wealth trickle down from an affluent and productive middle class to the poor, works a hell of a lot better than forever "giving that man a fish to eat". Good point!
I can't really think of anytime in history where wealth has been built from the bottom up!

Re:Good for India.

[NotBornYesterday]

I see your point, but surely you realize that postponing progress will not cure any problems in India or anywhere else. If we in the US had put our space program off until all our citizens were fed, we'd still be on the ground. Ditto everyone else in space. If you feel badly about world hunger, I could suggest a few nice charities you could give to ...

Re:Good for India.

[Ethanol-fueled]

They were born into that lower caste because they were MS-DOS users in their past lives.

Re:Good for India.

[letxa2000]

I can't really think of anytime in history where wealth has been built from the bottom up!

Sssh! There are Democrats here and it's an election year so they're bound to claim otherwise, as silly as that may be.

Re:Good for India.

[priyank_bolia]

I guess you should improve your GK about the world's second fastest growing economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

Re:Good for India.

[Eastender]

I am an Indian. I live in New Delhi. Having a a fair amount of exposure to the business world (2 decades), I have experienced more than my share of arrogance and well, I also have experienced the brilliance of the people from US and Europe. Things are changing, attitudes to Indians are becoming a little more respectful (though we tend to exasperate a lot of people with our casual attitude at times ...) India had made immense investments in education, science, technology, poverty alleviation schemes and infrastructure etc... though not always wisely, efficiently and hardly ever in ways free from corruption and exploitation by the political-business interest groups, Thankfully, something still got through to the people and they made the best use of it. That is the story of India: We are making it despite the government, which much to its dismay (any govt in power, I am happy to say, is discovering this), is finding that it has to give back to the people something, else it gets voted out of power. Democracy rocks. In India, it may be chaotic, but at the end of the day it works. I dunno why. :) I am loving it!

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's like; every time Ubuntu releases a new version, people asking how is it going to stop US from going to wars :-)

Well you have to understand that the US never actually went to war in Iraq. An undisclosed bug in Windows for Weapons of Mass Destruction for Warmongers broadcast spoofed packets announcing that Osama Bin Balmer had 228 patents on WMDs hidden in Iran. This bug also affected Windows for Warplans which sent a mass broadcast of false attack orders to all of Dick Cheney's Windows Live! friends list after the spell checker altered Iran to Iraq.

Re:Good for India.

[psamty]

The ignorance of some Slashdot posters is beyond belief. The US had poor people too, when it launched the first Apollo mission. It still does today, when it's spending on national security is at least twice that of any other nation. Does this mean that it should bring technological advancement to a halt to feed the poor?? The government's job is to to set the country's direction. This creates jobs, creates investment, and eventually leads to better conditions for its citizens. It is not the government's job to make sure you've got food on the table - that responsibility is yours. We have a long way to go - but the only way to get there is by giving the people a sense of empowerment, by making them believe in their country and themselves.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has traveled through India and the US, this statistic on poverty is totally contrived and not reflective of reality, despite what you might find on wikipedia.

Poverty in the US may mean you are with out health care and/or living in a trailer park and driving a beat up car.

Poverty in India generally means you are dying of starvation, have no running water, no house, are illiterate, and work for $2/day if you're lucky.

This being said, India is growing at an incredible rate and shows incredible promise.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you have to look at facts. not all one billion are under poverty. 400 million are middle class. 4 out top 10 billionaires are from India. If you don't know facts don't waste time writing..

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh yeah people may be starving in India and those comparison with DEVELOPED nations do look cool.
but why not do some comparisons like TEEN pregnancy and crap like that. surely that also looks cool with the USA topping the teen pregnancy charts. eh?

Re:Good for India.

[omkhar]

This is different than the US how ?

Re:Good for India.

[Lord Haw Haw Haw]

Indians will eventually solve their problems.

Hell, they may well rule the world. They already rule the world of customer service, and Quick-E-Marts. give us a few years and we will back those high paying investment banking jobs... we'll create sub-prime crises in the US, sitting right here out of Bombay... :o

Re:Good for India.

[Dog-Cow]

Actually, the (US Federal) Government's job is outlined in the Constitution and has nothing to do with anything you wrote. What the Government has chosen to do, however, is something else again.

Re:Good for India.

[Dog-Cow]

The human female reaches reproductive maturity at age 12, before the teenage years. So what's wrong about teen pregnancies?

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions? USA has significant amount of poverty too, with a poverty rate of about 13%.

What's better for eliminating poverty, fighting wars or launching commercial satellites?

Re:Good for India.

[morgan_greywolf]

The simplicity of rural life sometime make me wonder whether what we do is really worthwhile.

You know what. You're right. I'm going to stop using this computer right now, stop posting on Slashdot, stop hacking on Linux, stop all my software development projects, throw all this stuff out and go and move out into the middle of nowhere and maybe grow a few citrus trees.

Nahhhhhhhhh!

Re:Good for India.

[Le_Papet]

Please don't tell me you're that naive. While strictly in terms of health teen pregnancy may be fine but you have to consider the social aspects. The mother will probably drop out of school so there goes any chance of a decent job. It's a very stressful thing, especially when the fathers tend to leave, for someone so young and the upbringing of the child will undoubtedly suffer. Increase rate of suicide compared to other teenagers. There's a bunch of other problems too. Just type teenage pregnancy into google.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions? Actually, I was born and brought up in India, but now live in Canada. I went back there to visit in 2006 after living in Canada for 6 years.

I did find lots of people starving to death, but I couldn't help notice that those people were happier than "well-to-do" North Americans. They laugh and cry from their heart. They don't wake up in the morning and start worrying about mortgage, bills, credit history, car insurance, gas prices, getting laid etc. They don't need caffeine to start their day and I saw them snoring on the curb after a hard days's labour.

I'm not a nationalist. I just believe that a nation being poor or rich is not as big a deal as we might think it is. I just wanted to share this feeling with other readers.

Re:Good for India.

[dbIII]

So tell me - from Texas or is it Utah?

Wait ... the death penalty sig gives it away. Looks a lot like wierd Texas commune talk to me.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bless you Sir and know that there are at least some people around who realize India is a truly marvelous nation (and I would add "not just recently" but that's a slightly different topic).

Those who do not see India as pretty much an equal are either ignorant of India or ignorant of the history of their own country. Likely they're blindsided by the fact that the industrial revolution started long ago however that matters little as the kind of general affluence the so-called industrialized nations now have were anything but common before the second world war (and some recently freed European countries are just now beginning to reach the same level across the general population).

As for democracy it's always somewhat chaotic and that's often part of what makes it better ^_^

Kind regards,
a person fortunate enough to get to stay in India on a prolonged visit during the early nineties

P.S. I let Americans proclaim without debate that the US is the greatest democracy on Earth, it's ok with me and they have a point, but India is without a doubt the biggest democracy on Earth ^_^ (at least until we should be so lucky as to add China to such a classification, but perhaps even after).

P.P.S. And even though I'm not a citizen of either it makes me happy that US-India relations have become much better recently, long overdue in my opinion.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions? Every time I read a comment like this, I don't know what to say.

Do you know what is the single biggest thing that has helped poor farmers all across India? Please visit http://www.echoupal.com/

It is a website for small farmers. Even for those farmers who don't have Internet, there are kiosks in villages where volunteers explain them and help them use the website.

Using this, the farmers network and help each other solve problems. Single biggest benefit of this has been spotting and eliminating corrupt middlemen who give unfairly low price to farmers and sell it for high price to traders. This one advantage is worth entire effort behind this initiative.

Unfortunately Western media does not find these stories interesting. They love to show poor hungry children begging for food. Then they get to portray the Western world as the noble minded donor.

The truth is even poor people want to work hard and improve their lifestyle. Information technology, Internet, communication infrastructure, is what will give them a chance. It is absolutely right thing if a poor country with a billion hungry people launches satellites. It is better than a rich country launching wars.

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions? Every time I read a comment like this, I don't know what to say.

Do you know what is the single biggest thing that has helped poor farmers all across India? Please visit http://www.echoupal.com/

It is a website for small farmers. Even for those farmers who don't have Internet, there are kiosks in villages where volunteers explain them and help them use the website.

Using this, the farmers network and help each other solve problems. Single biggest benefit of this has been spotting and eliminating corrupt middlemen who give unfairly low price to farmers and sell it for high price to traders. This one advantage is worth entire effort behind this initiative.

Unfortunately Western media does not find these stories interesting. They love to show poor hungry children begging for food. Then they get to portray the Western world as the noble minded donor.

The truth is even poor people want to work hard and improve their lifestyle. Information technology, Internet, communication infrastructure, is what will give them a chance. It is absolutely right thing if a poor country with a billion hungry people launches satellites. It is better than a rich country launching wars. India has done a fantastic thing....
congrats tot he scientists and Engineers of India for achieving it....

One of the sat is dedicated for third world countries I think...

Great...

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please note that, according to the above wiki page that you linked to, "A 2007 report by the state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) found that 70% of Indians, or 800 million people, lived on less than 20 rupees per day[67] with most working in 'informal labour sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty.'"

Every country has different poverty lines and just because one quarter of two different country's population is below the poverty line, does not mean that that proportion of the population lives in similar circumstances.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, it is because the men have young wives that can't (or rather don't know that they can) divorce them that makes rural Indians happy. Women's rights makes men unhappy slaves.

Re:Good for India.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with pregnant teenagers if they are married (for life, IE the girls CANNOT DIVORCE and do not have rights) to an older man.

Re:Good for India.

[praSAD2407]

For all those who argue about money being wasted on satellite launches by India:
1. ISRO earned $0.6 million when PSLV-C9 put eight foreign nano satellites in orbit. http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/29/stories/2008042960551000.htm
2. It's a profitable business - for every $1 spent on the space programme the return has been $2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7374714.stm Considering these launches as purely commercial ventures, they are profitable and self sustaining. Who wouldn't want to invest in a business with 200% returns? I know I would

Re:Good for India.

[master_p]

No, no and no. Economic development is the result of the distribution of wealth, not the result of advanced technological programs. I am all for space exploration and I back NASA and ESA up, because they have solved a big percentage of the problems of their people (although both USA and Europe are in decline)...but India? there is a large percentage of the population that still live in great poverty. Instead of throwing the money to space, they could have improved the social infrastructure, build better roads, schools and hospitals, and those things would be much more beneficial to Indians than launching satellites.

Re:Good for India.

[master_p]

The rooting out of middlemen is the job of the government, it should not be the job of the people. In an organized society, it's the State that creates and enforces the laws about competitive practices and monopolies. What you say is like if Microsoft's anti-competitive practices where hunted by the people themselves and not the authorities.

The reason such cases exist in India and in other countries (middlemen that buy products in very low prices and sell them in very high practices) is because of the lack of any sort of organized checking on what goes about in the markets. It only shows how disorganized the Indian government is. That technology helped solve the problem does not make the issue go away.

Well, sure, they have the cheap launch system.

[rbrander]

It's like the Chinese causing earthquakes by all jumping off a chair at the same time: you just need a teeter-totter and 127-million Indians all jumping on the other end at once...

Re:Well, sure, they have the cheap launch system.

[Missing_dc]

It's funny you said that. When I read the headline, I imagined a giant trebuchet flinging the satellites into their respective positions like a bucket of rocks. Now mine isn't as Non-PC as yours, but its the same concept.

Re:Well, sure, they have the cheap launch system.

[Noexit]

So you're saying that only one family could launch a satellite?

Re:Well, sure, they have the cheap launch system.

[rbrander]

Thanks; I guess it was "non-PC", it sure didn't get modded up. I'm not sure what insult it is to base a dumb joke on the simple fact that India has a very high population, but insult it was, I guess - live and learn.

Is India feeling inadequate?

[UnknowingFool]

India, it' okay if you can't launch the largest satellites like the US and Russia. You don't need to launch the most just to prove yourself. Remember size doesn't matter.

[Snicker]

Sorry, I almost said that with a straight face.

Re:Is India feeling inadequate?

[Anonymous Coward]

âoeFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.â

I guess India's up to step 2.

Just remember, the technological curve that India's on is a lot sharper than the one the US has had, and the last 8 years of stunting science in the US by the current administration is only going to hurt long-term.

--iamnotayam

Re:Is India feeling inadequate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not search the net before blowing hot air out of your ass. http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive06/India_032706.html/

Looks like the Russians are using ISRO's services to launch their satellites.

Re:Is India feeling inadequate?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive06/India_032706.html

Fixed that for ya

AAUSAT-II

[wizards_eye]

One of the satellites is made by students at Aalborg University.

You can follow the status here:
http://aausatii.space.aau.dk/eng/

10 Satellites at once..

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, they learned it watching 5 people riding a 2 wheeler..

Troll. Why not yell at the world too

[Shivetya]

because as a world there is enough wealth to end hunger.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. We also do not have the stomach for it (no pun intended) because it would cost us lives to remove the leadership that routinely starves their own populations.

India is coming forward rapidly, by advancing space science they advance all their sciences. They also give their people something to strive for - something they can show children that India is and what they can become. Let alone the fact that satellites provide better weather monitoring , can track crops and movement of animals. The possibilities of helping their own are a hundredfold, let alone what they can do for others.

Oh, before you troll India again I must ask, did you buy food out this week? If so, why? There are lots of poor people who could have used it in rice to feed a family... so why didn't you help? Oh, yeah, thats because its easier to be a forum troll and blame others for not doing instead of doing yourself.

Recommendations

[Wowsers]

Someone should tell the European Union about this way of launching satellites... then the politicians might stop wasting vast amounts of European taxpayers money on their own vastly over-budget but completely worthless GPS system, using the tracking of road drivers as one excuse for it's existence.

Re:Recommendations

[JaredOfEuropa]

Politicians might stop wasting vast amounts of European taxpayers money on their own vastly over-budget but completely worthless GPS system

From Wikipedia:

Galileo is intended to provide more precise measurements to all users than available through GPS or GLONASS, better positioning services at high latitudes and an independent positioning system upon which European nations can rely even in times of war or political disagreement.

It might be redundant for many positioning applications, but completely worthless...?

According to the same source, the EU is spending 3.4 billion Euros on this. This is just half of what we're spending on "administration" this year, and considering the other truly worthless crap we are spending money on, having our own GPS system is a pretty good goal in comparison.

Re:Recommendations

[Anonymous Coward]

Galileo isn't "our own GPS system" it is intended to complement GPS. In particular it will be aimed at providing a reliable service for applications where interruptions could be costly or even dangerous (ship navigation and the like ).

Furthermore, because of differences in how Galileo and GPS transmit their signals it should be possible to combine data from the two to get a more accurate position than would be possible with either system on its own ( or alternatively, just SOME estimate where none would otherwise be available ). The two systems are thus truly complementary and not really substitutes in the classical sense.

Re:Recommendations

[ballfire]

You know, with this satellite they injected a total of 824 Kg into a 625 Km orbit.

Galileo has an orbit with a altitude of 23222Km with 675Kg a satellite.

How could this be used to launch Galileo?

Re:Recommendations

[ballfire]

Sorry, where it says "with this satellite" it should say "with this launcher"

Re:Recommendations

[afidel]

Hmm, well India is now a partner in GLONASS so there will soon be a total of three global positioning networks. Assuming they all use different frequencies a smart device should be able to do much quicker and much more accurate atmosphere corrections. I can't imagine that being a bad thing =)

Re:Recommendations

[pimpimpim]

Ok, so having a backup from non-EU countries I can imagine, but how will the EU ever reach a state away from "political disagreement"? We have about 20-30 states right now (I lost count), and every one wants to have its say of course.

Re:Recommendations

[olman]

And to add insult to the injury, the Galileo project money is actually pulled from agriculture subsidy surplus. So no additional money is actually collected from taxpayers.

Let's have a count of hands here, how many people think it's more important to fork money to pure goverment pork (literally) rather than developing some high-tech jobs in europe?

Hey! That argument was actually the same as the tired old strawman people trot up wrt India's space program!

Finding a Niche

[FurtiveGlancer]

It seems India has found a niche to fill in the space game. They serve a low/medium highly inclined polar orbit, not nearly geostationary, but still a need to be filled.

Isn't this supposed to be the century India passes China as the most populous nation on earth? Those folks are going to need jobs.

Re:Finding a Niche

[ibsteve2u]

If India's ambitions end at "niche", I'm from the Andromeda galaxy. I still remember a comment on ComputerWorld where a systems analyst from India mentioned how the U.S. was once dominant in things technical, and then stated that India can turn us off any time they want to, now.

16 satellite launch ...

[kharchenko]

last year. But still, it's impressive. Although I think they're putting them in SSO and not LEO just yet.

Re:16 satellite launch ...

[doctor_nation]

Er, SSO is LEO. According to Wikipedia, SSO is usually at an altitude of 600-800km, and LEO is defined as any orbit between 160km and 2000km. ISS is only at an altitude of 350 km. If you're in any kind of stable orbit (i.e. above the atmosphere), you're in LEO or higher.

Also, considering the size of a Cubesat (1 kg, 0.1 cubic meter), you could launch several hundred on any launch vehicle.

I have this picture in my head...

[jskline]

Of one day looking up and really noticing that the available amounts of sunlight has been diminishing due to the rampant expansion of tracking and communications satellites being pushed into orbit by all the nations of the earth.

Then we begin to see the outcome as diminished crops, rampant expansion of the polar ice belts, strange drops in cancer rates from excessive sunlight exposure in bikini clad Caucasian women;... And some strange little guy on the global news service saying something about "the sky is falling; the sky is falling!"...

Re:I have this picture in my head...

[Prisoner's Dilemma]

Then we begin to see the outcome as diminished crops... The crops just need more Brawndo. It's got electrolytes.

Re:I have this picture in my head...

[op12]

...one day looking up and really noticing that the available amounts of sunlight has been diminishing due to the rampant expansion of tracking and communications satellites being pushed into orbit by all the nations of the earth. Finally, a solution to global warming!

Re:I have this picture in my head...

[berashith]

strange drops in cancer rates from excessive sunlight exposure in bikini clad Caucasian women so we can end cancer by simply placing white women in bikinis? sign me up for the test!

Re:I have this picture in my head...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it will cancel out global warming.

Laugh while you can

[oliderid]

Most of the above posts make fun of India. Well I must say that this record is quite impessive considering all the fuss the ESA made over their launch of two satellites in a row few years ago.

Few things I have noticed the last years:

• they bought Jaguar from Ford few weeks ago.
• They established serious businesses competing in our fields (computer).
• Math has been an indian skills for centuries.
• The indian state is democratic.

Sure they still have a long road ahead (poverty, bureaucracy, nationalism, protectionism,akward traditions, etc.) but they are definitely on the right path.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Yvanhoe]

We need to stop mocking India and to stop fearing China. Things will balance out.

Re:Laugh while you can

[bondjamesbond]

Don't forget Range Rover, or is that the same company? Also, an Indian discovered Algebra, if I remember my Math History course.

Re:Laugh while you can

[DNS-and-BIND]

Hahaha...oh, oh, my side hurts...hahaha...

I see that you have obviously never been to India. And I like how you bash India's thousands of years of culture by calling it "awkward traditions".

Re:Laugh while you can

[punit_r]

Few things I have noticed (about india in) the last years:

they bought Jaguar from Ford few weeks ago.

Don't forget Range Rover, or is that the same company? Yes it is --- Tata Motors.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to stop ... fearing China. Things will balance out. I think that historical evidence indicates that those who fail to fear China eventually become China. No thanks.

Re:Laugh while you can

[oliderid]

I could hardly call this: http://www.geocities.com/kathipadmarao/DURBAN.html a modern way of organising a society.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

A good list. Thanks for seeing India in positive light.

But as an Indian, I am not so sure about the last item. Theoretically, yes, we are a democratic union of states. Practically, in every election, you will have hard time deciding which candidate has less murders, rapes and extortion changes against his/her name - that too assuming that your name is in the voters' lists, and you will actually be able to vote.

Democracy lives only in the memory. The country has gone to pigs. All the development and progress you see is IN SPITE of the government, not BECAUSE OF. But the Indian soul has been battered and bruised so much over last 1000 years, that when its raped by its own, it doesn't even hurt anymore.

But as our politicians love to say every freaking time they visit another country, we are the largest fucking democracy in the world. And the world likes to repeat it.

Re:Laugh while you can

[AncientPC]

On top of that, why can't the US achieve this sort of payload efficiency? Our space program has been around for ~50 years now and we're spending significantly more per satellite to launch them.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Yvanhoe]

Self preservation and prudence do not always come from fear.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

What, exactly, are you referring to?

In any case, most of the things that current established nations (especially European nations or the US) have to fear are internal and economic, not threats from other nations (or terrorists for that matter).

When was the last time a decent-sized nation where things were going good internally was conquered by an external force?

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

and they have nukes.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god that website is horrid. Look at the source...

The day that table rows replaced <p> tags is the day the whole internet wept.

Re:Laugh while you can

[tenco]

Also, an Indian discovered Algebra, if I remember my Math History course. No. "Algebra" comes from the arabic "al-jabr". Algebra was invented by the babylonians (Iraq), if Wikipedia is correct.

Re:Laugh while you can

[mapleneckblues]

You also forget that the Indians taught you how to count with a zero. All the comments above that mock India simply reek of jealousy, fear and denial. Sure we have our own (large) set of hard to solve problems and unsolved problems but this is a country which is only into its 61st year of independence. They just cannot digest the fact that a developing nation can outdo them.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Jorophose]

I'm with Anonymous on this one.

There is nothing to fear about India. To be honest, when India starts balancing out its interior policies, it would be a very nice, very strong country, something like just under Germany in terms of living quality if not the same or better. They're running the show with good intentions.

I can't say the same about the PRC. I know I'm going to get burned on this each and every time, but I can't see myself supporting such a country.

And hey, GP, Math is a middle-eastern skill! ;)

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

So India has a history of 61 years and China claims to be 5000 years old. To think of all those Chinese falling to the center of the earth when they accidentally crossed the border for 4439 years. I bet the Chinese are glad India came into existence and filled the gap.

Re:Laugh while you can

[icepick72]

akward traditions, etc.) but they are definitely on the right path

Indeed it will be nice when they give up their traditions for yours -- a veritable turning point.

Re:Laugh while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, buy don't invent, that seems to be the anti American
element these days.. don't invent technological advancements, just borrow
what has already been proven.. That is weak and pathetic..

You owe America everything in this age!!!

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States sets a world record after shooting down 10 satellites in one go...

You beat me to it (^^)

[MacDork]

they still can't beat THIS, yet...
http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html

If you could understand what they say in Japanese, it would be more fun. Someone talks to the pushers, '"It must be hard to do this everyday". And the pushers say "OK now, puuuuussh!" "hey a leg is sticking out!"

MIRV demonstration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this launch a not so subtle warning that India is capable of MIRV technology?

Re:MIRV demonstration?

[ivanmarsh]

That was my first thought.

For a while there I thought the world wouldn't end in a fiery apocalypse. Oh well.

Re:MIRV demonstration?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny you didn't think that when the white boys (the Russians and us) thought this up in 1966.
Does every technological advancement by others have to be thought through the prism of a threat?

Re:MIRV demonstration?

[ivanmarsh]

Funny you didn't think that when the white boys (the Russians and us) thought this up in 1966.
I did... I was hoping that threat was done with.

Does every technological advancement by others have to be thought through the prism of a threat?
If that technological advancement is a weapon it probably should be. It's not like they accidently invented nuclear missles while trying to perfect nuclear power.

But that's not the point... mutually assured destruction and proportionate response doesn't work against a nation that only has a few weapons.

I guess India's doing pretty well

[Apple Acolyte]

We seem to have trouble each time we launch a single space shuttle. . . .

Re:I guess India's doing pretty well

[MBGMorden]

Oh please. The false drama is too much to bear. The shuttle has had 121 launches total. We lost 2 of them. That's a 98% success rate. Despite the shuttle loses being bad PR and a very sad event, the program as a whole has been hugely successful.

Re:I guess India's doing pretty well

[eln]

Are you trying to say we should try launching 10 space shuttles at once?

Re:I guess India's doing pretty well

[afidel]

Not to mention that the first loss was completely avoidable if they had just listened to their technical advisor's! The shuttle program was designed with a loss rate of 1 in 100 launches and if it wasn't for the stupid PHB's we would be at 20% better than that. The follow up is designed with a loss rate of 1 in 1000 launches, but at a reduced technical capability.

These Satellites Are Weaponized

[Anonymous Coward]

as M.I.R.V.s.
against the United Gulags of America.

Nuclear Proliferatingly Yours,
George W. Bush.

Re:These Satellites Are Weaponized

[Chris Burke]

"Nuclear Proliferatingly Yours,
George W. Bush."

I don't believe it.

Watch out Springfield

[tab_b]

Too bad it wasn't 8 satellites, then they could have named them: Anoop, Uma, Nabendu, Poonam, Priya, Sandeep, Sashi and Gheet - and then the rocket itself would have been: Apu

On the good side...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the good side, we don't have to worry about the US military weaponizing space, since the complete ineptitude of conservative ideology will soon leave the US without a means of even getting into space, or the money to put anything there.

Stay the course, fiscal conservatives! You still haven't hit rock bottom!

Re:On the good side...

[eln]

I don't know what you're talking about, there aren't any fiscal conservatives in the halls of power anymore. All that are left these days are borrow-and-spend politicians (Republicans have proven to be experts at this, but the Dems aren't exactly falling all over themselves trying to raise taxes or cut spending either).

But yah, no one in Washington is even remotely interested in spending money putting much of anything into space, so any superiority we may have left in regards to space travel is pretty much doomed.

Re:On the good side...

[j-pimp]

Stay the course, fiscal conservatives! You still haven't hit rock bottom!

Our undoing will not be because of fiscal conservatism. I consider myself a libertarian war monger. I'd vote for Ron Paul if he was only pro war. That being said I do acknowledge that my military spending beliefs are not fiscally conservative.

Re:On the good side...

[Workaphobia]

I dunno, I saw a committee meeting about the ISS on CSPAN*, and they looked more than happy to throw more money at it. Not that I mind; if we're going to hemorrhage money, I think I'd prefer it to go to orbit of all places. The witnesses stressed the point that there was a lot of worthy research that was just waiting to be done, and it all depended on having a means of getting there now that we're losing the shuttles. I can't argue against that, but it was interesting how no one with a contesting view point was present at the committee.

* So it's come to that... Either my prefrontal cortex is coming in, or television just has nothing better to offer anymore.

Re:On the good side...

[dave87656]

The shuttle, as far as I know, it the only vehicle with the capacity to send something like a research lab into space.

I wonder if we'll revive the Saturn 5. Pretty amazing that we would be going back to 40 year old technology and still have the highest capacity of any rocket available today.

Re:On the good side...

[DarkKnightRadick]

isn't libertarian war-monger a contradiction in terms?

Re:On the good side...

[j-pimp]

isn't libertarian war-monger a contradiction in terms?

I believe all people should be able to defend themselves, therefore right to bear arms. That in itself is quite libertarian. I believe that nations should be allowed to defend themselves from foreign opposing forces. Even anarchist philosophy supports that, with the caveat that once they make us all anarchists we stop fighting wars. I believe in the ability to go on the offensive against foreigners if necessary. I don't believe this is a far departure from libertarian philosophy.

While I'm all for the abolishing of public schools, but barring that, I'd prefer they teach you how to fire a gun and march in gym class. I think practical battlefield skills would be a better syllabus than the current JROTC program. Indoctrination into army culture should be reserved for boot camp and officer training programs. That would also serve to keep the goverment scared of its own people and therefore willing to listen to their will.

I never served, and I am still within draft age, but I would probably support reinstating the draft. I am a firm believer of social contract in that aspect. That being said, I want to read Starship Troopers and other Helien works to see if his idea of earning citizenship makes sense to me.

I usually do concentrate on the fiscal aspects of libertarianism, and if I enumerated them you'd consider me a libertarian. One of my few departures from "pure libertarian belief" is that I am very hawkish, which is why I say I am a libertarian war monger.

Re:On the good side...

[DarkKnightRadick]

I can live with that, if not entirely agree with it. You need to read A Man Out of Time (not the originally published work, but the one his widow had republished, with nearly a 1,000 words that had been left out from the original publication).

Japan trains in 1991

[phoneteller]

Look at how they used to pack passengers in Japanese trains in 1991 Video of Japanese train in 1991!!

Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Muad'Dave]

Six of those ten satellites were Amateur Radio payloads. At least one is based on the de facto cubesat standard developed by California Polytechnic State University. You can now order your own off-the-shelf flight qualified cubesat, just in time for Christmas!

The Delfi-C3 sat is relying on the Amateur Radio operators around the world to help capture telemetry and forward it to their earth station. Pretty cool, in my book.

Re:Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, not really, C3 is aprox 10x10x30 cm not the de facto 10x10x10 cm.

Re:Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Muad'Dave]

As the article states, the C3 (cubesat 3?) consists of 3 cubesats bolted together. They even have a sexy deployment bin for either 3 10x10x10 or 1 10x10x30 sat.

From the site:

In order to shorten development time and test and verification procedures, the structural design of Delfi-C3 is based on the increasingly popular CubeSat standard, developed by California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) and Stanford University for exactly this purpose. A standard (1U) CubeSat is a cube with sides of 10 cm and a mass of up to 1 kg. Delfi-C3 will be the size of three of these standard CubeSats (3U). To standardize the launch process as well, CalPoly has developed a so-called Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer, or P-POD canister, capable of carrying up to three 1U CubeSats or one single 3U CubeSat. Additionally, CalPoly offers launch services to the CubeSat community with the P-POD canister as a piggyback payload on-board a number of different launchers.

Re:Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Anonymous Coward]

Six of those ten satellites were Amateur Radio payloads. At least one is based on the de facto cubesat standard developed by California Polytechnic State University. You can now order your own off-the-shelf flight qualified cubesat, just in time for Christmas!

The Delfi-C3 sat is relying on the Amateur Radio operators around the world to help capture telemetry and forward it to their earth station. Pretty cool, in my book.

That sounded like, 10 out of the 10 cars crash tested used dummies but not real humans :)

The point here is not about the capabilities of the satellites but the delivery of 10 satellites using one launch vehicle.

Re:Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounded like, 10 out of the 10 cars crash tested used dummies but not real humans :)

Perhaps a better analogy is "6 out of 10 of the "satellites" launched were pico-satellites of limited commercial value. Out of the other 4, 2 were commercial sats, and 2 were test MIRV vehicles."

Re:Most of those sats were built by amateurs

[Ailean Mac]

ARRL has a story about it on their site at: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/04/28/10067/?nc=1 Cool stuff...

Uh-oh. Where was it made?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about their traincars. I just hope it wasn't made in Bang-galore.

Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[Jane Q. Public]

With no replacement yet in sight for its Shuttles, which are scheduled to be retired in 2010.

How terribly sad. Thanks, George Bush.

Re:Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[gnick]

With no replacement yet in sight for its Shuttles, which are scheduled to be retired in 2010.

How terribly sad. Thanks, George Bush. But, IIRC, George promised us that we'd be putting a man on Mars. Just like his exit strategy, he has a solid plan - He's just waiting on his last day in office to surprise us with it. Have a little faith.

Re:Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[moosesocks]

There's nothing terribly special about this sort of launch. The PSLV is a fairly unremarkable vehicle, and there have been launches that have included more than 10 satellites in the past.

America did indeed even participate in the Russian launch listed above.

This launch also has virtually nothing to do with the Shuttle, which is primarily a manned crew vehicle. Retiring the shuttle is probably a good decision, given that it failed to fulfill its original design goals of being safe, cheap, and easily reusable. Unless nationalistic pride matters that to you, there's no reason why NASA shouldn't use Soyuz for the time being.

Re:Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[peragrin]

The shuttle is safe, and fairly easily reusable.

Cheap not so much, the Turn around time wasn't what was predicted either, but still the we normally launch a shuttle every 3 months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_shuttle_missions#Flight_statistics

Name one other space vehicle that comes anywhere close to those statistics. It's not the Soyuz where the shuttles carry twice the personnel, many times the payload, and still have some 30% more launches.

the shuttle isn't cheap but it is also the only large scale vehicle of returning satellites to earth safely. My only hope is that before they retire the shuttles they go get the Hubble Space telescope and put it up on display in the Smithsonian. That is a mission worthy of showing just how superior the shuttles are.

Re:Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[toddhisattva]

How terribly sad. Thanks, George Bush. Columbia was an inside job!

Re:Meanwhile, U.S. has stagnated...

[L0neRanger]

"The shuttle is safe, and fairly easily reusable." -- [sarcasm] Yeah Right [/sarcasm]

Stop insulting

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that not all of India lives in poverty right? When foreign nations look at US news, they see guns in schools and that becomes their image of the US. When people travel to India/watch the news, they travel to rural areas to look at what life is like. They don't remember the urban cities, they remember the poor citizens walking back and forth from wells to get water.

Ignorance is another reputation the US has. Stop ruining our image, educate yourself before you start stating vacuous comments.

poverty == india , always ??

[Anonymous Coward]

I just see this coming up on every forum. What people overlook is that India's population >> EUs population, can Europe concieve any (democratic)system working on that scale? "Assuming" the benefits of the space program are restricted to the 'elite' 10%, that number is much greater then the population of France/germany or any other european country.

~~johri.

WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

*sniff*

Outsourcing...

[PhearoX]

Cue the "efficiency experts" strolling through NASA hallways and the subsequent outsourcing of US satellite delivery and deployment.

I read a story about the outsourcing of PREGNANCY to India... Surrogate mothers carrying babies for "working women" who don't have time to be pregnant, but apparently will find the time to nurture and develop a child as a contributing member of society. *rolls eyes*

I wonder if I could outsource my job to some Indian kid for a couple hundred bucks a month and keep cashing my paycheck...

Re:Outsourcing...

[Tablizer]

Cue the "efficiency experts" strolling through NASA hallways and the subsequent outsourcing of US satellite delivery and deployment.

They already use Russian rocket parts to "keep costs down".

I read a story about the outsourcing of PREGNANCY to India

I've heard they're ramping up legal research outsourcing. Free-traders can mess with programmers and mothers and survive the criticism, but as soon as lawyers feel the squeeze, watch out! In America, you don't mess with lawyers.

Re:Outsourcing...

[PhearoX]

Haha... "offtopic"... The risk we take when giving random morons mod points. ;) Apparently they completely missed the first sentence of my post.

Re:Outsourcing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I am an Indian, if you want to outsource your baby-making, I am happy to sleep with your wife for a low low fee.

Call me on 1-800-BABYMAKER

Iridium

[Quiet_Desperation]

Wasn't Iridium at some point going to launch 12 or 16 at a time before that whole mess fell through?

What ever happened to all those plans for "Internet in the sky" with constellations of hundreds of satellites? Pie in the sky? Guess so.

Re:Iridium

[afidel]

Latency is horrible to satellites and bandwidth is limited by device transmit power. A much better idea is very high altitude balloons. Use solar power to keep the balloon within tolerance and you have basically solved both problems while having a launch cost a fraction of what even a small comm satellite costs.

On the evil side...

[camperdave]

I thought the US Air Force had acquired their own launch vehicles once they realized they couldn't rely on the shuttle.

Re:On the evil side...

[dave87656]

Yep. They have some pretty good boosters. They are also cheaper than the shuttle for anything they can launch. They don't have the capacity of the shuttle, but most satellites don't need that much.

You're kidding, right?

[donutello]

The Indians have it beat by a mile:

http://taz.de/blogs/wp-inst/wp-content/blogs.dir/44/files/2007/02/043%20overcrowded%20train%20India.jpg

Re:You're kidding, right?

[mercurialmale]

That picture is of a train in Bangladesh, not India - you can tell from the rake, which is not Indian Railways, and from the lettering on the plates, which is in the Bengali script. In India, these are ususally in English.

Further, the meme of folks regularly travelling on traintops in India is not entirely accurate - many trains and train lines are electrified, with overhead wires and pantographs making this impossible or at leasst very dangerous. And there's the fact that it's illegal to do so.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's Bangladesh.

AMSAT

[driftingwalrus]

My understanding is that this vehicle had more than one amateur radio satellite on board, as well.

Chill ppl

[notaknight]

Yup, it was only amateur sats they sent at the expense of short term benefits to the poor. Kudos for the technological endeavor. Lets not take this beyond that.
Chinese: Love their intelligence, hate their accent
Americans: Love their values, hate their government
Indians: Love their ambition, hate their mediocrity
Everyone's different and its OK. Why is this so hard to understand? In 200 years, everyone in the world would be CHAMERIDIANS anyway. (ref: Peter Russel - sooner or later 1/3rd the population of the world is gonna hump the other 2/3rd).

Re:Chill ppl

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary payloads was an Indian mapping satellite. All the rest were tiny in comparison, and basically used excess capacity. They paid their own way nonetheless.

Running headlong towards....

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just come back from 2 weeks living with relatives in Porbandur, Gujarat (the most prosperous state in India according to my cousin :)

Chief Minister Modhi has actually done a pretty good job of improving the state instead of lining his own pockets (as ministers usually do in India)

If he gets elected Prime minister (which is doubtful considering he doesn't cowtow to the US) then I have no doubt that India will become at the very least a "first world" country in the next decade

However, rumours of his sanctioning of the violent backlash against Muslims after the train attack near Ayodhya makes me wonder just what kind of first world country India would become...

There's another name for this technology.

[GigG]

MIRV Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle.

If I were Pakistan I'd be very concerned.

Re:There's another name for this technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were Pakistan I'd be very concerned. Pakistan has other things to worry about. Agni, Prithvi, and not to mention two million odd enlisted personnel.

I think the US should be worried about this one... (along with Surya and a couple more in the pipeline) :P

Re:There's another name for this technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian missiles can hit the Pakistani cities in THREE minutes. They don't need to put their nukes on MIRVs.

Hey Pakistan, China,

[hey!]

think maybe you're supposed to notice these things could've been warheads rather than sattelites?

I'm just asking.

Building a... MIRV?

[Moraelin]

Here's a funny thought:

1. India has nukes. (It also sits on huge reserves of Thorium and has breeder reactors, so it can transform them to uranium or eventually plutonium, as needed.)

2. If you can put an object in orbit, you can make it come down wherever you want it to come down. Or use a smaller rocket and/or a heavier load to make them go ballistic instead of orbitting at all. (For reference, the USSR's space program started the other way around. Someone realized that they had build a rocket so powerful to haul nukes, that it could put a small-ish object in orbit.) Rockets are that interchangeable purpose.

3. Inclined/polar orbits? Always good to have for a nuke, if nothing else, to hit a location that's not near the equator. Plus you might want to go extremely inclined to minimize flight time and thus warning time (I think both the USA and the USSR had most of their nukes aimed at each other over the arctic), or to lob them over international waters and avoid pissing off everyone else in their path.

As a bonus: once you can do polar orbits and big payloads, you can use spy sats.

Now I'm not saying India is necessarily aiming to become an ICBM power. Maybe, maybe not. And they're probably not yet ready to willy-wave internationally about it, in any case. But I'm saying I wouldn't be the least surprised if that was at least one factor in funding that space program.

I still remember seeing the news on TV when they had built their first nuke, and the general euphoria. It was waay back, while they were even poorer than today. Arguably that money could have been better invested in industrializing a little faster. But there were people cheering in the streets that they now have a big destructive weapon. I can see a lot of political capital in the implicit "and now we can lob it at anyone too!" message.

Now I'm not singling India out there. I think they're just... humans, like everyone else. And it's a sad thing that we'd rather have a big stick to threaten the neighbours with, than an extra slice of bread.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's a sad thing that we'd rather have a big stick to threaten the neighbours with, than an extra slice of bread.

I think you are missing some of the more subtle reasons nations want nukes. Its not so much about saber rattling, but more about the equivalent of a giant "Beware of Dog" sign that really ensures that your neighbors don't think about invading.

The economics of nuclear weapons are also favorable. You can maintain a ten million-man army, which requires constant training, feeding, replacement, etc... or you can build a bunch of nukes and have the same destructive capability. Its a classical trade-off between a high initial cost for a payoff later. Whats even better, is that the really expensive cutting edge R&D work was done during the cold war, so the cost of development is far lower today.

The Economist did a piece awhile back discussing why North Korea needed nukes- and their analysis showed that the cost of maintaining their huge standing army was literally going to cause the nation to collapse.

So nukes get you a few things- protection, status/power, and in the end a few more slices of bread too.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[_bulbgiver_]

And it's a sad thing that we'd rather have a big stick to threaten the neighbours with Try being a country without nukes and missiles living next door to several that do have them and also the will to use them. Sadly the world operates on the principle of "the strong did what they could and the weak suffered what they must."!

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[escay]

Not all countries' space programs are about war and weapons. some are less paranoid.

The 690kg CARTOSAT and the 83kg IMS-1 are both remote sensing satellites, equipped with panchromatic (B&W) and Spectral cameras to image earth at visible and infrared frequencies. Many, if not all, indian satellites are for remote sensing/meteorological - because in a country where agriculture is the primary industry, it is paramount to track the movement of rainfall, particularly the seasonal monsoons. These weather predictions are vital for farmers to ensure a good harvest. A good harvest leads to lower food prices - in effect, this launch has a very close relationship to feeding India's poor, contrary to many trolls here.
The focus of India's space program has, thankfully, been always about peaceful purposes while making money on the side by providing a cheap option for launching amateur radio/science project satellites built by students and universities (such as the other 8 in this launch). More info about the launch here.

As an interesting side note, the PSLV will also be used for Chandrayan-1, India's first mission to moon.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Lord Haw Haw Haw]

Here's a funny thought: 1. India has nukes. (It also sits on huge reserves of Thorium and has breeder reactors, so it can transform them to uranium or eventually plutonium, as needed.) India also has uranium/plutonium for enough nukes. So why bother with the thorium route. Anyway, we are preserving our supply for more *interesting* applications and shopping around for an independent source of uranium for power, courtesy the nuke deal.

2. If you can put an object in orbit, you can make it come down wherever you want it to come down. Or use a smaller rocket and/or a heavier load to make them go ballistic instead of orbitting at all. (For reference, the USSR's space program started the other way around. Someone realized that they had build a rocket so powerful to haul nukes, that it could put a small-ish object in orbit.) Rockets are that interchangeable purpose. India has a few ballistic missiles... The Agni series is the most prominent of the lot. I believe we are testing 5K range next year. (Beijing at last...) not quite the US yet, but still... Then there is the Surya. This one is almost mythical, but give it a couple of years... around the world should be a snap.

3. Inclined/polar orbits? Always good to have for a nuke, if nothing else, to hit a location that's not near the equator. Plus you might want to go extremely inclined to minimize flight time and thus warning time (I think both the USA and the USSR had most of their nukes aimed at each other over the arctic), or to lob them over international waters and avoid pissing off everyone else in their path. As a bonus: once you can do polar orbits and big payloads, you can use spy sats. India has been using remote sensing satellites for years and years... satellites in polar orbits go around the world and spy on the world. nothing to see here... lets move on...

Now I'm not saying India is necessarily aiming to become an ICBM power. Maybe, maybe not. And they're probably not yet ready to willy-wave internationally about it, in any case. But I'm saying I wouldn't be the least surprised if that was at least one factor in funding that space program. we are aiming to be one. It is a stated objective. The US knows it and wants to be on our good side. You can't make enemies of any and every country that can fry a couple of your cities... can you?

I still remember seeing the news on TV when they had built their first nuke, and the general euphoria. It was waay back, while they were even poorer than today. Arguably that money could have been better invested in industrializing a little faster. But there were people cheering in the streets that they now have a big destructive weapon. I can see a lot of political capital in the implicit "and now we can lob it at anyone too!" message. Yup, I've heard this argument before. don't compete with the big boys till you figure out hunger etc. This is a socialist argument and I reject it. So should you. This money spent on space is accelerating industrialisation. As does research in military applications. Food preservation by irradiation (yeah i know, still borders on science fiction), cheaper and better prosthetics, better alloys et al. All this is stuff the west denies us citing dual use and other such rubbish. An atomic clock is dual use... Bah!

Now I'm not singling India out there. I think they're just... humans, like everyone else. And it's a sad thing that we'd rather have a big stick to threaten the neighbours with, than an extra slice of bread. this was about a civilian satellite launch, you made it into a stick... I'm waiting for the time, when US reduces it's stockpile of Nukes to a point where it can destroy the world only tens of times over, rather than hundreds of times over. then we'll talk about the extra slice of bread. Your Paranoia knows no bounds. Rest assured, the stick is being built and we plan the biggest of them all. I hope you sleep well...

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[dhavleak]

India's guided missile program (Agni) is known to borrow heavily from it's civilian space program - this is true.

However, it's important to note India's proven track record as a non-agressor, which is especially remarkable when you consider that its surrounded by hostile parties in one way or the other.

India's first nuke test was in 1972. That's 36 years of indigenous nuke capability. In that time, they have been in a constant state of tension with Pakistan (and gone to war once - Kargil), had a prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi) asassinated by the LTTE (Sri Lankan militants), have parts of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (another state of India) occupied by China, have ULFA seperatists operating in Assam (a north east state of India), and have constant tensions at their border with Burma and Bangladesh.

Not once in this time has India used it's military in anything other than a defensive role. If India's neighbours (and indeed the rest of the world, and especially the US) showed that much restraint, the world would be a much better place.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah yeah yeah!! Like they say it .. "in an ideal world" :)

No single fiber of my brain-bean says that you are wrong or political about a nation or an entity, but you are just too ideal. World has improved a lot since Adam met Satan, and I'm afraid its running more and more away from being any IDEAL.

Besides, if you don't mind me being little optimistic, I would rather focus on the scientific advantages about the non-destructive advancements that could result from such achievements as this. I'm sure India is smart enough to use as a good revenue-source for its economy, while giving a signal to its enemies. (which is far better than spending the same amount on the border forces that could cost invaluable lives). I take no side on the international conflicts between India and its neighbors but I can't support loosing lives for those conflicts. Excuse me if I'm wrong. (Btw, Didn't mean to be coward, but lazy to login. Feel free to rep me @ nbonaparty AT Y! DOT com

Btw, thats a little diligent observation and analysis of yours.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you worried about India's ability to launch satellites into orbit. Shouldn't we be worried about the number of satellites the U.S. has in orbit over 70 satellites and that's being conservative.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad truth is that nukes are important and having them gives you special priviliges in "our" eyes.

They made us
a) treat China differently after 1964
b) treat N.Korea differently than Iraq
c) place the UK and France as permanent members of the Security Council (which by the way has ONLY and ALL the declared nuclear states) at a time when they are irrelevant.

Having nukes is smart and NECESSARY if you want a seat at the table and be treated as an equal. If not, you can be Japan/Germany and be rich but irrelevant.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also requires atmosphere "re-entry" technology.. otherwise the objects will burn up upon coming back... and guess what: they have that too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni_missile_system

Agni III:
"Circular Error Probable (CEP) was less than 20 meters, which is best of class in the world"

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are from US this is for you otherwise ignore it.

If you think that US can have nukes because it has money to feed its people you are dreaming. Didn't you know what your national debt is? You are eating on the money that your children and grandchildren would earn in the future. I wonder what they would have left for themselves after paying off their stupid and arrogant forefathers' bills in the form of social security and national debt. India spends what it has, plain and simple. I am not in favor of India wasting money on moon programs either. But it is hypocrasy when such a comment comes from US people.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

India has been at war with two nations since independence that are now nuclear powers and still has lingering territorial disputes with both. ICBM capabilities may provide a useful deterrent to an enemy first-strike, if nothing else. They don't have to waggle it around aggressively, but they would likely be wise to at least develop the capability.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[RenderSeven]

...and this is precisely the self-laudatory flag-waving we-can-do-no-wrong nationalism that makes you dangerous.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Jorophose]

The thing is, how is India going to fight its neighbours offensively?

Pakhistan has nuclear weapons, the PRC has a larger army, and I can't see India picking a fight with Burma or Bangladesh.

Of course, they do try and keep themselves pacficists. I think that's the biggest reason why you'll rarely see hate against India like you will against other military-friendly (having a large army ready to defend your state can be a good thing you know), although the other states are known to fight serious offensive wars for no reason whatsoever (Tibet anyone?).

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[dbIII]

India also has uranium/plutonium for enough nukes. So why bother with the thorium route

Good point, especially since Australia is happy to sell India and a lot of other places as much uranium as is desired.

Offtopic even furthur but interesting since thorium was mentioned - the Indian accelerated thorium reactor idea looks like it could deliver most of the old civilian nuclear promises and gets around the fuel quality problems you have if there is high demand for uranium. It's even possible to add other fuels in with the thorium - for example discarded weapons material.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[dhavleak]

...and this is precisely the self-laudatory flag-waving we-can-do-no-wrong nationalism that makes you dangerous. This makes Indians dangerous? Being proud of a track record of non-aggression?

What about the US attacking Iraq without provocation, killing 100,000s of them, displacing them by the millions, and reducing their country to rubble? And then Clinton and McCain beating their chests with self-laudatory flag-waving we-can-do-no-wrong nationalism saying "we have given the Iraqis the wonderful gift of freedom, and now it's time for them to play a bigger role in securing their country?" Get off your high horse dude!

During the cold war, the US and USSR were busy trying to divide the world into "us" vs. "them" (NATO vs. Warsaw and so on). Instead of getting involved, India was one of the founder members of the non-aligned movement - the idea being to live and let live instead of being part of the never ending cycle of escalating tensions. If Indians are proud of that, I'd say they have a right to be.

One of OP's comments was: "I still remember seeing the news on TV when they had built their first nuke, and the general euphoria. It was waay back, while they were even poorer than today. Arguably that money could have been better invested in industrializing a little faster."
I don't know if OP was referring to the nuke tests of 1972 or 1998. The '98 tests drew very sharp international criticism (at which point I started following this issue). Most notable critics were the US (which has enough nukes to destroy the world many times over), and countries like New Zealand and Australia that come under US "nuclear umbrella" protection. Rather hypocritical don't you think? Japan and any country without any nuclear ambitions are the only ones here who have a right to criticize. The rest of us need to just shut up, or destroy our own nukes first if we want to have a say.

Please don't interpret this as an anti-US/New Zealand/Australia/Pakistan/China rant or anything like that. People are just people everywhere in the world. It's the regimes that make a country "aggressive" or "passive" or somewhere in the middle, and it's human nature to be patriotic about your country. My point is that the US and other "aggressive" countries could adopt a foreign policy or two from India. Or rather, people the world over should press their governments to do so. We shouldn't get into conversations like this with the frame of mind of "I'm an Indian/American and I'm gonna defend India/US and win this thread at all costs".

And lastly, from my comments you may have inferred my nationality incorrectly. For the purpose of this thread I'd prefer not to state what it is -- hopefully the anonymity will prevent people from assuming some sort of jingoistic intent in my comments.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[dave87656]

So nukes get you a few things- protection, status/power, and in the end a few more slices of bread too.

I suspect that the subtle threat of the US invading them makes some countries (Iran, North Korea) all the more inclined to want to have a deterrent.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

In all its history of more than 3500 years India has never attacked another country..how many times has your's done...and on what grounds - WMD or was it communism, or was it just b'cos "you are not on our side" excuse?. Ha ha ..Grow up kiddo.

Just like your leaders, you seem to be a wee bit behing in current affairs :)

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Minor correction: The actual nuclear test was in May 1974. Naturally, work had started earlier, but the detonation was in 1974, not 1972.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[IPKF]

Dude, Your comment sucks.Its really stinky.Let me get your facts clear about India. 1)India did first Nuclear Test in 1974 after facing a full scale war 1971 with its cooperative neighbour.At that time Indians didn't know about Nukes.Let me tell you something knowledge of nuke was introduced by USA(Self proclaimed world savior)in WW-II. 2)India was poor then but its not anymore India is world's 7th largest economy.Infact India is Trillion dollar economy.Probably you don't read good news about India.Try to get your facts clear. From your comment I think either you are among India's good cooperative neighbours or you are one of FEW prejudiced americans who don't want to see others rubbing shoulders with them.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[IPKF]

I'm sure India will be dangerous if some moron will try to invade India for petty oil or some culture :)) then definitely Indians are dangerous.Trust me...it won't be Vietnam or Iraq it will be WW-III.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Rexdude]

I'll tell you why becoming an ICBM power is not on the agenda (I'm Indian, btw).

The biggest nuclear threat we as Indians face are from the two neighbors- Pakistan and China (the latter somewhat less so).

India has pretty cordial diplomatic relations with the rest of the world-possibly due to its history of the non aligned movement in the 60s, where it maintained friendly relations with both Western and Eastern bloc powers.

*IF* we wanted to nuke our neighbors, ICBMs would be total overkill. The Agni III missile has a range from 3500-5000 km-quite sufficient coverage of all targets within Pakistan, and the ability to reach China.

Let's face it- the US remains the only country in the world to have deployed nukes during warfare (may it never happen again). The arms race that started in 1945 continues, and every country has to maintain a nuclear deterrent.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[suman28]

I really cannot imagine that today any nation (other than rogue nations) really going head to head with their neighbours and even the rogues are very wary. I mean, with media and satellite coverage, the news would spread the world over before ur first foot soldier makes their first move. That said, is it really necessary to say, "Look, we have nukes. Don't come near us" or is that old world mentality? As GP said, it might be best to have invested time and money into so many other things to make the country better. But, then the few idiots that make these decisions don't ever have any intention of making the country better, just making sure their bank accounts get bigger. So sad.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, and india and the rest of the leaches that grab our American ideas and jobs are much better right.. go off yourself please.. I can use that outsourced tech support job to feed my American family that an American corporation has given you..

Jerk...

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[bhiestand]

So nukes get you a few things- protection, status/power, and in the end a few more slices of bread too.

I suspect that the subtle threat of the US invading them makes some countries (Iran, North Korea) all the more inclined to want to have a deterrent. And their attempts to build nukes greatly increase the odds of the US invading them. Personally, not a game I'd play if I was a benevolent dictator.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[dave87656]

Indeed a risky game. I doubt we'd invade NK but there is a better chance we'd invade Iran to stabilize the gulf.

On the other hand, I'm not sure having or not having nukes is the reason we would invade Iran. We'd probably send cruise missiles to destroy suspected nuclear facilities but we'd invade for other reasons ...

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Now I'm not saying India is necessarily aiming to become an ICBM power.

funny. Technically India has had the ability to strike pretty much any part of the world for some 20 years now. What if they are rockets instead of missiles.

India ofcourse has had nukes from 1974. The latest version of its Intermediate range missile Agni III is believed to have a range of 5000 KMs. Defense journals have for a while discussed about the ICBM Surya (or Agni IV). This surprise at India's missile program is unwarranted.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[t_ban]

Now I'm not singling India out there. I think they're just... humans, like everyone else.

Gee, thanks. I'm feeling a lot better now.

Re:Building a... MIRV?

[t_ban]

had a prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi) asassinated

Make that two. His mother Indira Gandhi was shot by her own guards in 1984, while she was PM.

10? Only 10?

[SeekerDarksteel]

That's sad. My Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle goes up to 11.....satellites.

Take that America!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh heh heh!

Yuo Fail I7!

[Anonymous Coward]

coolect any spilled from one pfolder on

Re:Building a ... Cluster? Now they can say:

[davidsyes]

GERONIMO!

(Oh, wrong Indian, umm, Natives..

(BTW, I have Native American blood (possibly Cherokee)in my veins, among French, German, Spanish, and Ethiopian...)

Easy

[aepervius]

Feed 1 billion people for a day, they will hunger tomorrow. Teach them techs, let them take over comp-sci, techs, and many other sector, and you will be the one starving tomorrow, while they will be starving less, and for more than a day.

Well, sure, they have the cheap launch system.

[clint999]

Sorry, where it says "with this satellite" it should say "with this launcher"

MOD PARENT DOWN

[thepotoo]

Idiot. Space junk is a growing problem, but we are a long, long way from having it block sunlight.

Space is big. Really, really big. Satellites are small. I'm not really sure how many we have in orbit, but it was ~4000 10 years ago, and who knows how many now but we're still talking about a tiny fraction of a percent coverage.

Now the greenhouse effect is always at a tipping point since most radiation is held in or out by water vapor, which is why a CO2 increase will throw things off balance - I think you are implying that satellites will do the same thing. They will, just let me know when we have billions of tons of them (hint: that's decades away)

Because they ain't lawnmowers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Roger Waters:

[Billy:] "Four minutes and counting."
[Jim:] "O.K."
[Billy:] "They pressed the button, Jim."
[Jim:] "They pressed the button Billy, what button?"
[Billy:] "The big red one."
[Jim:] "You mean THE button?"
[Billy:] "Goodbye, Jim."
[Jim:] "Goodbye!

Re:Troll. Why not yell at the world too

[jollyreaper]

because as a world there is enough wealth to end hunger.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. I know, it is hard to persuade them to eat the sacred cow. My advice, try A1.

Re:You can have both

[Anonymous Coward]

If I have a big stick to threaten you with, I can also have your slice of bread. . .and yours, and yours. . .

Shake a tree and millionaires fall out

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen to all this "poverty" stuff about.
You'll think everyone in the "good: ol' USA is a millionaire sipping cocktails by the pool.

Instead what we have are a bunch of know-nothings working their asses off at the 7-11 to pay for an apartment shared with 4 others -yes, you guessed it - flipping burgers for minimum and chasing the American dream- ever think about why it's called a "dream"?

Real wages in the US has gone down by 50% while GDP has went up by 30%.Of course the average joe can't be blamed for not knowing this. You have to concentrate on jacking up that minimum, and chasing mexies at the border, and keeping on that treadmill to nowhere, else they'll join the 30 million homeless, in this land of the rich and famous, and the "free"-if you close your eyes and pretend the patriot act is not there.

Wake up and smell the chemical coffee, folks.

In related news ....

[PPH]

...Pakistan goes to DEFCON 1.

Re:16 satellite launch ... : attemp had failed

[freakxx]

Well, the Russians had launched 13 satellites in one go last year with a total payload of 300 Kg. around, but the attempt had failed as it is reported at BBC-Hindi (http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/science/story/2008/04/080428_pslv_launch.shtml).

santapc

[chesanta]

I think India is setting a perfect model of how to leap-frog a large number of people from abject poverty to comfortable lives - through a very judicious mixture of socialism to help the most needy and investing in advanced technology to reap it's longer term benefits.

distribution of payload

[gonzoxl5]

this from a launch vehicle designed to carry a maximum of three satellites internally (the other seven were sitting on the roof).

need to know

[Anonymous Coward]

because as a world there is enough wealth to end hunger.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. We also do not have the stomach for it (no pun intended) because it would cost us lives to remove the leadership that routinely starves their own populations.

India is coming forward rapidly, by advancing space science they advance all their sciences. They also give their people something to strive for - something they can show children that India is and what they can become. Let alone the fact that satellites provide better weather monitoring , can track crops and movement of animals. The possibilities of helping their own are a hundredfold, let alone what they can do for others.

Oh, before you troll India again I must ask, did you buy food out this week? If so, why? There are lots of poor people who could have used it in rice to feed a family... so why didn't you help? Oh, yeah, thats because its easier to be a forum troll and blame others for not doing instead of doing yourself.

because as a world there is enough wealth to end hunger.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. We also do not have the stomach for it (no pun intended) because it would cost us lives to remove the leadership that routinely starves their own populations.

India is coming forward rapidly, by advancing space science they advance all their sciences. They also give their people something to strive for - something they can show children that India is and what they can become. Let alone the fact that satellites provide better weather monitoring , can track crops and movement of animals. The possibilities of helping their own are a hundredfold, let alone what they can do for others.

Oh, before you troll India again I must ask, did you buy food out this week? If so, why? There are lots of poor people who could have used it in rice to feed a family... so why didn't you help? Oh, yeah, thats because its easier to be a forum troll and blame others for not doing instead of doing yourself.

because as a world there is enough wealth to end hunger.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. We also do not have the stomach for it (no pun intended) because it would cost us lives to remove the leadership that routinely starves their own populations.

India is coming forward rapidly, by advancing space science they advance all their sciences. They also give their people something to strive for - something they can show children that India is and what they can become. Let alone the fact that satellites provide better weather monitoring , can track crops and movement of animals. The possibilities of helping their own are a hundredfold, let alone what they can do for others.

Oh, before you troll India again I must ask, did you buy food out this week? If so, why? There are lots of poor people who could have used it in rice to feed a family... so why didn't you help? Oh, yeah, thats because its easier to be a forum troll and blame others for not doing instead of doing yourself. I cant waste my time in signing up...
    i just want you people to know that you can only clap at your side success but you cant others succeeding. thts you all are mocking indias brave attempt.there are other developed nation having similar capabilities but they have never tried to attempt such mission.
                                      and what are you proud now India is driving world technology. we are ahead in software,outsourcing,marketing.40% of nasa scientist are indian,35% of Microsoft employee are indian,30% of ibm employee are indian.

                        you cant have such figures any where else now i think you need to rethink.

Re:Troll. Why not yell at the world too

[master_p]

How do you know what I did and what I did not this week to help those people?

I like ./...the epitome of justice, the American way. You get modded 5, insightful, because you reversed the question and asked me what I've done for the poor, while I ask the same question not to you, but to those people that throw their money away for 'space' (as if a few 100 km above the Earth's surface is actually space), and I get modded troll, -1.

It's the syndrome of guilt, I can understand that...

Re:Troll. Why not yell at the world too

[master_p]

Implementing and improving satellite technology will not result directly to improving the economy and the social state of the poor people, for the simple reasons that the benefits are not distributed to the people. The benefits go to the private corporations that are behind the technologies, the government that gets paid for launching satellites and those that use the satellites. The common folks have nothing to gain from it, even if the weather is monitored and crops are improved.

Anything else out of yer arse???