Slashdot Mirror
Indian Moon Mission To Launch Next Month
Anil Kandangath writes with word that the Indian moon mission plans (mentioned earlier on Slashdot) are about to be put to the test. "While the spacecraft itself will not land on the Moon, it will act as an orbiter and land a rover on the surface. The spacecraft is being launched next month sometime between October 22 and October 26. The spacecraft payload includes 11 payloads (including one from NASA) and will perform remote sensing and studies of the lunar surface. The mission is estimated to cost Rs 386 crore (~ 84.3 million USD)." Update: 09/21 18:29 GMT by T : Thanks to reader Anil Gaddam for pointing out that this figure had been originally misstated as 7.7 million USD.
God help the US of A!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=386+crore+inr+in+usd&btnG=Search
Not quite so good but still cheap.
Perhaps we should outsource NASA?
0.00129 Olympicses.
The cost will not come within an asses' roar of 7.7 million USD. India is cheap, but not THAT cheap. 77 million USD, maybe. Perhaps if you factor out the cost of scientists and administrative staff already employed by the ISRO, and maintenance costs of existing facilities, and basically count only the cost of the rocket and parts, then maybe you'll come up with a 7.7 million USD bill. Otherwise I think someone forgot a decimal point somewhere.
May the Maths Be with you!
Hmm. Summary says 386 crore, but the conversion is only for 36 crore?
386 crore Indian rupees = 84.00518 million U.S. dollars
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=386+crore+inr+in+usd&btnG=Search
At this rate, when the first space tourists reach the moon, there'll be a Kwiki-Mart there waiting for them.
This is nice to see a nation like India, who got quite a few brilliant people, enters into the space race "as a major player".
Secret mission details: Apparently invloves 240,000 Miles of rope and a very loud flute.
We can't expect the U.S. to do it alone, given all the poor and homeless people in the U.S.
Actually its more like we can't expect the US to do it because they have a nasty habit of only allowing major space missions to go ahead when it is politically expedient, and cutting their budgets when it isn't. That's no way to run a space exploration effort.
Whats needed is a driving force other than political one upmanship (ooh look, China's going to the Moon, so we better say we're off to Mars.) How long have we had the technology to go to Mars? Several decades, but it takes China moving into space to kick off the US effort again.
I feel sorry for the people at NASA and JPL, I really do. It would be nice if they could just be given the funding to do it and left alone to get the job done.
Market forces would also be a much better driving force. As it is the way things are going the race to Mars will result not in exploration bases, but military ones, official 'stake claimers' with a mandate to keep it for whichever country gets there first with a large enough force..
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Indians use a different system of counting. After the thousand, they have a name for every second power of ten (unlike the western system of naming every third power). The system goes like this: 1000: 1e3: Thousand 100 thousands: 1e5 : Lakh 100 lakhs : 1e7 : Crore So 386 crores at about 46 INR a dollar is about 86 million USD.
We're talking about dots, not feathers.
/Dives for cover...
The Chandrayaan-2 mission will be the first rover mission and is scheduled for 2011.
Great info about the mission here
I wish them luck
moon mission next month: 400 bollywood musicals about romance on the moon to follow.
Good people go to bed earlier.