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Indian Moon Mission Launched
hackerdownunder writes "India's maiden lunar mission (Chandrayaan-1) got off to a flying start today. Describing the launch as 'perfect and precise,' the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), G Madhavan Nair, said that it would be 14 days before the satellite would enter into lunar orbit.
Chandrayaan carries eleven payloads: five designed and developed in India, three from the European Space Agency, one from Bulgaria and two from NASA."
The Third World is exploring space, developing scientists and engineers, and developing their economies.
Here in the US, we're developing our military, discouraging the study of science and engineering, discouraging all rational thought (God did it!), spending resources on some nebulous terrorist threat the will come some day (or so we're told), and developing industries based on chance and moving money around.
I wonder which society has better long term prospects for its people, economy, and Government?
At around Rs. 400 Crore / USD 80 Million, it must be the cheapest unmanned moon mission and.... 1st post
The reason why I think this is progress is because India is a developing country. Their situation may be insightful due to their perspective on the situation. The materials they use, the way they manage it, the funding, the management, etc. Consider it a huge, multi million dollar case study for the world. Another example of this, the Tata Nano, is a revolutionary vehicle IMHO due to the audience it appeals to - developing countries. Another one I'm waiting on is mobile devices. These will, in many ways, will drive innovation (probably not compete) in developed countries.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
India's economy has turned around due to technology outsourcing to India by the rest of the world. This outsourcing started happening when Indians began showing the outside world that Indians aren't just the hungry clamouring mobs always shown on TV. As the world realized this, they began to see value in sending work to India. By accomplishing things like Chandrayaan, or building the Tata Nano, etc, Indians demonstrate to the world their talents and abilities, which increases the world's willingness to trade and work with India, creating jobs and economic growth in the country. Some Indians commenting here are unfortunately the backward navel-gazing types, who will never understand the basis for economic growth and alleviation of poverty. They still think in the most primitive backward terms about how to bring development, prosperity and relief to the masses. The lost opportunities and economic stagnation of the past 50 years under the social welfare state show how such narrow mindsets can wreak havoc on a country. The answer lies in Indians showing each other and the world how to be achievers, instead of just beggars forever clamouring with their palms outstretched.
Then how are you going to help those poor people? Give them free money and food so they'll continue to do nothing and further your poverty problem?
How about actually setting up a sensible education system, then a sensible industrial sector, and then a sensible R&D sector for future industries; so that people can be productive and build wealth for your country?
Doesn't that sound a lot like what India is trying to do?
Yes, in the nineties maybe. And you might get this spirit back through a future president. For now though, I feel like the world is a bit fed up with the USA trying to be the World's Knight in Shining Armor of Morale. It's also a bit weird: Everybody has guns and violence is abundant on television, but God forbid (pun intended) that a breast is shown on tv.
And don't forget doing a single 15-year project means you're going to put 15 years worth of mistakes into a single project, which means the project will most probably fail after all the hype and fanfare.
It is much more sensible to go in small steps first, so that any problems will be solved before the big project.
I realize they have an amazing (and selective) university system that makes many of ours silly by comparison,
WTF No!!!!! The Engineering programs in most universities outside of select good ones like BITS, NITs and IITs is deplorable at best. The undergrad programmes just get the bare minimum done in terms of imparting wisdom and a hands-on approach to the students.
Why do you think the guys here in US are constantly moaning about the lack of quality in the work that had been outsourced to India? Doesn't that speak volumes about the kind of skillset, workers that are being employed by those firms possess?
Just about all of those studies are rather vague in their definitions, and appear to stretch some things. Here's the problem - a VAST majority of people in this country eat enough, have jobs, and can be educated. Period. There's an EASY formula to follow - graduate high school, don't get pregnant before marriage, and hold a job for two years. You WON'T be poor and you WON'T go hungry. This is a social/motivation/parenting problem, NOT a money problem in America.
Considering that the best of India's talents from IITs and likes of it are in the US working for the Microsofts, Googles and NASAs, this is indeed a big achievement. This will be a motivation for atleast a few of them to go back and work in the development of their own country.
This is one huge leap forward for India!
India showcased its low-cost space technology. Project cost only $79 million, considerably less than the Chinese and Japanese probes. Now world can outsource space projects to India. Another outsourcing industry started :)
This project also shows India's partnership with 14 other countries and sharing data and technology together.
Have you any idea at all how much more complicated and expensive it is to go to Mars rather than the moon?
I'd like to see you when you get kids:
"Yeah, Jimmy learnt to walk two months ago, but then again, Billy next door has been walking for a year already, so that's old hat. I was really hoping Jimmy would start with pole-vaulting or something."
The collapse was caused by the creation of GSEs, and the subsequent congressional pressure on those GSEs to ensure loans could be make to poor people that couldn't afford to pay them back. Essentially Fannie and Freddy said, make a bad loan, and we'll buy it from you, because we think those people deserve loans. Without government regulation, the loans would have never been issued in the first place. Your pontificating about socialist wet dreams and rogue megacorporations is unwarranted.
Only an idiot incapable of taking care of themselves would want to live in a social welfare state.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
it first.
1.000.000 people unable to pay for their mortgages nets to a loss around $300 bn, if the houses were bought from $600 k by the bank and their values now $300 k.
thats only 1/3 of the cash us had prepared for its banks, its also around 1/10 of the cash that europe has provided.
you see, the funds provided had already covered approx 20 times that loss, if you count in what japan, korea and other nations have readied.
you should have understood by now that this is nothing related to unpaid mortgages or poor people, or fannie mae freddie mac. this is the bullshit that republican bastards are feeding you to get off the hook.
the real problem is this :
banks are allowed to lend approx 10 times the total assets they have. because its logical - money turns slow, so it doesnt create a problem. its all valid liquidity wise. this ratio is a healthy ratio and its checked by government regulation.
but, due to the lawless environment republicans and holistic economists have created by yelping 'hands off business' 'government out' 'government bad for economy, youll cost jobs to people', government regulation was totally hampered in that sector since reagan era.
then what happened ? in this unregulated environment, some bastards realized this ; if they show those mortgages as assets, and then create DERIVATIVE assets over them (called hedge funds in general because they accept all kinds of 'assets'), they can sell/trade those assets !!!
and they proceeded to do that. they created assets linked to those mortgage assets, then started trading them. attracted investors. those funds have inflated in value, disproportionately. imagine the funds value becoming $ 20 trillion instead of the mortgage value of $ 200 bn. this is round one.
in round two, they went further. they showed those DERIVATIVES as assets. meaning, despite they had $200 bn worth of mortgage assets, they now had $20 trillion worth of hedge funds/investments tied to those mortgages !! and they started lending by showing their total assets as $20 trillion plus $200 bn !!! see the point ? they started lending money THEY DONT HAVE !
see the issue now ?!
someone should have stepped in, checked their books and said 'hey, you dont have that much assets. what you are showing me as assets are actually derivative papers tied to OTHER assets. these are NOT real, and they are OVERvalued !!' and stopped them in their tracks.
but noone did. because a lot of poodles were yelping 'hands off economy !!'. so it went like this, those banks lent to countries, governments, megacorporations, traded those investment funds SO widely around the world that every bank in the world got infested by those funds.
then it was discovered. and today we are here.
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