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."

Comments

Re:How things are turning out.

[MrNaz]

I am a Muslim, I fully agree with your uncommonly succinct and eloquent expression of this concept. I only wish more non-theists could understand this point rather than blindly (dogmatically!) disregarding religion as incompatible with modern scientific investigation.

I know who you were aiming at

[Shivetya]

but really it just gets old to hear this same tired line. It also is very easy to exaggerate issues so they appear as if everyone who could be bad is being bad but that is far from the truth. The last part about developing industries on the chance of making money is directly the fault of the Congress preventing oversight into Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Hell they are resisting now investigations into those two companies and only those two until AFTER the election - why is that?

As for the rational thought comment, ever wonder why it gets so highlighted in papers when it occurs? BECAUSE IT IS SO RARE. If it were common then the papers and such would rate it to page three if that. The fact is that the most likely interference into education (read public schools and college) comes from religions claiming to be discriminated against because school falls on the wrong day, pork is served, or cheer leaders show some leg.

The only thing discouraging science and engineering in the US is the public school system because its too hard and therefor not fair. We had an interview in the local paper recently where they talked about reducing the math test requirements because it wasn't "fair". Some have suggested the rigorous testing was "racist". How do you expect ANY education system to operate under the fear of being branded racist? Then top it off with the fact that some tenured teachers aren't worth squat but are untouchable means if our kid gets a good math teacher we chalk it up to luck.

The US is exploring space, we are just far past the mundane stuff. Mundane meaning landing on things we can see with the naked eye. We have put probes on planets other countries aren't even considering. Would that be a waste in your book because no one else is doing it? When it comes to the military, well our science and space exploration go hand in hand with technical innovations. Please don't tell me you do understand that this launch mechanism India developed can be easily adapted to deliver payloads anywhere on Earth as well. Its not like they have great relations with Pakistan and I do believe if we were not buying off both there have been some really rotten incidents already.

Frankly I am quite fine with the terrorist threat remaining nebulous, it was all too real a few years back.

Which society is better long term, the US is thank you. For every failing I can attribute to the US I can usually find them elsewhere as well. It just comes down to who is trying to score the points as to when its important or not.