Slashdot Mirror
India's Chandrayaan Lands Impact Probe On the Moon
yaksha writes to tell us that the Indian Space probe, Chandrayaan, has become only the fourth nation to land a probe on the Moon. The 35-kg Moon Impact Probe touched down in what officials are describing as a "perfect operation." "Developed by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of Thiruvananthapuram, the primary objective of MIP is to demonstrate the technologies required for landing a probe at the desired location on the moon. The probe will help qualify some of the technologies related to future soft landing missions. This apart, scientific exploration of the moon at close distance is also intended using MIP."
This is "Patrick". How can I be of assistance?
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
It's Cheese!
(if you mod this down, the meme will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine)
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I don't know if "landing" is the right term for it, exactly. That doesn't seem fair to people and devices that actually... don't splat when they "land."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
the Indian Space probe, Chandrayaan has become only the fourth nation to land a probe on the Moon
It also must be the smallest nation to ever accomplish such a feat!
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Is it a lander or did it impact?
When I book a flight, I want to know the landing time, not the impact time.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
7-11 is not owned by India dumbo.
Wonderful day. Proud to be an Indian.
This does not change India's status as a "player" in that respect. It does not need very much range at all to hit Pakistan or China. It is so close to Pakistan that it would be -very- difficult for either side to retaliate in the case of a nuclear attack if there was any amount of hesitation, which does make the situation dangerous (for fear of false positive indicators of an attack) but this does not change that.
Yes, if there's another successful nation on the planet, we're dooooooomed.
Talk about insecure.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Get some images from another country of the original American landing site? They have the probe in orbit, as does China. It would finally put to rest (or verify) the conspiracy theories.
It might be nice if they had bothered with an official web site that contained any decent, up-to-date information about the mission. The "News" section is basically just the home page with nothing timely, and the latest entry on the "Press Releases" page is four days old.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
Chandrayaan-1 is an orbiter that will be in operation for some time. The Moon Impact Probe just rode along. One purpose for the impactor was to serve as part of a dress rehearsal for a later soft landing mission. From the source announcement: "Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments â" a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moonâ(TM)s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere."
Saddle up: Riding with Robots
This should come as no surprise. Just as it should have been no surprise when the British Empire fell either.
It's very hard to understand why Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is not required reading for politicians and corporate leaders. If you depend on slave labor (in the US case, outsourcing) then ultimately your empire will fall. It's inevitable. And yet so avoidable. Eventually, there is a payback for greed, and this's just yet more proof that politicians are ultimately self-centered morons.
Since the US has been sat on its ass gloating for 40 years they're not 40 years behind any more. I'd put them maybe two or three before they go for the moon shot.
big shiny space suits
You haven't seen a lot of recent Bollywood cinema have you?
While the outfits are likely to be shiny, the ones worn by the women during dance scenes will be tiny.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Oh $hit..while you were on phone for IT support, your home just got foreclosed
You know, I'm going to tell you something. It may seem like the sensible option would be to take the space money and put it elsewhere, but that isn't true.
India's INSAT series have been very helpful in the past, and people were saying this when those were launched. ISRO has a nice commercial launch program and this will only improve perceptions of their ability and reliability.
That's all without pointing out the implicit false dichotomy in your comment. India can solve its problems, we, as a people, in incredible short sightedness, have chosen not to. Corruption is rampant, but the only people who can stand strong against it (the informed, educated middle class) is happy because they have good salaries. The poor cannot do anything, they have little power. The rich won't do anything, they benefit. We're in that lovely no-man's land where it is better for the individual to take what he's got and live it nicely. I don't mean this as a condemnation of any political philosophy, or India itself. I am Indian, and I am like this, and I can see that everyone else is, too.
Good day Sir, this is Patrick only.
What do you need IT support for?
To start your foreclosure paperwork?
Here are the first images from MIP.. Image 1 Image 2
Actually, the impact probe is actually an afterthought. The original plan included only the Chandrayaan which is a satellite which comprises of 11 missions (terrain mapping etc) for a 2 year duration. Indian ex-President Dr. Kalam suggested that perhaps a probe could also be added and the Indian Space Agency got quite enthusiastic about the idea. The real purpose is not to land or impact on the moon its the development of technologies to reach the moon and the 11 missions on the satellite. It is simply a precursor to landing a man on the moon which is planned for in the next 15 years. Why does it take so long you might ask ? 2 reasons, one cant obviously simply buy the technologies, and secondly the whole program is on the shoestring budget (this particular program including the development and deployment of all the technologies cost US $ 76 million).
Unfortunately, you're not the only one. A lot of people are deluded in precisely the same way. There's a old human instinct that gets misapplied in modern times such that when someone in Florida is successful, someone in Michigan gets excited about it, proud of the accomplishment and hopeful for his future prospects in the world, whereas if it's someone in Berlin or Baghdad or Beijing, the same person in Michigan gets depressed, takes no pride in it, and worries about his future prospects in the world. This never made a great deal of sense, and makes virtually none at all in the modern world with a global economy.
We enrich ourselves the most (both monetarily and culturally) through our interactions with those more closely on par with us economically. Our best trading partners are the G8, and we all profit immensely from their success. Our most harmful relationships, both for our own economies and citizens as well as for those we exploit, are with third-world nations. The imbalances in those relationships hurt us all in different ways.
The moral of this story is quite simple: the sooner India, China, and other third-world nations "get their acts together" and rise to "first-world" status, the sooner they come to be on par with us in the same way our G8 partners are, the richer we all will be. An impoverished and thus cheaply exploitable India is a far greater threat to us than opportunity -- a rich and prosperous India would be a far greater opportunity than threat.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The place used to be spelled "Trivandrum" when written in English, since no one can pronounce the other name- Not even Indians from outside Kerala. .Britishers called it Trivandrum when it was capital of the Travancore (Thiruvithamcoor) dynasty .Now it is the capital of Kerala state and they decided to "keralize" the name again.
Malayalam is like many other Indo-European languages, you can join a couple of words together to get a new word. Thiru - means holy, Anantha - is infinite, is also a name in Indian myth, puram- place. So in all the name means "Holy Anantha's land" - it was so called because there is a big temple there
If they land men on the moon in two years, they'll be 41 years behind. You seem to assume we haven't accomplished anything since 1969. You're discounting our Mars missions (rovers, landers, satellites), the Hubble, the Space Station, GPS, the Shuttle, the upcoming JWST, not to mention the myriad satellites, probes and impacters. We've truly, repeatedly, gone where no man has gone before, they cannot say the same. It's much easier to follow in the footsteps of another than to blaze your own trail.
Granted, we haven't really made any giant leaps since 69, except for ubiquitous Internet (that's a massive except) and minicomputers, but we have made enough small steps to climb a mountain. Everything we did yesterday, we do better today. We haven't done too much new, just everything old, better. So much advancement has been made in the last 15 years, it's ridiculous. It may not be a space age, but it's certainly the age of improvement and refinement. Everything is smaller, faster, smarter, cheaper, and all around better. Many small steps, in aggregate, can be better than one giant leap.
It's foolish to assume that because people are catching up to our achievements made decades ago, that they are somehow superior to us. It is good for them though, and perhaps it will give us the impetus to move on to bigger and better things.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
We can only hope that their prosperity also brings them a feeling of superiority and entitlement as well as a strong desire to spend the weekend watching sports from their couches. That should slow down their ascendency a bit.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system.
I was waiting for that - Stop all progress because someone somewhere needs something. Maybe you should stop shitting and flushing because someone in the world needs some water
I read a whole bunch of "wisecracks" and trolls about India and stereotypical bigoted comments about 7-11 and call centers, etc.
It is sad that geeks such as some on Slashdot choose to try and divide and disrespect as opposed to integrate and celebrate what is surely a quantum leap in what technology and engineering has enabled India/mankind to do.
When technology levels the playing ground, it becomes imperative for those whose hegemony is threatened change from their jingoism to a more mellifluous tune.
As an American I offer you and your country congratulations and welcome to the Moon Club! It is indeed a feat to be proud of.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/15/stories/2008111550580100.htm would be a better source for the story.
O cmon Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon were " Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for... Sardarji aap yaha?"
**Life is too short to be serious**
The moral of this story is quite simple: the sooner India, China, and other third-world nations "get their acts together" and rise to "first-world" status, the sooner they come to be on par with us in the same way our G8 partners are, the richer we all will be. An impoverished and thus cheaply exploitable India is a far greater threat to us than opportunity -- a rich and prosperous India would be a far greater opportunity than threat.
That's not entirely true. The comfortable lives people in rich countries enjoy is because they can outsource labor to poorer countries. An iPod costs only $200 because they guy making it in China makes only (say) $200/month. Now if it were manufactured in the US, it would probably cost at least $300.
This'll have a rippling effect on prices of all commodities. For eg people whose services we depend upon, like cooks and waiters will demand more money, since their money will now buy less. As a result eating out will become more expensive, as will everything else.
I grew up in India before moving to the US. My comfortable live in India and now in the US was/is possible because people who I depend on directly and indirectly make a lot less than what I do.
Yes, if there's another successful nation on the planet, we're dooooooomed.
For your sentiment to make sense, you'd have to be confident that America still has what it takes to go to the moon. Is that the case?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!