Slashdot Mirror
Indian Launch Vehicle Explodes After Lift-Off
Indian communications satellite GSAT-5P was destroyed by the explosion of its launch vehicle, the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle. The GSLV malfunctioned while still in its first phase of its Christmas launch, after less than a minute of flight. YouTube has a video of the explosion, taken from TV9 Kannada.
A much better video in English here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH-0OH0MI2Y
This space for rent.
Pretty!!! That's one expensive fireworks display that they put on for Christmas!
Seriously though, the GSLV seems to have a pretty poor success rate; this is the third of five operational launches to fail.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
And completely misses the fact that several seconds before the first stage goes up in a fireball, the top of the rocket falls off and collides with the first stage.
Someone forgot to apply the indian version of lok-tite to some mating ring bolts. :)
You do realize that there's a pretty significant difference between the rockets used to put artificial satellites in orbit and the Space Shuttle, right?
We've been putting artificial satellites into orbit for over 50 years now. While it's complex, it isn't particularly difficult to do. There's a large base of accumulated knowledge on the subject, and these days it can generally be done flawlessly by many different nations and space programs.
The Space Shuttle, on the other hand, is so much more complex. America is the only nation that has been able to pull it off so far. Not only that, but it's not just sending some circuitry and solar panels into orbit. The Space Shuttle was dealing with real people who were to be returned safely. It's quite remarkable that in over 30 years and well over 100 launches there have only been two disasters.
To make a programming analogy that you can understand, this is basically the equivalent of India fucking up a simple "Hello World!" app. It's a fuck up that just shouldn't happen these days.
Just sayin'
My experience with teaching students from India is that they do great on the theory, but in the lab not watch out.
And here we have a pompous ass who extrapolates his "teaching experience" to rocket launches. So, Mr. Pompous Ass, what about the dozens of past successful Indian launches? How does your "teaching theory" account for that, eh moron?
Other than those two, and a few other mishaps, the US has been putting people in space and bringing them back safely for over 40 years.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Other than those two, and a few other mishaps,
So what you're saying is that if we exclude every event where things went wrong, the US has a perfect record?
Tell me something, do you work for the Federal Reserve?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Then, you'll probably explain how India managed to launch 30+ rockets successfully in the past, and launched one rocket successfully to the moon as well?
See, this is what I detest about Americans. The sheer smugness, ignorance, arrogance and incredible lack of knowledge is mind boggling. We have all this careful "analysis" and "observation" in the parent's post, and I'll bet my ass that this chap didn't know anything about the past record of the Indian space program and simply jumped in to post an inane comment, assuming that "hey, it's Eeeendiaaa, them tech support guys, laaats of them can't speak proper English, so how can they launch rockets?" Disgusting.
People like to sling around implications of racism, but the fact is it has everything to do with culture.
For example, consider the difference between students raised in Asia, and students of Asian decent raised in the west. The students raised in Asia (and not necessarily Asian themselves) cheat like hell because doing well in school is *extraordinary* important in Asia. Students who were raised in the west were not raised in this extreme pressure, and are on average more honest (or at least act more ashamed of their cheating).
This phenomenon is well documented. Posting as AC, because people will undoubtedly attempt to slander this as "racist" as well.
Calm down, he's just frustrated that we don't like Cricket.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
To be fair, three out of seven GSLV launches have failed. No US space program has that failure rate, even if you don't exclude the mishaps.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I am sorry sir, but it is YOUR ignorance that is showing here. A launch vehicle capable of getting a lot of mass as far as geostationary orbit is not simple either.
Or on the other hand perhaps he is not generalising to the entire population of two continents and you have failed to comprehend what it written. I take it as generalising to the poorly educated, ignorant, jingoistic portion of the population that would write an ignorant pile of steaming manure such as the post he replied to. Instead it appears you see the word "American", ignore the context, then think it is aimed at yourself, George Washington and apple pie.
He's not yelling at you, simply at the smug "USA is greatest and the rest are all monkeys yawl" in the post prior to it.