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India Plans Mars Mission in 2013
New submitter susmit writes with news of India's new goal for launching a satellite to Mars in 2013. From the article: "India plans to launch a mission to Mars next year, putting an orbital probe around the red planet to study its climate and geology, top space department officials said on Thursday. ... A 320-tonne Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket will be used to carry the orbiter spaceship, blasting off from the ISRO launch site at Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Another senior official at ISRO, requesting anonymity, estimated the cost of the mission at 4.0-5.0 billion rupees ($70-90 million dollars)."
Sending a probe to Mars without any electricity, damn..... We're really lagging behind in terms of innovation :)
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budget. Now I want to know why it costs 20-50 times more in our developed western nations.
There'll most likely be a corner shop there for the next mission.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Hopefully that'll spur some congressional envy and NASA will get a bigger budget in 2014.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
Obviously far more important than, I dunno, the current drought conditions in India hurting food production, two power blackouts in a week with 100's of millions of people w/o power... but, apparently they have the money to build a mars probe.
I refuse to believe they can deliver a mars orbiter for 80 million USD.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is 80 million a reasonable price for a mars satellite? The USA just spent 2.5 billion on a rover.
$70-90 million dollars??? Not bloody likely. For comparison, in my city, we recently renovated a football stadium, including a new roof. Cost? $500 million. There's a plan to build a six lane bridge across a large river. Cost? $1 billion. A waste treatment plant is being built at a cost of $750+ million Admittedly, these are North American prices, but I still have am extremely hard time believing that India, which doesn't have a very big space program, could send a vehicle to Mars (even a relatively simple orbiter) for the price that they're quoting.
Certainly mixed feelings here. India's far from the poorest country out there and they deserve their accomplishments, but they also have many other areas they could be spending this money on. City renovation, more widespread education (including, maybe, some birth control), better infrastructure so as to facilitate more jobs, agricultural education to provide more sustainable food... Then again, perhaps this is just the sort of thing they need. Something inspiring and amazing to get the youth to aim higher, just like we did when we went to the moon. I'll certainly be paying attention to this, but beyond that I'm not sure I can pass any definitive judgement on this.
I refuse to believe they can deliver a mars orbiter for 80 million USD.
I'm skeptical as well. I'd love to see them succeed, but I think it's more likely this will turn out like the $45 Aakash tablet computer did. Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
While their space program it's all good, they forget that in many cities don't have sewage and people defecate anywhere in the streets wich seems to me a much important priority .....
we know already what will happen:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101458/plotsummary
India had the world's largest economy before the white racist bastards from the so-called-civilized world plundered and looted India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India
I didn't know that one could even think about thinking of doing something in aerospace when you're only given 1-2 years.
Sig: I stole this sig.
With all that money spent on Indian space program they should better fix their social problems first - maybe half of their population could eat a year for that money.
Or spend it in clearing your already devastated environment.
People are living like 3th world and the governent has nothing better to do than hurling their money into space, showing off their undernourished muscles, tstststs.
so what? a few people lived in lavish palaces while the other billion people live in disgusting poverty. india is a sick society. the only hope was when the muslims invaded and tried to get your off your primitive bronze age idol worship. china is far more civilized with a strong value on education, equality and social harmony. meanwhile india is all about finding a way to get a few more pennies out of the slum dwellers outside their mansions. disgusting society. you should be ashamed.
why it costs 20-50 times more ...
Space missions (and pretty much everything that a government spends money on) cost as much as you've got. If you have a $1Bn budget, they'll cost $1Bn. Whether you get $1Bn of value from spending that (or whether your $70M Mars shot will do what it's supposed to) is an altogether different question.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
*achievement unlocked: the first to say curry in a thread about india*
other targets include saying
-rootkit in a sony thread
-you're holding it wrong in an apple thread
-flying chairs in a microsoft thread
Maybe their working on shooting all their poop to space...
And in the meantime, they can't keep the electricity flowing across their country, and have no decent sewage system for 80% of their citizens.
Something makes me think they should be paying a bit more attention to these issues....
your link's not working, here a summary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-bO47jNCeM
Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budget. Now I want to know why it costs 20-50 times more in our developed western nations.
Ah, because ours tend to actually make it to Mars. I can launch a Mars mission for a $1.98 it doesn't mean it'll actually reach Mars. The US spend billions reaching the Moon but other than one accident on the launch pad and one time we failed to land we made it there. It's one thing to say you are going to Mars but failing to achieve a lesser goal I have my doubts.
Lets not forget the success of the Lunar Probe (Chandrayaan-1) which cost about $90 million and was completed in 3 years time frame.
Because it's probably gonna be more than that and then I'm quite sure something is gonna fail somwhere along the way. Just a few days ago one third of the population of India has been without electricty for a few hours. How about the government invest their money into a stable power grid first.
Will they be able to guarantee power for the launch facility ;-0
I really love the indian space program, so incredibly helpful!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orIFs72HGmM&feature=endscreen&NR=1
I am sure it wud be another scam
So am I.
But using Bhut Jolokia hot peppers as the fuel I have my doubts. Even with over a million Scoville rating I don't believe that they'll achieve low Earth orbit let alone Mars. Their program title "Asses of fire" does have a heroic ring to it. I do hope that even if the mission fails a new hybrid hot pepper will provide the thrust needed to reach Mars so India may land on Mars and be the first curry powered nation to break the Earthly bonds and land another planet!
I'm not the one to usually complain about expensive science endeavors while other societal problems go unresolved. But I have visited India and seen the misery -- it's nauseating. What's more nauseating is how the local middle-class doesn't find it nauseating. They are seemingly completely untouched by the plight of the children they see every day on their commute.
What a soulless nation. What is needed is a national program to eradicate poverty.
Cheap labour buddy. And the rest of the world uses pirate softwares hence bringing the cost down :)
A large part of the cost may be due to accounting.
They use an existing rocket; zero development cost there. While Nasa would probably either develop a new rocket just for that mission, and put all the cost of development on the Mars mission, so they could re-use the rocket later at much lower cost for projects they don't have budget for.
And there are probably many more places were just accounting cost to one project or the other (little is developed exclusively for one project) can make or break a budget.
They're not going to put a lander down. Saves heaps of cost.
This is all about the new Bollywood movie where 3 Indian bachelors travel to Mars to find true love.
Because we actually make it there.
I wonder how much the salaries are for highly trained scientists in India is compared to the US? I assume relatively a lot for India, but I also suspect they have a lot of highly trained people that work for peanuts compared to USD (a la outsourcing). How much does the actual hardware really cost?
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
It doesn't cost 20-50 times as much, Mars Odyssey cost 3.6 times as much and after 11 years its still working fine. Don't turn Slashdot into a house of lie's young lady!
Cheap $70-80 million if they stick to the budget. Now I want to know why it costs 20-50 times more in our developed western nations.
Ah, because ours tend to actually make it to Mars. I can launch a Mars mission for a $1.98 it doesn't mean it'll actually reach Mars. The US spend billions reaching the Moon but other than one accident on the launch pad and one time we failed to land we made it there. It's one thing to say you are going to Mars but failing to achieve a lesser goal I have my doubts.
The quality control used is also designed for manned missions. I would not be surprised at all if it was possible to send probes that actually makes it to Mars for a fraction of the cost. Even if two thirds of them never makes it it is still a successful program if you can afford to make 5 of them for less of the cost.
India is actually one place tablet computers have persisted to be popular (and way before the iPad too), this one just got attention because of what it was and what its mission was at the time. And it is a dissapointment that it failed, but getting tablets at sub $50 price points in India is easy. If you want some yourself you can find them on alibaba.com, but don't count on finding many that are actually -made- in India.
Samples so nobody bitches:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/425363981/2012_PC_Tablet_7_inch_Android.html
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/586506340/7_inch_android_4_0_Rockchip.html
"Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is."
Yeah, like offshored software development.
In Reason We Trust
This budget is hardly enough to launch a small research satellite around Earth. To launch a vehicle to Mars which will actually be useful, they need at least something in the order of $200M. That's the experience of other nations who have launched to Mars. In addition, It takes at least about five years to design and construct such a vehicle. To do it in less than two years is a sure recipe to failure.
It could probably be done with less, if someone would have the guts to try some alternate ways of putting things in orbit.
Still, it's kind of sad, that you see them on the news, with floods, hurricane damage, thousands dead, and various other problems, and once in a while something like this pops up ....
PS. Quote of the day delivered by Slashdot ;)
"Sacred cows make great hamburgers."
but I think it's more likely this will turn out like the $45 Aakash tablet computer did. Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is.
I've been watching India closely for the past 2 decades and the one conclusion that I got is that India likes to talk big, and after that, nothing
Of the numerous projects that they've announced, India achieved only one - the Chandrayaan moon satellite project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1
As for the others, I'm not that confident that they can deliver, on time, and/or on budget
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...during countdown to launch.
Just making it there is not necessarily useful though: http://articles.cnn.com/1999-09-30/tech/9909_30_mars.metric_1_mars-orbiter-climate-orbiter-spacecraft-team?_s=PM:TECH
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The colonial occupation was long before Indians ruined their own country by breeding like rabbits. Some things you just cannot blame on colonialism.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It will actually cost $500 million or more and will be launched one or two years after the deadline. Just sit back and watch it happen.
Maybe they've budgeted all the savings into tech support.
"I am very sorry sir, but I cannot continue helping you until you have first rebooted your orbiter."
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The estimated cost of Chandrayan-1 (the one involved in the discovery water on the moon) was 3.86 billion Indian rupees (US$90 million).
The Question now is whether a similar mission to mars is possible in 4-5 billion rupees (70-90 million $).
Note that 4 billion Indian rupees today is only 70 million USD, because the Dollar has been pile-driving the rupee lately.
"Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is."
Yeah, like offshored software development.
So true... you can hire people for 1/3rd of what you'd pay locally, and you end up getting what you pay for.
Lets not forget the success of the Lunar Probe (Chandrayaan-1) which cost about $90 million and was completed in 3 years time frame.
Yes, but it's a few years later and they are talking about delivering a Mars probe for less money. Is that believable?
talk about missing the point, my dear
"Ah, because ours tend to actually make it to Mars. I can launch a Mars mission for a $1.98 it doesn't mean it'll actually reach Mars. "
Sour grapes?
The UK still gives India £280m a year in aid. Fucking Ridiculous
Unlike some other counties, they know how to use the metric system. ;)
(j/k)
"minimum order quantity - 500 pieces"
Suddenly those cheap tablets don't seem so appealing now.
Is that some sort of Flintstones' rocket technology? I do not believe in this. Indians won't be able to build necessary western technologies for indian prices (cheap), they will still need certain critical parts purchased from the West, paid in western prices (high). Or NASA does something wrong with their Mars missions (billions of $s).
Yes, the point was the other post also managed not only to include curry, it alse referenced Apu from "The Simpsons" *and* slurpees, further denigrating and stereotyping Indians.
He even added an oblique reference to "Spam in a can", as the early astronauts sometimes derisively referred to themselves, having no or very little actual involvement in "flying" the capsule...they were just along for the ride, like a slab of canned processed meat-like substance.
I think that one wins, as he obviously put much more thought and even some subtlety into the flamebait post.
Being Olympic season, I'd score the two thusly on general offensiveness:
1st AC flamebait "curry" post: +6.5
2nd AC flamebait "curry" "Apu" "Slurpee" post: +8.7
2nd AC is penalized 1 point for being second post.
Still a clear victory for the 2nd AC at a +7.7 to 1st AC's +6.5.
Looks like we have a Bronze and Silver, but still looking for a Gold medalist.
.
Because we keep using our legacy contractors. You'll note that after Lockheed Martin's failed (miserably failed, I might add) x33, they weren't included, or even considered, for a Human rated space capsule this time around. While Boeing got a significant amount of funding for their CST-100 capsule, SpaceX got nearly the same funding as Boeing ($400+ million), which is a step in the right direction. The fact that SpaceX already has an unmanned rated capsule flying in space goes a long ways towards seeing their (much cheaper) hardware flying humans through the atmosphere and in to space... and back).
moox. for a new generation.
Perhaps because NASA employees refuse to work for $2 a day?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sour grapes?
Yeah it's just another butt-hurt American who can't believe that some country he always thought of as technologically backward, because Hollywood always portrays the third world as dirt roads full of chickens, is actually capable of pulling something like this off. Space used to be the exclusive doman of America (fuck yeah!) since they "won" the space race. The only problem is they declared themselves the victors before the race had really even begun. Now as the tortoise overtakes the sleeping hare, he just tells himself that it doesn't matter, he reached that milepost 40 years ago, there's still plenty of time to sleep...
Having been to India, I believe it. Jokes about outsourcing and bad call center service aside, the Indians are both extraordinarily resourceful and determined to advance from the developing world.
Not always. There have been quite a few Mars orbiter failures. In fact I think the current rate is 50-50 for a Mars mission actually succeeding. Look up the "Mars Curse".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Exploiting the poor is nothing new. It's pretty much what happens to poor people everywhere. Once could even go as far as to say that exploiting is what poor people are for. Be it for doing the back-breaking manual labor for a pittance or for convincing into putting their pennies into some "scheme" that doesn't exactly do - when you read the fine print - what they think it does, poor people fall for it every time. All over the world. How much did you pay in credit card fees, bank fees and interest penalties this month?
Just different countries have different definitions of "poor". A "poor" person in the US probably has an ancient car. Certainly has a TV. Certainly has some sort of roof over their head, even if it's a single-wide trailer. A poor person in latin america doesn't have a car, he walks or takes the bus. He does have a TV though, and a cell phone. I'm not so sure about India - probably no TV. But wait until the standard of living improves - you are going to sell a butt-load of TV's and cell phones... and exploit the poor. They will have less money, but they will have a cell phone (and a bill to pay) and a TV to watch.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Blah blah blah you're falling into the black man's trap. Do not come here and tell me that Germany, which has been completely destroyed and bombed not once but TWICE within 50 years can turn around and become a world power again, but poor old India and poor old Africa, they just can't make it because of evil "whitey". Japan was obliterated in the second world war. Japan has not had many natural resources for hundreds of years now. They have absolutely no oil. Yet somehow they seem to dominate.
So go ahead and keep telling yourself it's other people's fault. That will not change the fact that it's your own society's fault and until you fix those social problems, you will never get ahead.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Ha Ha HA
I've seen their software development process - they haven't a chance
Ha Ha HA
CAPTCHA = logician
Your time is over you bloody idiot
This is where you are wrong. Because some societies are resilient. Yeah there are crises, but we keep bouncing back. It's a question of character. Mind-set. Getting shit done, instead of wasting time blaming someone else.
You bastands have killed and destroyed locals culture in the name of fucking enlightenment. But ...your time is up.
It sounds like you would be more than happy to do exactly the same thing. So er, are we both evil then? Or is it just bad when "I" do it? This is called a double standard and it demonstrates that all your rage and hate is actually founded on pure bullshit. So whatever, dude. Drugs are bad, mm'kay?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How may I be helping you with your spaceflight issue today?
I agree but being bombed might actually help (long term) with economic prosperity. People are forced to rebuild and they usually rebuild better then what was there before. When things work (or just barley work) there is less incentive to replace them then if they do not work at all. Being bombed is much harder then not being bombed, but it forces change.
Considering that they most probably intend to reuse left-over bits from Chandrayaan, It's at least on the outer realm of probability.
*achievement unlocked: the first to say curry in a thread about india*
other targets include saying
-rootkit in a sony thread
-you're holding it wrong in an apple thread
-flying chairs in a microsoft thread
's/curry/call center/g'
I for one welcome our new Mars Call Center overlords ;-)
European Linux user, living in Antwerp
At ISRO? Peanuts!
That is, when compared to the salary one would make by working (as a programmer, not a tech support guy) in the IT industry.
On the other hand, all government scientists get a HELL of a lot of perks, and they get to do some really cool things. Also, when they get out of their government job, the salary they'd make in industry with that experience is maybe double the amount for another guy who's just working in the industry for the same number of years.
India: world leader. (In misplaced priorities.)
Better give them nukes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
If you guys are surprised by the low price tag of 90m USD for a mars mission, wait till you see the break down. 66% of it is for a dedicated powerplant for the mission control and an undersea power cable to Singapore for the back up power supply.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Neither of options 1 through 4 are viable. Well 3) is possible simply because "biggest manufacturer of exotic, zero-g materials" would mean being the largest in a market of a few million dollars. 2) isn't completely ridiculous, but you wouldn't get anywhere on a budget of $80 million.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
So you're saying the European colonials should have bombed their colonies, and it's the white man's fault for not doing that? See? The record never changes, it's the same over and over again with some people.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Missions to where ever, at first are to show you can. The Soviet Sputnik was nothing more then a ping pong ball with with a transmitter, but they got their ping pong ball into orbit, while our three space programs (civilian, navy and army) dicked around.
But the mission inspired their and our people to step up to the plate. Granted, Americans got more out of the effort, technologically speaking.
On another issue, when North Korea, with maybe a nuclear bomb (or maybe just a pile of uranium on a very big underground chemical bomb), tries to launch a missile deep into the south seas, as one step on their 'space program', the world has a fit.
When India, the proud owner of nuclear weapons tosses a basketball to Mars, via a polar orbit (i.e. drop bomb anywhere on Earth), we joke about their power grid.
Space programs are often cover for better missile development.
So, if 1-4 aren't viable and 5 is merely pointless, they why are we/they sending up big hunks of metal into space?
Oh, and by the way, the unviable alternative of satellite internet is currently provided by hughesnet.com, wildbluesales.com, gotSky, starband, and dish network, if I'm not mistaken. My guess is that if the Indians started over, planned and marketed it correctly, they could set up a superior 4g system, globally available, and clean up, financially.
As for reversible planetary cooling, I'm also going to guess it'd be cheaper to put that system in place than to pay for the damage caused by changes in weather patterns in places like India and the United States. Just saying.
Will all of you in this thread please go back to 4Chan?
Some of us are trying to relax.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Why does every post about India's space program always have the usual idiot posts?
1. The unfunny posts about call centers / 7-11 / curries.
2. The indignant posts about how the money could be better spent Helping the Poor.
3. The armchair economist posts about the corruption/filthy roads/electricity shortages.
Ok, we get it already. Indians are poor, corrupt and overstate their ambitions. You are all butt-hurt about your lost jobs. And ho, ho, they eat curries, and say "do the needful" when they answer your tech calls.
Why can't everyone just appreciate another human endeavor into learning more about the universe we live in, instead of all this pettiness?
Do we not all benefit from Chandrayaan's imagery?
Didn't we detect the recent warming over Greenland using data from India's Oceansat?
Why can't it just be about the science for once?
Maybe just a misquote or translation, maybe he really meant $ 70-80 milliion per year and they really will not launch for 2,014 years.
Bill Gates has donated millions (billions?) to help them with things like clean drinking water and tuberculosis, as has the US government. And they're wasting money on a fucking moon mission? New rule: If you're taking charity from philanthropists and other governments to look after the very basic minimal care of your people that most other modern civilizations don't have to worry about any more, you don't get to have a space program, yet.
Oh, and by the way, the unviable alternative of satellite internet is currently provided by hughesnet.com, wildbluesales.com, gotSky, starband, and dish network, if I'm not mistaken.
The request was "cheap, universal, high speed". The existing providers have trouble delivering on even one of those goals.
As for reversible planetary cooling, I'm also going to guess it'd be cheaper to put that system in place than to pay for the damage caused by changes in weather patterns in places like India and the United States. Just saying.
The price of something which is impossible to do is somewhat uninteresting.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
typically, it takes about 3 years from start to launch to make a spacecraft. It's about 15-18 months til the next opportunity (late 2013) There are parts that have long lead times, unless you happen to have them sitting on the shelf (spares from previous mission). If nothing else, you need years to get your frequency allocation for the radios. So if they're thinking about the 13 launch opportunity, there would be a lot of evidence that they are well along. You'd typically be heading to the launch site about 4-6 months ahead of launch for final assembly and test.
Cost wise.. $90M is very believable, if you don't count launch costs (which is typical), and you aren't trying to be too exotic with your spacecraft. Especially if they have spares from the previous mission.
Clearly, they have the launch capacity.. if you can make it to the moon, you can make it to Mars.
Do they have the navigation chops? Maybe, maybe not. "it's just physics", but there is a lot of subtlety to orbit insertion.
other targets include saying
-rootkit in a sony thread
-you're holding it wrong in an apple thread
-flying chairs in a microsoft thread
- bathing and/or toenail jokes in an RMS thread
- geological time jokes in a hurd thread (extra points when combined with bathing/toenail jokes)
#DeleteChrome
Spending on challenging technical projects creates super managers, greater technology awareness, better management systems and a bigger knowledge base which when shared leads to improved sewers, electric grids and better wages for the masses. The benefits of 80 million dollars on an improved sewer or putting in an extra generator or two is opportunity fritted away is days while having a few super managers around and greater technology awareness goes a long way to solving every day problems much more aggressively.
India keeps trying to put forth the trappings of wealth without actually having the wealth first. A rich country with a developed infrastructure and minimal poverty has excess wealth that it can spend on this kind of research. A space program is something a rich country develops with excess cash. Or they can show their wealth by regularly going on fabulously expensive foreign military (mis)adventures.
India has a large GDP, but its per-capita GDP, the one that counts, is very low. 129th in the world, out of 183.
India needs to develop its infrastructure - roads, rail, electricity, sewers. And become a net exporter instead of a net importer, the model which developing countries typically follow. And stop wasting money on space programs. It's good research, but it's not something they ought to be spending scarce resources on, when their per-capita GDP is so low and infrastructure is so rickety.
Charanjit Singh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFrKHLjZtSM when the ship takes off...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Just a few days ago one third of the population of India has been without electricty for a few hours. How about the government invest their money into a stable power grid first.
It is a good thing the US didn't listen to its citizens in California before launching its Mars missions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
I wonder whose guidance, telemetry, and mission control software they are going to steal and poorly reverse engineer for this little project.
Maybe they can lure some of their "talent" back from Rent a Coder.
Planning a mission to Mars requires electricity.
The electricity is needed to power Microsoft netbooks and tablets that are being used to run Excel and PowerPoint.
Excel is used to perform calculations.
PowerPoint is used to perform engineering drawings, in addition to weekly staff meeting presentations and budget analysis from Excel.
No electricity means no calculations from Excel and no drawings from PowerPoint and no weekly staff presentations.
Ergo, no planning for a mission to Mars in 2013 or any other year until the country-wide power grid is stable and funtional.
LOL
Your argument is like saying I should praise the person only raping me once a day, because (and here it comes...) there are others who would rape me ten times a day.
No. The existence of the number -10 does not magically transform -1 into +9. It’s still one below 0.
"Often when the price tag on something seems to good to be true, it is."
Yeah, like offshored software development.
So true... you can hire people for 1/3rd of what you'd pay locally, and you end up getting what you pay for.
yes. I believe you lost your job to somebody in India. Sad. But do your company executives agree with you? Probably yes. Are they doing anything about it NOOOOOOO. Because they are busy getting themselves a big fat bonus. In a country obsessed with personal gain why else can you expect. Stop blaming the offshoring part. Wake up and get your own country on talk. 16 trillion and counting.......
YOu know what is sanity and what is loosing your mind? Maybe your people never taught you?
ever seen a myopic brain dead human..well..have a look into the mirror.
The second time around they get the benefit of the technology they've already developed and the proven staff. So it sounds a bit optimistic but certainly within the realm of reason. If it cost them the same amount and took just as long to repeat the feat a second time it would be kind of sad. It's basically the same project but going a little further, which just means waiting longer for it to arrive when talking about space.
One Mars mission is not like another. For $70-80 million, NASA could get *something* to Mars, just like India probably could. But a probe with an array of awesome instruments - radars, telescopes, spectrographs, landers - is a lot more expensive. It depends whether your goal is bragging rights for sending something to Mars, or doing some real science when you get there.
exactly :p
ahahha ahahha hahahahahhhahha BURNNNNNN N1111
I'm an Indian and will try to answer this without any jingoism.
a. Yes there have been cost over-runs. And these usually happen when in environments that are laid back and with high bureaucracy. And we have enough and more of these.
b. ISRO http://www.isro.org/ has usually been pretty much on the ball. Our launch to success ratio has been pretty high. We're now pretty much self sufficient in terms of satellites etc., These have been extraordinarily helpful in managing agriculture, forestry, border monitoring etc., It is high time we also started adding value to the world. Chandrayan 1 was a step in that direction. I know the Mars shot has been in the works for a long time.
c. Yes I think the costs will be low. Antrix Corp. http://www.antrix.gov.in/ is ISRO's commercial branch. It offers satellite launch services at much much lower price points as compared to others like Ariane Space etc.,
by 2100, it's all too slow, too slow, i want it now, in this lifetime please, i'm not sure if i'm gonna want to come back here anymore. I already posted a request to be stationed at the other side of the galaxy next life.
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
This drivel is modded insightful? It's utter bullshit. For NASA, the money for developing a new booster and for running a planetary probe mission come out of two different pots of money managed by two different centers on opposite sides of the continent. NASA has only developed a new booster specifically for a single mission [NAICT] just once in it's history - the Saturn V. (Note to the pedants - the Juno I doesn't count, it was developed by ABMA and predates NASA.) Other than that, it has either adapted/modified existing boosters (and counted that cost within the cost of the program) or used stock boosters.
No, the Indian probe is most likely cheap because it's low capability and low chance of success. (q.v. Beagle 2.)
This is the same logic that a lot of people used when they asked Jawaharlal Nehru (India's first prime-minister) as to why he was throwing good money into setting these new fangled Institutes - the IITs.
Look at where that investment's gotten us today.
that's kinda similar to the US investing in space.
Not really. It's about shooting our poop all over the US of A. We took your jobs. We'll now out invent you. Here we come...
It is a good thing the US didn't listen to its citizens in California before launching its Mars missions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis
A demand supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage.
Doesn't sound like the problem here was a weak power grid. Have you ever been to India? If you look at the rural areas you would realize that the last thing the country needs is a space program. That might be good for prestige, but doesn't address any of their more immediate problems.
:-) to whom, to NASA?
Oh no, I get it!!! to the US DoD.