Slashdot Mirror
Indian Prime Minister Formally Announces Mars Mission
neo12 writes in with the news that India plans on being the 6th country to launch a mission to mars. "Making the first formal announcement on the country's Mars mission, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said India will send a mission to the Red Planet that will mark a huge step in the area of science and technology. 'Recently, the Cabinet has approved the Mars Orbiter Mission. Under this Mission, our spaceship will go near Mars and collect important scientific information,' he said addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the occasion of the 66th Independence Day."
Romney announces he will outsource NASA to india.
In all seriousness, it's cheaper and easier to send a rocket to Mars than it is to undertake the kind of legislative and social engineering required to fix Delhi's traffic and India's electrical problems.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
and their cars catch fire
At least they weren't big fires. They were Nano fires.
Sorry, somehow I thought they were talking about successful launches. In that case, you've got (1) US, (2) USSR, (3) ESA, (4) Russia, (5) China, and (6) My Little Brother, who tried to launch himself to Mars by jumping high enough on his bed. I classified it a failure when he hit his head on the ceiling and passed out, but if the criteria is "launches," then he absolutely has to be on the list, which would make India lucky number 7. Good luck India, and if I may humbly suggest, pillows duct taped to the ceiling will save you lots of headaches in the event that you do not achieve escape velocity.
And if I read the pages correctly, NASA's probe still works, while India's stopped working after a year. thank you, come again...
India claims it can send something to orbit the Mars for $100 millions. Can anyone believe that?
You need to read between the lines here. They're going to build a $10 million communications satellite and hitchhike on a Russian rocket (which, based on Russia's Mars exploration history, means the rocket will die somewhere on the way to Mars... just ask China how that deal worked out for them) by offering to put $90 million toward fuel. Then they will route all call center traffic through this satellite, introducing a latency of several minutes between the caller and the call center rep, causing most callers to give up without costing the companies they called any money. So yes, I believe they will attempt it, but no, they will not succeed because all of Russia's attempts (Russia, not the USSR) have failed so far.