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India To Launch Mars Orbiter "Mangalyaan" Tuesday
sfcrazy writes "On Tuesday (Mangalwaar) the Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) will launch the Mars orbiter Mangalyaan from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The spaceship will take over 10 months to reach Mars and, if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt, and would beat close rival China whose recent mission failed."
if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt
"Challenge accepted."
In case anyone was wondering, the US succeeded on the country's second attempt to launch a mission to Mars. This was the Mariner 4 flyby launched Nov 28, 1964. The first US attempt, the identical Mariner 3, failed three weeks earlier when the shroud on the launch vehicle failed to open properly.
The second attempt by the US to orbit Mars was also successful; Mariner 9 in 1971 became the first (human) probe to orbit Mars (or any other planet), followed within a month by the Russian Mars 2 and Mars 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars
Awesome now that India has their poverty and corruption issues finally solved.
Just like all the other slightly-spacefaring nations?
Science research and development, engineering, and technical progress is arguably more useful for moving societal issues forwards. The byproduct is better education, a smarter population, and better job opportunities. You can spend money trying to fix social problems all you want, but ultimately people need to know that their future is secure, their bellies can be filled, and they can support themselves beyond any one-off public spending not to be recovered. Claiming that poverty or corruption need be "solved" first is a recipe for disaster and not compatible with what happens in all of the developed world (which still has poverty and corruption to a small but significant extent).
if everything goes well, it would make India the first country to send a payload to Mars in its first attempt,
That's i really big "If".
The USSR failed on their first 8 attempts starting in 1960. They managed to get some our moon on the ninth attempt five years later, still not successful in getting to Mars though. They managed to make Mars orbit in 1971 after 11 failed attempts. Granted, this was very early in manned space flight. Even so, failure is still a very common outcome for any nation attempting it. The EU made it to orbit in 2004, but the lander did not make it. Between 1988 and 1999, the US had three Mars missions that failed, The USSR/Russia 3, and Japan had one as well. In that 11 year span only the US Mars Global Surveyor and Pathfinder missions were successful.
It's not easy to get there, but I certainly wish India the best of luck doing it on the first try. That would be quite a feat.
I agree in general but still sending a probe to Mars is a political stunt to show India is also coming up, not just China. There are million things India could be investing money into that would bring a better return in areas that you mention than this.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
"Mangal" is Mars in Hindi/Sanskrit. "Yaan" is vehicle Hindi/Sanskrit. "Mangalyaan" thus means a vehicle to Mars. Please stop being a dumb fuck, if you can.
I agree in general but still sending a probe to Mars is a political stunt to show India is also coming up, not just China.
Politicians everywhere are largely useless at directing resources to where they need to go. Why complain here when it could have as easily gone into something less useful? Political stunt or not they are doing the right things.
There are million things India could be investing money into that would bring a better return in areas that you mention than this.
Well time and again physics has been shown to be the driver of much of our progress. Just have a look at how long it took biologists to make use of x-rays or scattering of electrons into a microscope, the chemists to see the value of quantum theory in understanding how molecules form and interact, how at CERN Tim Berners Lee invented HTML and how the next super fast cables that will replace gigabit ethernet have been made and tested there, or the origin of duct tape, and I could go on and on. India (and China) in my opinion understand that physics research in particular gives the best bang for the buck. Good on them for not cowering away from hard physics challenges.
It is also a marketing stunt. India's space program is one of the most cost effective in the world. By going all the way to Mars in its first shot, it demonstrates that its low cost program is also failure proof, successful and viable. ISRO, the organisation that is executing the Mars program, hopes to secure additional commercial satellite launching business by demonstrating the success of its Moon and Mars programs. Is NASA also a commercial entity, or is it entirely government funded? Can an African country walk up to NASA and have its own satellite launched at a fees? Just curious. ISRO is, and I guess that by getting more and more commercial business, it wants to reduce its dependence on government funding (and therefore political meddling). As we've seen in the case of the NASA budget cuts recently, living entirely on government dole doesn't always work in your favour. Or yeah, maybe that too. If you're running a space program in a poor country where a number of other programs vie for the same budget, then demonstrating science that captivates the minds of the populace sure would be important. That way when the budget discussion comes up, ISRO can say that the people want science too!