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After Successful Launch, India's Mars Orbiter Is On Its Way
neo12 writes "India has successfully launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet — with the aim of becoming the fourth space agency to reach Mars."
As our previous mention of the launch notes, getting to Mars by rocket is a long haul: if all goes well, it will be about 10 months until Mangalyaan reaches orbit.
If they can pull it off, it tells Pakistan, "We can land a nuke on Islamabad just as easily as we send a probe to Mars." This is exactly how the US-USSR space race played out. The Apollo and Soyuz programs were all about demonstrating the capacity of missile technology.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If I lived in India I'd take the first rocket to anywhere. Sign me up. It can't be much worse than the rest of their transportation options.
Actually, India has a very capable transportation network. Their railways are pretty good. Sure, you have the cheap seats that are not clean, but I've traveled a lot on their higher-class compartments, and they were clean and comfortable (air-conditioned sleepers).
The US has one of the worst PUBLIC transportation systems for a western country. Even air transport is horrible for an economy passenger. Frankly, the railway and bus network of India puts the US' public transport network to shame.
Absolutely not... with 1 Billion people and one of the highest rates of population growth, they need greater area more than better infrastructure. Mars is perfect.
Maybe to the politicians and generals, but not to anyone else. Sergey Korolev told a Soviet general, "What we are doing is much more important than your bombs." The Saturn V was useless as a weapon, nothing about the Apollo launches was useful militarily except the spinoff technology, and the general public in both countries didn't cower in fear. Historical revisionism is fun and entertaining, though not always all that accurate.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Mars is perfect for what? It's an unimaginably distant dead rock with nothing on it. Antarctica is a billion times more hospitable.
Mars is perfect for what? It's an unimaginably distant dead rock with nothing on it. Antarctica is a billion times more hospitable.
Yeah, and the moon is another dead distant rock. What could we possibly learn by going there, hmm?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
People have tried to quantify the benefits of basic science but have largely failed – but that does not mean it is not important.
1900: "Electrons? Quantum physics? Can you eat that?"
1948: The transistor.
2013: Hell, look around yourself...
Ezekiel 23:20