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India Launches Indigenous Cryogenic Rocket
An anonymous reader writes "The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) today successfully launched its heavy-duty rocket — the Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch vehicle (GSLV). The communication satellite, GSAT-14 was launched from Isro's spaceport at Sriharikota, about 80 km from Chennai. ISRO had to develop the cryogenic technology from scratch after the United States prevented Russia from transferring the technology to the India in 1993. Today's successful launch marks the culmination of a 20 year effort to develop the engine."
The insight and expert leadership http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organisation#Goals_and_objectives really seems to have worked out very well long term.
From early testing to advancing skills within India seems to have been the key. So many other nations try to buy in, but end up with expensive, limited export grade tech transfers.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The United States prevented Russia from transferring cryogenic engine technology to India, so India had to develop this from scratch. And then there is the famous ISRO spy scandal which the CIA is believed to have orchestrated. The CIA is believed to have got top scientists working on the Indian cryogenic engine implicated in a scandal, thus slowing down the program. The supreme court of India recently exonerated the accused scientists of any wrongdoing.
Please read these:
http://www.rediff.com/news/column/who-killed-the-isros-cryogenic-engine/20131118.htm
http://indrus.in/blogs/2013/11/09/cryogenic_countdown_how_the_gslv_became_indias_missile_impossible_30711.html
A little googling says it uses solid fuel boosters, plus a non-cryogenic second stage powered by a Vikas engine running off dinitrogen tetroxide as an oxidiser for an unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine fuel. The cryogenic part though is the third stage powered by a new engine, the CE-7.5, which runs off good old liquid hydrogen and oxygen. About as simple a fuel as you can get, chemically. They are already working on the CE-20, which packs a much higher thrust albeit at a slightly lower specific impulse.
Or, in internet terms: It's powered by the Rockomac Skipper, but they're saving up science points for the Mainsail.
That is really cool (no pun intended). Developing, or even re-developing, advanced technology will always help your nation. And this rocket is about a LH2/LOX engine, which does not help the military. So, this is about a civil process, which is of more use.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why the US prevented the technology transfer:
India developed nuclear capability after the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty which created the so-called "Nuclear Club". India is still not a signatory to this treaty, along with Israel, Pakistan, South Sudan, and (now that they've withdrawn from it) North Korea.
The intent was to prevent them from, or at least slow progress on, developing an ICBM delivery system for nuclear warheads, without them becoming signatory to the treaty. They could have had the technology for the asking, if the became a signatory.
For this same reason, it's unlikely that there would be a similar transfer to any non-signatory state, and probably not Taiwan, which claims they are abiding to the treaty, but have so far refused to become signatory to it.
It's pretty hypocritical to complain about the blocking of a technology transfer of this particular technology under the circumstances, given that India tested it's Agni V ICBM last September, and can hit targets in pretty much all of Europe, Asia, and Austrailia, and much of Africa.
" ...after the United States prevented Russia from transferring the technology to the India in 1993."
yeah, right.
how exactly does that work when the united states could even prevent one of its own citizens from transferring highly classified state spy secrets to a british newspaper?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
are you implying that this is based on stolen US design, or that US gripes too much about thefts?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Indian here. I was in India when the newspapers were brimming with the news of how USA denied the technology to India. Ironically the desire in India grew exponentially when the technology was denied. Suddenly everyone from politicians, scientists, engineers, and even the street food vendors and Bollywood actors were interested in India developing cryogenic engine technology. Many of them couldn't pronounce cryogenic correctly. 99.99% of them didn't have a clue what it really was or what would it mean to their life if India were to develop cryogenic engines.
This psychological effect is extremely powerful. An Iranian friend told me once "I don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons in general. But if USA and Israel do not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, then I want Iran to have nuclear weapons." It's all about sticking it to the big bully, proving yourself. Suddenly it gives a point to the people to rally around.
And the resentment it causes when people realize that someone else is controlling them is so powerful and pervasive that I think it needs consideration in foreign policy design.
I am not saying go on handing over technologies to nations. But Americans vastly underestimate this type of resentment. The future potential cost of such resentment should be adequately considered while deciding what is in the best interest of USA. If you really have to do it, then at least launch adequate PR effort.
What do you mean "stealing"? The plans for cryogenic engines have been all over the internet for a long time now. The basic technology of the original F1 engine from the Apollo program was pretty common knowledge over 10 years ago. You really can't steal a design that has been pretty much open to the public at large. The innovations of the F1 engine were the cooling of the nozzle with the cryogenic fuel and the turbo-pumps, both of which have been pretty well understood for a long time.
Admittedly, scaling them might pose a technical challenge but I don't think it would that hard. The hard stuff was dealing with the shock wave problems that wanted to tear everything apart and even solutions to those problems have been in open scientific journals for a long long time.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Could it be that the "flamebait" moderation was itself a joke? Think about it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.