Slashdot Mirror
ISRO Launches Record 5 UK Satellites, Part of a Long String of Successes
vasanth writes: India launched its heaviest commercial space mission ever with its polar rocket successfully putting five British satellites into the intended orbit after a flawless takeoff. With the overall mass of five satellites being about 1,440 kg, this launch becomes the "heaviest commercial mission" ever undertaken by ISRO and its commercial arm Antrix Corporation.
The workhorse of India's space program, the PSLV is on a run of 25 consecutive successful launches. First flown in 1993, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV, is by far India's most-used rocket for orbital missions – accounting for thirty of the country's 46 launches to date including Friday's.
The workhorse of India's space program, the PSLV is on a run of 25 consecutive successful launches. First flown in 1993, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV, is by far India's most-used rocket for orbital missions – accounting for thirty of the country's 46 launches to date including Friday's.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that aid is charity. It's not. It's leverage.
I'm glad India is a success in the space business... I'm not so glad of funding them out of my own pocket.
Oh? So you think India's "commercial space business" operates at a loss? I rather doubt more than $10 has gone out of "your own pocket" to India in any case, as foreign aid is a tiny percentage of US government spending.
I give thousands in charity to groups that will spend it on the needy (though I suspect little of it goes to India, as they're doing relatively well, compared to the worst places); I also invest thousands in India's economy. There's a good reason for each, but they are different reasons - the latter isn't out of charity. On the one hand, children need to survive, and become educated, and capable of supporting themselves in the modern world.* On the other hand, there also need to be jobs, and an economy to sustain them.
India in particular refuses to be the manufacturing center for the developed world, perhaps seeing the coming robots taking all that work. Instead they focus on jobs that make sense for the modern world, and a space program is an important symbol of that. I say more power to them.
*There are still plenty of places where outside assistance is needed to allow girls to attend school safely, and plenty where the local barbarians still prevent that in the name of religion - you know which one.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Things like aid are never that cut and dried. For example did you know China still receives a large amount of foreign aid?
If you have a look at the regions that foreign aid are deployed in India you will see it predominately sits either off the coast of india or in the Northwest a region that is still troubled by sectarian violence.
However even ignoring that, your argument essentially says, "if you can launch space rockets the rest of your country should be more than good enough that you don't need aid", which if you think about what a country needs in order to develop itself you will see will not be the case. A developing country needs income from outside in order to fund cost developments such as roads, sanitation, schools etc. India is unable to fund those without building some kind of industry. Rockets and commercial rocket launches allow them to give somewhere for their top graduates to work, allows them to bring income into the country, and allows them to improve the life of some people.
That said even with a successful rocket launch program the income it generates is barely a fraction of the money it needs to improve the quality of life of its wider population and it remains in need of help.
China, which 30 years ago was poorer than India
China has a decade or two of growth over India (and you can't believe a word the government approves about conditions in China - this is a totalitarian state with total information control, and many Potemkin Businesses). It may have been the right decision 30 years ago, but does anyone really doubt manufacturing is on its way out? China has had rough economic times for the past decade as American manufacturing returns to American robots (at least, if the Chinese stock market is any guide - hard to be certain).
60% of Indians work as subsistence farmers on tiny family plots
Sure - they have a long way to go (though they're far better off than a lot of the world), but real economic change takes generations, and they're far ahead of where they were 20 years ago. Eh, opinions vary, but I can at least say I've researched it considerably before putting my money where my mouth is.
, and less than 0.0001% work for the space agency.
Does the word "symbol" in my initial post confuse you? What about the word "inspiration"? As in "half the people my age I know who work in tech were inspired by NASA and science fiction". It's important for mankind that our reach exceed our grasp. It's important to see it's not just other nations who can do these things. Don't worry, as you point out most tech workers on local projects are doing much more practical things, but dammit, symbols are important.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
With the overall mass of five satellites being about 1,440 kg, this launch becomes the "heaviest commercial mission" ever undertaken by ISRO
Falcon heavy payload to LEO is 53,000 kg. So one Falcon Heavy can send more mass than 36 ISRO rockets. To put it another way, one Falcon Heavy has launched more mass that all launched ISRO rockets.
Yes, but at what cost to the environment, ...
Nearly all developed countries went through a phase of rapid but dirty growth. China is starting to clean up faster than most others did, including America and Britain.
... and to what was left of civil society following the Cultural Revolution?
The people running China today, are the political heirs of the faction that opposed the Cultural Revolution, and the current economic policies of China are the complete opposite of what the Cultural Revolution espoused.