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Why America Needs India's Rockets (bloomberg.com)
Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India's space agency to launch their equipment. Private American launch companies, such as SpaceX, are quite happy with this arrangement, which was intended to protect them. But the ban is not only wrong in principle -- it's actually impeding an exciting new American industry, according to Bloomberg. From the article: Last month, under pressure from satellite operators and manufacturers, U.S. trade officials began reviewing the decade-old policy. They should heed the pressure and overturn it. Emerging India may seem like an unlikely competitor for Silicon Valley rocket companies. Yet since 1969, the Indian Space Research Organization has consistently punched above its modest weight class, racking up a series of cheap and practical achievements. One of its most important feats was the development of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which was designed to carry satellites for monitoring agriculture and water resources, among other things. What made the PSLV unique was that it was designed to launch small satellites. And that's a good niche to occupy at the moment. Over the past few years, the small-satellite market has boomed as advances in miniaturization made space accessible to governments and companies that might never have considered it. The uses for such gear seem almost limitless, from shoebox-sized climate-monitoring devices to Samsung's plan to use thousands of micro-satellites to provide global internet access. Some $2.5 billion has been invested in the industry over the past decade. But getting all those satellites into space is now proving to be a problem, and U.S. policy is partly to blame.The article adds that apart from SpaceX, no other U.S. company has offered a rocket for small satellite launches, even though the demand has surged. This in turn, has resulted in American satellite companies with few choices. Though the U.S. Trade Representatives has offered occasional waivers from the moratorium, India continues to offer a far cheaper reliable option, and it's not even being considered.
To offer more context, India's Mars mission has a budget of $73 million -- making it far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite. Further reading on Vox.com, "India's mission to Mars cost less than the movie Gravity."
To offer more context, India's Mars mission has a budget of $73 million -- making it far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite. Further reading on Vox.com, "India's mission to Mars cost less than the movie Gravity."
Thank you...come again!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They were banned due to the threat of terrorism.
Can we india to moon so that the jobs can come back?
Orbital Sciences has been launching small satellites for ages. There, I didn't even have to search the web to come up with a counterexample.
The Indian Mars mission was tiny, about a quarter of the size and weight of the MAVEN, with about 1/4 of the science payload. Hence, 1/4 the cost. If they tried to build an American-sized scientific satellite, with all the same capabilities, they'd cost as much as we do. Just like the Russians and the Chinese cost about as much as we do. Some things take up size and require power and can't be done with small sats. Incidentally, our small sats cost about as much as theirs do.
More propaganda out of msmash about Indian supremacy. Kudos on not having blatant misspellings this time.
They can't even handle low-tech properly. Why the fuck would you think they could handle high-tech properly?
out of this country. Trump 2016!
India has a massive and largely abandoned underclass combined with lax environmental laws (and we're not talking the 'save the whales' kind we're talking the cancer villages kind). I don't expect our want American businesses to compete with that. You'll notice we're not blocking German rocket launches..
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Next question!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
for a race to the bottom. Trump 2016!
From the article:
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan's administration sought to protect nascent private launch companies from subsidized foreign competition by setting up Commercial Space Launch Agreements. The idea was simple: In exchange for the chance to put U.S. satellites into space, foreign governments agreed to launch quotas and set fees. Both China and Russia signed such agreements. In 2005, India was asked to do the same. While the U.S. waited for an answer (it was and continues to be "no"), it imposed an export moratorium on satellites for Indian launch.
So it sounds like it was a trade deal that fell through. Like, the U.S. offered India the same terms as China and Russia, but they weren't interested. If that's indeed the case, well, China and Russia aren't really known for their laid-back attitude toward these things, so if India's requirements are even more stringent then perhaps we shouldn't be in business with them anyway.
Mind you, I don't know anything about the specifics. Can anyone provide more background on this?
...from shoebox-sized climate-monitoring devices to Samsung's plan to use thousands of micro-satellites to provide global internet access.
Those are both way smaller than the PSLV's LEO payload capacity of 3.8 tons, or even its GTO payload capacity of 1.4 tons. Even a shoebox-sized gold brick (~250 kg) doesn't weight nearly that much.
So, the PSLV has the same fundamental problem for such missions as U.S. commercial launchers: it's too expensive to launch tiny satellites one at a time on a huge rocket, which means they have to be launched in batches. But, satellites launched in batches are all deposited in the same orbital plane. That's problematic because different missions require different orbital planes, and making large plane changes after achieving orbit is very, very expensive - especially in LEO.
So, I'm not sure what problem the author thinks the PSLV solves for people launching micro-satellites - it's actually sized for launching medium or mini satellites.
Is American ability to independently launch rockets more important or to have cheaper satellites? Because I think SpaceX dies if we use Indian rockets. Just like our chip fabricators.
From TFS:
Well, no. The demand for smallsats hasn't actually surged, at least not outside the press release, PowerPoint, and blog industries. (There's been a short term spike, but not a long term surge.) The surge has been in demand for microsats - and in a large part that surge has been powered by the availability of cheap rides as a secondary payload on someone else's flight. That being said, there are a number of US companies working towards smallsat launch capability, but it remains to be seen whether their attempts will pan out.
The needful shall be done. But would that be w/ Indian rockets or American? Can you revert back to us on that?
sounds like their ICBM chain of plutonium/uranium/thorium distributors trying to get startup capital for a hypersonic drone version...
If America wants India's rockets, America will take them. Just as we will take whatever we need. Under President Hillary Clinton the world will have no choice but to bow to US supremacy! Surrender or be destroyed! CLINTON! CLINTON! CLINTON!
Am I an obtuse and crotchety old man, but shouldn't the title be "Why the United States needs India's Rockets"?
"America" only vaguely refers to one or more continents and not specifically to the United States.
Why act like a hysterical nit wit. The only thing in danger is PROPERTY. PROPERTY can be replaced and insured. You would be just as foolish to do less even if your payload was on a NASA rocket.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Lol
Try to explain to you Congress"man" that Indian people are Caucasians, not "Blacks" as in African-Americans.
Musk i.e. SpaceX needs drugs, drugs payed for by U.S. tax payers through Federal and State subsidies. Rocketeering is a Whitemans game and Musk, though African, is the Winner, due to his white skin.
Ha ha
Was it written by Indias chamber of Commerce?
That was my point.
Slit trenches, everywhere - roughly 96% of Indians have outdoor slit-trenches for restrooms.
In the 4% that have restrooms, another 95% have porcelain slits.
The remaining 3.8% of the toilets that look like the rest of the modern world have signs on the doors informing them that they should refrain from standing on the toilet seats to squat.
Whoever wrote this knows nothing about rocketry. India's space program is largely based around UMDH and RFNA powered rockets. While there are definite use cases for hypergolic rocket systems, for example ease/reliablilty of start/restart and long term storage (re: ICBM), they are very expensive compared to RP-1/LOX or NH4/LOX based systems and require larger rockets, both due to lower energy density of the fuel/oxider and extra mass to accommodate the very material incompatible nature of UMDH & RFNA.
India chose the "cheap" route just as China did with their space program. Cheap with respect to the fact they can very easily stand on the shoulders of those that came before without having to spend significant R&D cycles developing reliable and more efficient cryogenic pumping systems like the Russians (gas generator) or US (staged combustion) did.
What is a maven?
I thought it was a black bimd, like a cmow , only biggem.
The 1% constantly sells the idea, directly or indirectly, that we have to become more like the 3rd world to compete with the 3rd world.
We'd have to relax our environmental, labor, and safety laws to achieve this.
If you bring this up with the 1%, they'll typically reply that our pollution rules are written by "paranoid meddlers using fake science" and that long hours should be a choice an individual can make. During recessions it becomes work-long-hours-or-get-fired, though.
I believe we should try the opposite: tell the 3rd world we'll tariff their products unless they conform to certain standards. If enough countries do this, they will change and modernize. Without pressure, they won't change; it's human nature.
And don't claim they have to be export-driven to grow. There's no Law of Economics that says that; it's merely a copy-cat habit that we help feed by giving in. Unleash consumers, not just factories, and your econ will grow.
Table-ized A.I.
The Cosgreve rocket -- which is the rocket referred to in the Star Spangled banner was based on the Mysorean rocket. Innovative features included metal casing. Where did the Mysorean rocket design come from? India.
What % of GDP does India spend on defense vs what's that number for the US? I'll be very surprised if the US is anywhere near India. India's has to be higher not only due to the size of the economy, but the fact that it has a real enemy on its border (if not 2), as opposed to US, which has Canada, Mexico and Russia on its borders.
>I believe we should try the opposite: tell the 3rd world we'll tariff their products unless they conform to certain standards. If enough countries do this, they will change and modernize. Without pressure, they won't change; it's human nature.
That was the original point behind creating the WTO, but Kissingerist idiots insistend on letting countries lile Nicaragua and China in.
These rockets won't require any toilets. As long as no toilets are involved, India can do it.
Um... where the hell did you get the idea that the Russians use gas generators (inefficient) and the US uses staged combustion? That is almost perfectly backward.
Staged combustion was invented by a Russian, Aleksei Mihailovich Isaev.
The first staged combustion rocket engine built was the Soviet S1.5400, first flown in 1960.
The (ill-fated) Soviet N1 moon rocket used staged-combustion NK-15 and NK-33 rocket engines (the American Saturn V moon rocket used gas generator rocket engines).
The first western (German, not US) staged combustion engine was in 1963, and it was a laboratory test only.
The Russian Proton rocket family was using the staged combustion RD-253 rocket engine in 1965.
The US buys staged combustion RD-180 engines from Russia for United Launch Alliance's workhorse Atlas rocket family.
As far as I can tell, the first US-built staged combustion rocket to fly was the RS-25, better known as the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engine), which first flew in 1981. It was a fuel-rich staged combustion cycle, made possible by the use of non-coking H2 fuel. However, by that point the Russians had been using oxidizer-rich staged combustion (which requires advanced metallurgy that the US could not duplicate for over two decades.
Now, both SpaceX and Blue Origin are US companies working on staged combustion rockets, but those are recent projects. In SpaceX's case, it is a full-flow staged combustion rocket, which is extremely tricky; no FFSC rocket has ever flown, although the Russians built and test-fired the RD-270 in the late 60s. SpaceX's Raptor has successfully fired on a test stand, the first FFSC rocket engine to do so since 1970 and the only US-built one to do so ever. The US (through private contractors Rocketdyne and Aerojet) experimented with FFSC in the "Integrated Powerhead Demonstrator", which wasn't even a full rocket motor; the front-end ("Powerhead") component was tested at full capacity in 2006, but then canceled; no full rocket engine was ever built using that design.
So yeah, the US historically didn't have shit on the Russians when it came to advanced rocket combustion cycles. That may be changing now, but it's driven primarily by private industry.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Now we're offshoring NASA?
is to just bring in Indian Rockets using H1B visas -- works for everything else.
I suspect that the Indians must have at least some cost advantages. The cost of a very comfortable, middle-class lifestyle there is something like 1/3 that of anywhere in the developed world.
However that isn't my main point. We want the Indian space program available to us because it gives launch customers options. Those options are going to be useful because the list of suppliers of satellite launches is still rather small. Competition and choice will be good for this industry.
Even more so is my concern about launch freezes after accidents. Rocketry is a dangerous and accident-prone business. Each time there is a major vehicle failure, the launch provider typically halts all further launches until an accident investigation is performed. It happens to NASA, the Russians, SpaceX, you name it. Even one launch freeze is still a major event in the rocket business. They can throw off launch schedules by two years or more.
With additional launch providers, you don't reduce the chances of a freeze at any single agency, but you can reduce the overall impact on the launch business.
This is being accomplished by several things:
1) India manipulates their money against the dollar.
2) The stages are from India's missiles. IOW, we would be funding their military.
3) We are not allowed to use military tech to cheaply launch sats here, so, it is not fair to allow other nations to use that tech to lower their costs relative to ours.
4) this is the same BS that China tried on America, which helped undercut our own space program. As such, it should NOT be allowed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First world: NATO aligned nations
Second world: Warsaw Pact aligned nations
Third world: Unaligned nations. Includes Switzerland.
So now with all of the money going to pay for toys for oligarchs so they can smash stuff into the desert and occasionally into the ocean they want to outsource the US space program too. It is no surprise really as thee same oligarchs use visa abuse and outsourced labor to keep the bonuses rolling in at their other paying gigs.
"India's mission to Mars cost less than the movie Gravity."
Sounds like the reader never heard of the movie "The Martian." That movie was $108M to make.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
I know space is a big place, but are these mini satellites a concern for other spacecraft?
America is also subtly importing Racism from India
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2325502/Map-shows-worlds-racist-countries-answers-surprise-you.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/
Casteism
American steel and manufacturing is now China - not because china is "better" in the sense that if America had the same opportunity they couldn't do an equal job. American steel and manufacturing is China because American investment moved to China and away from America. The dead middle class - yeah, that is a consequence of the economic policy. Until manufacturing of that scale comes back, the middle class isn't going to "recover".
So now you want to put economic forces into play that remove America's ability to compete well in space. You do know what a nuclear weapon is. You can't make promises today about what dictators of tomorrow won't do - and one implicit thing in "space" is the ability to rain nuclear death from the sky.
I think America should protect America because if America doesn't do that then then only people who will ... is nobody. Russia? China? EU? Bullcrap. They will all let us burn. They will let your grandchildren burn.
Take a lesson from human history. Learn about man's inhumanity to man - it pervades the whole world and the whole of history. Then realize that if you don't have a defense from man's inhumanity to man, then humans will be (profoundly) inhuman toward you.