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."

Comments

Re:Foreign satellite launches

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasonable assumption given how corrupt indian society is.

Re:Have you seen India's electrical wiring? Toilet

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Race to the Bottom [Re:I'm not surprised they're c

[Tablizer]

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.

Re:BS

[ghoul]

For the level of GDP/capita India has India produces far more scientists and Engineers than other countries. Thats the punching above their weight I am referring to. As for the poverty its a fact that India does not have significant levels of Oil.
The Richest countries in the world have become rich by industrializing on top of cheap Energy. UK,France,Germany did it with Coal. US,USSR,China did it with Oil . Even today the top 5 oil producers in the world are USA,Russia,China,Saudi,Iran with USA and China still needing to import but the abundance of cheap energy makes it easy to become rich. USA in the 20s was the Saudis of the 80s. People who got off the farm and came to the city because suddenly their was a lot of oil.

Japan realized this trap and went for resource colonization of Korea and China to build up their industrial base. India on the other hand just got independent 70 years back after 200 years of colonization during which the Industrial revolution was forbidden by law. It missed the coal based industrialization and had no oil. India has Coal and could industrialize based on Coal but now the Global Warming laws are holding it back just like the British laws favoring British goods over Indian goods during colonization.