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Scientists Sent a Rocket To Mars For Less Than It Cost To Make 'The Martian' (backchannel.com)
Ipsita Agarwal via Backchannel retells the story of how India's underfunded space organization, ISRO, managed to send a rocket to Mars for less than it cost to make the movie "The Martian," starring Matt Damon as Mark Watney. "While NASA's Mars probe, Maven, cost $651 million, the budget for this mission was $74 million," Agarwal writes. In what appears to be India's version of "Hidden Figures" (a movie that also cost more to make than ISRO's budget for the Mars rocket), the team of scientists behind the rocket launch consisted of Indian women, who not only managed to pull off the mission successfully but did so in only 18 months. Backchannel reports: A few months and several million kilometers later, the orbiter prepared to enter Mars' gravity. This was a critical moment. If the orbiter entered Mars' gravity at the wrong angle, off by so much as one degree, it would either crash onto the surface of Mars or fly right past it, lost in the emptiness of space. Back on Earth, its team of scientists and engineers waited for a signal from the orbiter. Mission designer Ritu Karidhal had worked 48 hours straight, fueled by anticipation. As a child, Minal Rohit had watched space missions on TV. Now, Minal waited for news on the orbiter she and her colleague, Moumita Dutta, had helped engineer. When the signal finally arrived, the mission control room broke into cheers. If you work in such a room, deputy operations director, Nandini Harinath, says, "you no longer need to watch a thriller movie to feel the thrill in life. You feel it in your day-to-day work." This was not the only success of the mission. An image of the scientists celebrating in the mission control room went viral. Girls in India and beyond gained new heroes: the kind that wear sarees and tie flowers in their hair, and send rockets into space. User shas3 notes in a comment on Hacker News' post: "If you are interested in Indian women scientists and engineers, there is a nice compilation (a bit tiresome to read, but worth it, IMO) of biographical essays called 'Lilvati's Daughters.'"
Just once can we let a girl do something without showering her with praises for doing it with a vagina? How about praising them for a remarkable scientific achievement? Or for sticking to a tight budget? Or for helping mankind? Or for their dedication. Every time I did something if someone brought up the fact that I also have testicles I would quickly get the idea they think testicles hold a person back. Cut this shit out. We'll never, ever move on until people like whoever wrote the summary stop holding us back.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
You know how there are always complaints in these comments sections about how stories are not "tech" enough? Well, here's a story about a fucking rocket to Mars, and this is what's showing up in the comments section.
I've just realized that it's not the Slashdot editors or the stories they select that don't have enough tech in them, it's many of the commenters.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Mangalyaan is old news. India is already working on Chandrayaan 2 which will have a lunar lander and Mangalyaan 2 which may have a lander. China is working on a space station. Yes its cheaper to do stuff in India but the focus should not be on just the cost, it should be on India building up capability to do stuff. BTW the reason its cheaper to do stuff in India is salaries can be lower as the salaries of the working class are at survival levels. Something to grow out of not celebrate.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Watch the white male supremacist mob freaking out and foaming at their mouths. Pretty disgusting.
Ladies -- let me congratulate you and let me tell you that I am (I'm a Westerner and a man) pretty ashamed of the behaviour some of those like me put on display.
You work hard, you have dreams. That's the spirit. Those old white guys do neither, that's why they are so sad. Might they slowly die out.
Nobody sensible would consider that a meaningful comparison either.
Second the Martian made a profit, and the mars mission hasn't. So the Mars mission actually had a much higher net cost.
I would sincerely hope that any space mission will net a far better return for the entire human race than 2 hours of fictional bullshit on the big screen, so I think we can stop with this rather silly comparison now.
When you were a boy, you weren't told all day: "Only girls can study physics." "Boys should stay at home until their parents find them a suitable wife." "A man's place is in the kitchen, or walking 2 meters behind his wife." If you had been, you would probably have reacted differently to a man being successful in science despite such cultural obstacles.
Curie is still a hero for beating the prejudice of her time, but the difference in perception is in the eye of the beholder: boy in a more or less egalitarian society (at least when it comes to the sexes), or girl in a culture where women are not supposed to do such things. To the boy, Curie is mostly a historical example of a heroic struggle. To a girl in India, it's proof that her life and her society don't have to be the way they are.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...