While I don't have the exact stats with me to prove this, it appears likely to me that the Chinese education system would have a much larger number of candidates vying to get into a smaller number of available university slots than the British education system. This would lead to the Chinese universities setting tough entrance standards, while Britain lets in those less qualified. i.e. this does not necessarily mean the British education system is failing, but could just mean that Britain can afford to provide university level education to a larger percentage of its population than China can for its population.
The core of their argument is that instead of actually delivering same performance at lower prices, Moore's law delivers more performance at same prices. i.e. you can buy Cray-1 level performance for $50, but you can't buy Apple I level performance for $0.001. The second level of their argument is that this march of performance forces users to keep spending money to upgrade to the latest hardware, just to keep up with the software.
That makes an attempt at addressing the price itself, but it is not clear what is so "special" about this particular orbit that it deserves double to triple the price. I remain skeptical.
It still doesn't address the fact that the launch cost 50% more than the price (which itself looks inflated) charged to the customer.
According to various reports, they charged the Italians USD 11 million for the launch of the 350 kg satellite. Roughly $30k per kg while international norm is 10-15k per kg for LEO. Also the launch cost them $15 million. So the launch is still subsidized by the Indian government and they are charging the customer more than the market rate. How is this "commercial", and how is it competitive?
Slashdot Mirror
Slam dunk. Don't even try to refute it.
While I don't have the exact stats with me to prove this, it appears likely to me that the Chinese education system would have a much larger number of candidates vying to get into a smaller number of available university slots than the British education system. This would lead to the Chinese universities setting tough entrance standards, while Britain lets in those less qualified. i.e. this does not necessarily mean the British education system is failing, but could just mean that Britain can afford to provide university level education to a larger percentage of its population than China can for its population.
The core of their argument is that instead of actually delivering same performance at lower prices, Moore's law delivers more performance at same prices. i.e. you can buy Cray-1 level performance for $50, but you can't buy Apple I level performance for $0.001. The second level of their argument is that this march of performance forces users to keep spending money to upgrade to the latest hardware, just to keep up with the software.
"India is the fifth entry into the commercial satellite launch business after the US, Russia, China, Ukraine and the European Space Agency", says http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s19047 77.htm and many other reports.
That makes an attempt at addressing the price itself, but it is not clear what is so "special" about this particular orbit that it deserves double to triple the price. I remain skeptical. It still doesn't address the fact that the launch cost 50% more than the price (which itself looks inflated) charged to the customer.
According to various reports, they charged the Italians USD 11 million for the launch of the 350 kg satellite. Roughly $30k per kg while international norm is 10-15k per kg for LEO. Also the launch cost them $15 million. So the launch is still subsidized by the Indian government and they are charging the customer more than the market rate. How is this "commercial", and how is it competitive?