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My suggestion to India: focus on encouraging the would-be Elon Musks in your population. Give them permission to do it. Remove the barriers to them doing it. Y

My suggestion to India: focus on encouraging the would-be Elon Musks in your population. Give them permission to do it. Remove the barriers to them doing it. You'll get there much faster if the private sector were doing it.

hackaflocka 10y ago
Wow -- people are downvoting such basic commonsense.
- piyushpr134 10y ago
  because it is a pathetic comment. Thank you
  - dang 10y ago
    Your comments have repeatedly broken the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, so please follow them from now on. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- generj 10y ago
  The fact of the matter is, space has only really become feasible for the private sector in the last few decades in the US and a few other countries. The overriding reason for this has been large government funded research programs funding the sunk cost initial R&D for the private sector. A secondary reason is the now widespread usage of commercial satellites. Countries with private space companies also have long-standing aeronautical engineering companies. India lacks all of these things. Shifting all of the space program to private companies would be a disaster there. Companies rarely finance scientific endeavors because the payout on them is too long - and many pure science efforts like landing on Europa offer no possible payback plan. Science in space cannot exist without government largess. Also, one of the primary reasons for space research has historically been weapons deployment (ICBM). Private firms are not going to fund that sort of development - unless the government pays them to do so. I am tired of people applying a free market rant to everything they run into. Any economist will tell you that the "free market" only really applies in very particular markets (perfect competition), and even those have a common trade/law/infrastructure system established by a government. Space is actually better suited to oligopolies, which are almost as far away from a free market as possible and practically dictate a need for regulation.
anonymousab 10y ago
Is there evidence of ISRO doing a bad or inefficient job?
negamax 10y ago
The reason you are getting downvoted is because you come across as fault pointer at a successful event. Yes, India needs more private sector participation. It has been divesting like crazy but more the better. There's lots of groundwork, infra and social norms need to be challenged and changed for US like entrepreneurship scenario. India has it's own strength and weaknesses. In last few years, it has done a good job of recognising those weaknesses and enhancing strengths.

hackaflocka 10y ago

Wow -- people are downvoting such basic commonsense.

piyushpr134 10y ago
because it is a pathetic comment. Thank you
- dang 10y ago
  Your comments have repeatedly broken the site guidelines. We ban accounts that do this, so please follow them from now on. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
generj 10y ago
The fact of the matter is, space has only really become feasible for the private sector in the last few decades in the US and a few other countries. The overriding reason for this has been large government funded research programs funding the sunk cost initial R&D for the private sector. A secondary reason is the now widespread usage of commercial satellites. Countries with private space companies also have long-standing aeronautical engineering companies. India lacks all of these things. Shifting all of the space program to private companies would be a disaster there. Companies rarely finance scientific endeavors because the payout on them is too long - and many pure science efforts like landing on Europa offer no possible payback plan. Science in space cannot exist without government largess. Also, one of the primary reasons for space research has historically been weapons deployment (ICBM). Private firms are not going to fund that sort of development - unless the government pays them to do so. I am tired of people applying a free market rant to everything they run into. Any economist will tell you that the "free market" only really applies in very particular markets (perfect competition), and even those have a common trade/law/infrastructure system established by a government. Space is actually better suited to oligopolies, which are almost as far away from a free market as possible and practically dictate a need for regulation.

anonymousab 10y ago

Is there evidence of ISRO doing a bad or inefficient job?

negamax 10y ago

The reason you are getting downvoted is because you come across as fault pointer at a successful event. Yes, India needs more private sector participation. It has been divesting like crazy but more the better. There's lots of groundwork, infra and social norms need to be challenged and changed for US like entrepreneurship scenario. India has it's own strength and weaknesses. In last few years, it has done a good job of recognising those weaknesses and enhancing strengths.