18 ms·

Why America Needs India’s Rockets

226 points by cscurmudgeon 10y ago

pm90 10y ago
On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets, enforce a policy so against that very principle. If I'm not mistaken, not only is US policy meant to assist the private space industry in the US, but to also avoid indirectly assisting the Indian missile/ballistic missile program. Although in India's defense the agency that develops/manages/deploys satellites (ISRO) is separate from the agency that develops military missiles (DRDO). I think its a big mistake to continue with this policy. It doesn't seem like the Indian satellite/missile programs are dependent on revenue from commercial launches (although it doesn't hurt, for sure), so they will continue regardless. But by making use of them, US corporations can get the benefit of R&D paid for by Indian taxpayers, for free. Besides which, I think it would lead to better cooperation and understanding between the 2 countries in this very important area.
- avar 10y ago
  This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development. Maybe the line shouldn't be drawn at rockets, but unless you think we should have free & open markets for nuclear weapons I daresay you think the line should be drawn somewhere.
  - phkahler 10y ago
    >> This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. There is also the issue of maintaining the capability domestically. If someone else is too cheap it would destroy the local capability. Imagine the US losing the ability to launch it's own satellites - like it lost the ability to launch people. That said, there needs to be a way to make domestic launches competitive, so helping SpaceX or others while blocking foreign competition seem like a good idea all around. The goal should be to maintain domestic capability while hindering foreign nukes - not to maintain some company monopoly.
    - dharmach 10y ago
      On the other side, Lockheed Martin which already builds C-130J Super Hercules in India, now wants to manufacture F-16 too in India.
      - azernik 10y ago
        It builds the empennages in India, for integration with the full assembly in the US. And in any case both of those are less sensitive technologies - a transport plane that other countries sell equivalents to, and a previous-generation fighter plane for which India is in any case the largest expected purchaser (the production lines in the US are being wound down, and the move to India would be part of a purchase by the IAF), and to etch the US has already approved sales. We wouldn't sell India a Minuteman, so we're sure as hell not going to find their development of an equivalent.
      - afterburner 10y ago
        F-16's are old tech, which the US has been selling to its allies for decades. This helps finance continuing improvement, which keeps the US equipped with the best new military tech.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      > like it lost the ability to launch people. The US has not remotely lost the ability to launch people in the context you're suggesting (lost knowledge, lost budget, lost political will). Its literally between launch systems. No knowledge or budget has been lost. On top of it, its doing what no other nation seems able to do, spark a space race between corporations with their own goals and cost-cutting measures. That's on top of NASA's incredible record of space science missions and robotic missions in the interim. As far as the RD-180 issue goes, ULA buys those engines and re-packages them into domestic launch vehicles that create domestic jobs and keep the majority of the profits local. There's a big difference both practically and politically between this and having a foreign company launch your satellites. So India is not being treated that differently here. That said, RD-180 purchasing is being phased out. The Delta IV is being retired and that only leaves the Atlas V, which I believe is no longer allowed to buy new engines since an earlier sale this year. That's on top of the Pentagon approving $162m to help fund the AR1 and BE-4 engines which will ultimately replace the RD-180 for the ULA.
  - rajathagasthya 10y ago
    > By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. Also, India has done well without the assistance of the US in space technology and will continue to do so. So if the US doesn't want to assist in technology, it's not going to be a show stopper for India. It will continue to eat at the small satellite launch business.
    - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
      > India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. That's regime sounds like a great intent, but the simple fact is that taking a satellite launching rocket, replacing the satellite with a nuke, and aiming it back at the ground somewhere is trivial.
      - hyperbovine 10y ago
        It's doable, not trivial. Tying your shoe laces is trivial.
        wcarron 10y ago
        I think he meant that relative to the difficulty of actually creating a platform for accurate delivery of payloads to space, changing out the payload is, in fact, trivial
        hyperbovine 10y ago
        Thanks, I'm well aware of what he meant. Rockets have very specific requirements in terms of payload weight and shape. So do nukes. Matching the two would take actual engineering effort. Enough that I may not be possible to do so in total secrecy. Which is what this thread was originally talking about.
        sqeaky 10y ago
        You are mixing perspectives. Trivial for a nation-state is different than trivial for a person. A nation like India could accidentally lose the amount of money required to hire a team of 20 to do the engineering to mount a working nuke to a working rocket. Intentionally paying and assembling that same team would be trivial for a nation like India, USA, China or Russia. It could be as simple as a single line item on some military spending bill.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    The terms set by the US government all have to do with pricing: http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-india-unlikely-to-accept-u-s-terms/ http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-ind... I think the idea that it's primarily a security concern is very misleading. Protectionism can always, always be framed as a matter of national security.
  - ameen 10y ago
    Imagine a world without nuclear weapons. We could progress so much further by combining mankind's efforts rather than limiting our potential because of "security constraints".
  - zeusk 10y ago
    It's funny how US is okay with providing India with Uranium, but space launch contracts? Oh no! They could build ICBMs with that tech!
    - xorxornop 10y ago
      AFAIK, they only sold un-enriched uranium. If so, you may not be aware, but enriching uranium is NOT a trivial process. If you can enrich uranium then you can build an ICBM - it takes a lot of good engineering talent and very expensive equipment for either project. Unless you can somehow get another state to sell you the necessary stuff... but I'd consider purchasing uranium enrichment centrifuges vs purchasing ICBMs to be similarly highly-sketchy endeavours (the ICBM more so, but only because it can be used more or less immediately).
      - zeusk 10y ago
        you may not be aware, but India has also been enriching uranium since 1980s.
  - webkike 10y ago
    Huh. Reminds me of the plot of metal gear solid 3.
  - tn13 10y ago
    American outlook on this issue needs a more pragmatic rethink in my opinion. India will build any technology that it needs given sufficient time and money. Time is not something that USA has anymore. It's global influence is only going go down with time. At least in my opinion it makes lot more sense for USA to see India as a potential borrowed knife/insurance against China and help her have good defense capabilities as well as build strong economic ties across all possible avenues. It appears that trade and economic exchange is a much more important factor to avoid full scale war than anything else.
- andromeduck 10y ago
  Even if the two agencies are funded and operated separately, their talent pool surely is not and I can't imagine their wouldn't be significant technology transfer because of it so the end result would be the same.
  - whack 10y ago
    The article mentions that we already buy rockets from China/Russia. It's hard to imagine India as a bigger security threat than either of those countries.
    - rqebmm 10y ago
      India is less a security threat than a destabilization threat. I'm sure the US is more worried about them firing nukes at Pakistan than California.
      - actuator 10y ago
        I don't know on what you are basing the destabilization threat on. India has a no first usage policy on nuclear weapons [1] and has shown no intent of using the weapons. Also in all the wars in which India was involved, it was never the aggressor. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#India.27s_no-first-use_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...
        mmmBacon 10y ago
        The first strike policy is irrelevant in this context. What matters is capability and parity. If a country develops a nuclear capability that they didn't have before, in his case weapon delivery, this is proliferation. This puts pressure on other states to come to parity with that new capability. In this case that pressure would be likely on Pakistan.
        sremani 10y ago
        This western view of Pakistani "parity" is mother of all nuisance. US literally funded Pakistani proliferation with billions of aid, which every one knew was being diverted, while those guys were hiding Osama in their cantonment. Yes, Pakistan would be eating grass if it were not Saudi and American aid.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  Only after we dismantle Pakistan and India nuclear weapons programs.
  - throwaway-hn123 10y ago
    Sure, once we've done the same to US, Russia, China, France and the UK.
    - quirkafleeg 10y ago
      Leaving only North Korea and Israel?
      - ende 10y ago
        Shh, Israel's are a secret.
- ksk 10y ago
  The US, like Britain and much of Europe has a long history of practicing economic protectionism. I wouldn't say its wrong one way or the other, but it is kind of hypocritical to say "Do as we preach, not as we did".
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Hypocrisy and US foreign policy goes hand in hand.
    - dgudkov 10y ago
      As with any other foreign policy.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Meh, USA is only such a champion if it benefits the bigwigs running the show.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  The discussion here is a good look at some of the complexity. I disagreed with some of the innuendo of the article but basically the notion of helping fund external space capability is complex. The goal of the Regan administration appeared to be to enable commerce with countries that already had a certain level of technology without risking destabilizing their own industry. So imagine that what you're trying to achieve is this: Allow companies that want to use rockets for their business purposes to buy capacity from other countries when your local capacity is maxed out, but don't take money off the table of your local capacity which is using that revenue to drive development and research. That is what the treaty was all about, can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese (for example) subsidized rocket launches for third parties like they have solar cells, or rare earth materials? Nobody would pay full price for launches locally, there would be no local business, and local rocket companies would shut down. (We've already seen this in other businesses) Now China decides to no longer sell those services or raise the price astronomically? (remember they did that with rare earth materials?) Now you are in a really tight situation. The whole RD-180 engine issue is exactly this problem. Challenging indeed. So India could "fix" this by signing on to the treaty and agreeing to the restrictions. They choose not to it seems (I have no idea why) and so they are excluded. Is that a US policy failure or an India policy failure?
  - 1474295912 10y ago
    > So India could "fix" this by signing on to the treaty and agreeing to the restrictions. They choose not to it seems (I have no idea why) Indians are fiercely proud of their space program, which is in opinion a wonderful feat in terms of technology. Their main objective is to use it for Indian interests, like Oceans, weather and defence etc. They've no interest in pursuing extra business, if it comes at the cost of bowing down to US stipulations. They're getting nice business from many countries in the world like Germany, France, African nations etc. Source : I've read "Wings of fire" by APJ Kalam, which gives an interesting insiders view into ISRO/DRDO.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  > On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets Critics and advocates of American economic policy like to label it as capitalist and / or free-market (like there's a difference), but it's really not. For one major example, consider the incredible level of restriction on immigration.
aq3cn 10y ago
As much I know ISRO has less failure rate and they get the job with little budget in comparison to NASA or any other space agencies. This alone is the reason, one might be tempted to use Indian technology. > India's Mars mission, with a budget of $73 million, is far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite that is expected to set off for Mars later in November. Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/04/243082266/why-indias-mars-mission-is-so-much-cheaper-than-nasas http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/04/243082266/... For failure rate comparison: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  You also have to consider that Indian salaries aren't remotely close to US salaries and other local factors. Software engineers make 12x what they make in India. The US can't just have a $73m mission considering the standard of living for engineers and managers here. ISRO is notoriously cheap even by Indian standards. Its probably not realistic to expect this type of pricing the same way the US can't mass produce things as cheaply as China can.
  - harichinnan 10y ago
    That's a long time ago. Now there are many companies and many jobs that pay a 100K USD in India. Also Indian software engineers get promoted really fast into management with vastly higher salaries.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      ISRO salaries straight from glassdoor: Scientist/Engineer ₹802,100 Scientist/Engineer ₹798,473 So, 800k rupee is about $12,000 USD. NASA's avg engineer salary is 10x that. edit: NASA employees also get generous government benefits like pensions and such. Federal employee benefits are the envy of the nation. Not sure why you people are arguing against basic facts here. Salaries, cost of living, etc are a fraction in India compared to the states. Thus you can't compare project costs.
rdtsc 10y ago
> Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India's space agency to launch their equipment. So interestingly why not India then? > Indian Space Research Organization has consistently punched above its modest weight class, racking up a series of cheap and practical achievements. Aren't we using Russian RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 engines which also seemed to punch above their weight class. Allegedly it was hard it believe it was possible to run engine at that efficiency level.
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  IIRC, ULA is the one that uses the RD-180s.
- exDM69 10y ago
  The Indian space program has been using solid fuel rockets in most of their space launchers. I'm not sure how that compares to the (liquid fueled) RD-180 in terms of efficiency, but it's a very different type of engine.
  - avmich 10y ago
    I think these days you can find solid fuel boosters, LH2-LOX upper stage and storables - all on a single ISRO rocket. Can you also find a kerosene stage?
    - swatkat 10y ago
      Kerosene stage[1] will be ready in few years, probably by 2020. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200
- avmich 10y ago
  > Aren't we using Russian RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 engines which also seemed to punch above their weight class. Allegedly it was hard it believe it was possible to run engine at that efficiency level. I don't think professionals were that much surprized. George Sutton (author of an encyclopedia on the subject, https://www.amazon.com/History-Liquid-Propellant-Engines-Library/dp/1563476495 https://www.amazon.com/History-Liquid-Propellant-Engines-Lib...) writes: "The history of liquid propellant rocket engines (LPREs) in the former Soviet Union is remarkable because they have developed a larger variety and a larger number of LPREs than any other nation and the number of their LPREs that have flown is considerably higher than that of any other country." http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/2.6943 http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/2.6943 So having RD-180 performing as they do could be rather expected.
akshayB 10y ago
One of the things I always struggle to understand is whenever ISRO get mentioned people jump on US vs India salaries. We live in a world where globalization has changed everything. See what happened to Solar industry when China started dumping cheap solar panels across the global market. Auto manufacturing, software business and many other sectors it is a very common practice. If you have a target of launching something in orbit why not save the money and use technology used by ISRO save some money and use it for another project.
- om42 10y ago
  TLDR: They're two different agencies that have different cabailities and responsibilities. Other than logistics cost NASA's rockets have much higher payloads (think 100 tons vs 10 tons), number of rockets available, number of satellites launched into space (but I think ISRO technically has a better success rate), deep space missions and research(ISRO recently sent its first MARS rover), space stations, manned missions, NASA is also involved in aeronautics, and robots/rovers. Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-NASA-and-ISRO-in-terms-of-advanced-technology-and-science https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-NASA-an...
  - shripadk 10y ago
    ISRO is moving towards it's first manned mission as well. It recently tested it's first Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD (Launch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70)
gnipgnip 10y ago
Indian PSU research centers are well-known for being incompetent (including DRDO, CSIR, HAL...) [1]; in this ISRO is something of an oasis (or so I've heard). These orgs are generally neither nimble, nor particularly interested in acquiring talent, unlike their American competitors (or even NASA). Hiring is often one large nationwide JEE-like exam held once a year to recruit new engineers. Not surprisingly few Engineers that end up working there are from top colleges. Given all this, it's not clear how long ISRO will be able to hold on to its first mover advantage, with regards to cheap launches. While INR being undervalued may be one advantage, it may not prove to be enough to compensate for bad logistics and attrition. Admittedly though, the latter are not as big problems for ISRO, as they are for manufacturing companies. If there are folks from ISRO here on HN, I'd love to know about their management/coding practices and the like. In any case, the whole "defense" line is a non-sequitur - Everyone knows that the Indian bureaucracy leaks like a sewer. - DRDO is hardly an organization that needs fearing; apart from the above anecdotal data, most of the components/tech used by the organization are imported. A Homi Bhabha is not apparent in the current state apparatus. - The state has hardly had any real geopolitical goals (after Nehru-Indira Gandhi). [1] Haldane called CSIR, "Center for the suppression of independent research".
- pm90 10y ago
  The assertions of incompetence of Indian PSU's are not without merit, although I think you are taking a rather pessimistic view of institutions. First of all, there are a whole lot of talented engineers in India, simply because of the population itself. Few go to the top colleges that you speak of and graduating from there doesn't necessarily mean they are the "best". So you can't take a lack of graduates from those colleges as a sign of lack of competence. Next, good institutions can take even "mediocre" people and enable them to do great work (Notice that I use "enable" and not "guarantee"). ISRO seems to have created such a culture, and as long as that tradition/culture continues, it should continue to do very well.
  - gnipgnip 10y ago
    That's true; indeed, the fact that ISRO does so well supports what you claim. That however does not contradict the fact that India's exam system also filters out a lot of smart people, and trains them really well... most of whom have historically have left for the US.
madmax108 10y ago
Multiple friends who moved to the USA for their higher education (MS/PhD) in fields such as Aerospace Engg complain about the very tight regulations in the field. For many people, even being top of the class means coming back home, because companies like Boeing/ SpaceX etc have very tight US citizens only rules imposed on them. This is almost completely opposite to the Comp Sci. graduates who assimilate almost immediately into the workforce. In a way, this has helped India develop it's own space program because many graduates from top universities do come back home and join ISRO (albeit I'm sure many others don't for various reasons). Why is there so much country-based regulation in these fields? Is it because the traditional patriotism associated with the field (US vs Russia in the 60's was legendary)? or is it simply resistance to change?
- seren 10y ago
  A rocket is an intercontinental ballistic missile with a different flight plan. So every nuclear power want to stay ahead in the game.
  - exDM69 10y ago
    I think the US is just adding a self-imposed constraint that hinders their own progress. Other nations have built ICBMs and have space launch capabilities too. The US is not significanltly "ahead in the game" and their development is slowed down by hiring US citizens only in the aerospace industry. Not all rockets are practical as ICBMs. ICBMs tend to use storable (hypergolic) propellants so they can be maintained and ready to launch at short interval. Many space launch vehicles, such as those built by SpaceX, use cryogenic propellants and need to go through a time consuming (and dangerous!) propellant loading before they can be launched. (note: the Indian and the Chinese space programs use primarily solid fuel and hypergolic propellants) I'm sure SpaceX, ULA and others would be happy to recruit non-US citizens if the regulations didn't disallow it.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      Are there any remaining ICBMs that use liquid propellants? Liquid-fueled ICBMs vulnerable to a first strike, not to mention all those messy accidents with hypergolic fuels. Also, China's new Long March 5/6/7 rocket series reduces Chinese use of hypergolic fuels to a minimum. All 3 have now launched at least once.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
renger 10y ago
Why is United Launch Alliance always ignored in these discussions?
- jakub_h 10y ago
  It will continue to be ignored until it approaches the relevant pricing tier.
jwtadvice 10y ago
Another reason is that, with respect to the rise of China, the United States is committing to investing in a rising India to challenge China economically, politically, and militarily. Somehow the article fails to mention the burgeoning defense relationship between India and the United States, and the US imperatives to build out regional challengers and opposition to a China that is growing in power.
- kerbalspacepro 10y ago
  The article also fails to mention the existing defense relationship between Pakistan and the United States, and the United States' imperative to make sure that India and Pakistan both fear the other enough to not do anything rash.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Nice. The article somehow focuses entirely on a (primarily exaggerated) economic aspect of the new defense relationship. This is pretty common in the US press, and leads many of the people inside the country both to evaluate criteria with highly theoretical economic dogmas and to assess their country as both apolitical and unstrategic.
fdsaaf 10y ago
Use IRSO and we all lose. India's government is subsidizing these rockets. SpaceX, on the other hand, is developing technology that really makes space travel cheaper. Only the latter will move us forward in the long term.
- shripadk 10y ago
  How does Indian government financing ISRO have anything to do with the cost of the rocket? ISRO is wholly owned by the Government. Would the cost of building the rocket be substantially higher if it was a private company? Nope! SpaceX is developing technology that makes "space travel cheaper" not "deploying small satellites cheaper". Both fall into different categories altogether.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers. The Russian space program had a lot of challenges when engineering wages went up a lot. India's success with outsourcing and other engineering is the cause. It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce. BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1] All in all, small launches are a very active market. 1: http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-to-provide-more-frequent-cost-effective-rideshare-availability-for-small-satellite-industry/ http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falc...
    - spikengineer 10y ago
      ISRO scientists are paid standard government scale salaries for engineers and scientists. Their salaries are also at the same scale as bureaucrats, civil servants and military. Increased salaries can only happen if indian government is ready to increase salaries all over it's 5 million large workforce. Government salaries have the same percentage growth all across the workforce. Hence I believe you are seriously mistaken about competitiveness of pay in ISRO. It is not feasible for the government to pay at the same scale as large multi national private companies to all it's workforce. India is just not rich enough. Even top level bureaucrat jobs like "Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India" don't get paid a lot compared to what salaries are like in the West.
droithomme 10y ago
This article seems fairly absurd, and probably is propaganda, given India's track record compared to the US regarding rocket design. On the other hand, India's Mars Orbiter Mission has been the lowest cost successful Mars mission to date, so they are not exactly slouches.

226 points by cscurmudgeon 10y ago

pm90 10y ago

On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets, enforce a policy so against that very principle. If I'm not mistaken, not only is US policy meant to assist the private space industry in the US, but to also avoid indirectly assisting the Indian missile/ballistic missile program. Although in India's defense the agency that develops/manages/deploys satellites (ISRO) is separate from the agency that develops military missiles (DRDO). I think its a big mistake to continue with this policy. It doesn't seem like the Indian satellite/missile programs are dependent on revenue from commercial launches (although it doesn't hurt, for sure), so they will continue regardless. But by making use of them, US corporations can get the benefit of R&D paid for by Indian taxpayers, for free. Besides which, I think it would lead to better cooperation and understanding between the 2 countries in this very important area.

avar 10y ago
This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development. Maybe the line shouldn't be drawn at rockets, but unless you think we should have free & open markets for nuclear weapons I daresay you think the line should be drawn somewhere.
- phkahler 10y ago
  >> This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. There is also the issue of maintaining the capability domestically. If someone else is too cheap it would destroy the local capability. Imagine the US losing the ability to launch it's own satellites - like it lost the ability to launch people. That said, there needs to be a way to make domestic launches competitive, so helping SpaceX or others while blocking foreign competition seem like a good idea all around. The goal should be to maintain domestic capability while hindering foreign nukes - not to maintain some company monopoly.
  - dharmach 10y ago
    On the other side, Lockheed Martin which already builds C-130J Super Hercules in India, now wants to manufacture F-16 too in India.
    - azernik 10y ago
      It builds the empennages in India, for integration with the full assembly in the US. And in any case both of those are less sensitive technologies - a transport plane that other countries sell equivalents to, and a previous-generation fighter plane for which India is in any case the largest expected purchaser (the production lines in the US are being wound down, and the move to India would be part of a purchase by the IAF), and to etch the US has already approved sales. We wouldn't sell India a Minuteman, so we're sure as hell not going to find their development of an equivalent.
    - afterburner 10y ago
      F-16's are old tech, which the US has been selling to its allies for decades. This helps finance continuing improvement, which keeps the US equipped with the best new military tech.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    > like it lost the ability to launch people. The US has not remotely lost the ability to launch people in the context you're suggesting (lost knowledge, lost budget, lost political will). Its literally between launch systems. No knowledge or budget has been lost. On top of it, its doing what no other nation seems able to do, spark a space race between corporations with their own goals and cost-cutting measures. That's on top of NASA's incredible record of space science missions and robotic missions in the interim. As far as the RD-180 issue goes, ULA buys those engines and re-packages them into domestic launch vehicles that create domestic jobs and keep the majority of the profits local. There's a big difference both practically and politically between this and having a foreign company launch your satellites. So India is not being treated that differently here. That said, RD-180 purchasing is being phased out. The Delta IV is being retired and that only leaves the Atlas V, which I believe is no longer allowed to buy new engines since an earlier sale this year. That's on top of the Pentagon approving $162m to help fund the AR1 and BE-4 engines which will ultimately replace the RD-180 for the ULA.
- rajathagasthya 10y ago
  > By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. Also, India has done well without the assistance of the US in space technology and will continue to do so. So if the US doesn't want to assist in technology, it's not going to be a show stopper for India. It will continue to eat at the small satellite launch business.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    > India is now part of MCTR (Missile Control Technology Regime) that limits ICBM development. So that's no longer a valid concern. That's regime sounds like a great intent, but the simple fact is that taking a satellite launching rocket, replacing the satellite with a nuke, and aiming it back at the ground somewhere is trivial.
    - hyperbovine 10y ago
      It's doable, not trivial. Tying your shoe laces is trivial.
      - wcarron 10y ago
        I think he meant that relative to the difficulty of actually creating a platform for accurate delivery of payloads to space, changing out the payload is, in fact, trivial
        hyperbovine 10y ago
        Thanks, I'm well aware of what he meant. Rockets have very specific requirements in terms of payload weight and shape. So do nukes. Matching the two would take actual engineering effort. Enough that I may not be possible to do so in total secrecy. Which is what this thread was originally talking about.
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        You are mixing perspectives. Trivial for a nation-state is different than trivial for a person. A nation like India could accidentally lose the amount of money required to hire a team of 20 to do the engineering to mount a working nuke to a working rocket. Intentionally paying and assembling that same team would be trivial for a nation like India, USA, China or Russia. It could be as simple as a single line item on some military spending bill.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  The terms set by the US government all have to do with pricing: http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-india-unlikely-to-accept-u-s-terms/ http://spacenews.com/customers-of-indias-pslv-rocket-say-ind... I think the idea that it's primarily a security concern is very misleading. Protectionism can always, always be framed as a matter of national security.
- ameen 10y ago
  Imagine a world without nuclear weapons. We could progress so much further by combining mankind's efforts rather than limiting our potential because of "security constraints".
- zeusk 10y ago
  It's funny how US is okay with providing India with Uranium, but space launch contracts? Oh no! They could build ICBMs with that tech!
  - xorxornop 10y ago
    AFAIK, they only sold un-enriched uranium. If so, you may not be aware, but enriching uranium is NOT a trivial process. If you can enrich uranium then you can build an ICBM - it takes a lot of good engineering talent and very expensive equipment for either project. Unless you can somehow get another state to sell you the necessary stuff... but I'd consider purchasing uranium enrichment centrifuges vs purchasing ICBMs to be similarly highly-sketchy endeavours (the ICBM more so, but only because it can be used more or less immediately).
    - zeusk 10y ago
      you may not be aware, but India has also been enriching uranium since 1980s.
- webkike 10y ago
  Huh. Reminds me of the plot of metal gear solid 3.
- tn13 10y ago
  American outlook on this issue needs a more pragmatic rethink in my opinion. India will build any technology that it needs given sufficient time and money. Time is not something that USA has anymore. It's global influence is only going go down with time. At least in my opinion it makes lot more sense for USA to see India as a potential borrowed knife/insurance against China and help her have good defense capabilities as well as build strong economic ties across all possible avenues. It appears that trade and economic exchange is a much more important factor to avoid full scale war than anything else.
andromeduck 10y ago
Even if the two agencies are funded and operated separately, their talent pool surely is not and I can't imagine their wouldn't be significant technology transfer because of it so the end result would be the same.
- whack 10y ago
  The article mentions that we already buy rockets from China/Russia. It's hard to imagine India as a bigger security threat than either of those countries.
  - rqebmm 10y ago
    India is less a security threat than a destabilization threat. I'm sure the US is more worried about them firing nukes at Pakistan than California.
    - actuator 10y ago
      I don't know on what you are basing the destabilization threat on. India has a no first usage policy on nuclear weapons [1] and has shown no intent of using the weapons. Also in all the wars in which India was involved, it was never the aggressor. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#India.27s_no-first-use_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...
      - mmmBacon 10y ago
        The first strike policy is irrelevant in this context. What matters is capability and parity. If a country develops a nuclear capability that they didn't have before, in his case weapon delivery, this is proliferation. This puts pressure on other states to come to parity with that new capability. In this case that pressure would be likely on Pakistan.
        sremani 10y ago
        This western view of Pakistani "parity" is mother of all nuisance. US literally funded Pakistani proliferation with billions of aid, which every one knew was being diverted, while those guys were hiding Osama in their cantonment. Yes, Pakistan would be eating grass if it were not Saudi and American aid.
venomsnake 10y ago
Only after we dismantle Pakistan and India nuclear weapons programs.
- throwaway-hn123 10y ago
  Sure, once we've done the same to US, Russia, China, France and the UK.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    Leaving only North Korea and Israel?
    - ende 10y ago
      Shh, Israel's are a secret.
ksk 10y ago
The US, like Britain and much of Europe has a long history of practicing economic protectionism. I wouldn't say its wrong one way or the other, but it is kind of hypocritical to say "Do as we preach, not as we did".
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Hypocrisy and US foreign policy goes hand in hand.
  - dgudkov 10y ago
    As with any other foreign policy.
digi_owl 10y ago
Meh, USA is only such a champion if it benefits the bigwigs running the show.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
The discussion here is a good look at some of the complexity. I disagreed with some of the innuendo of the article but basically the notion of helping fund external space capability is complex. The goal of the Regan administration appeared to be to enable commerce with countries that already had a certain level of technology without risking destabilizing their own industry. So imagine that what you're trying to achieve is this: Allow companies that want to use rockets for their business purposes to buy capacity from other countries when your local capacity is maxed out, but don't take money off the table of your local capacity which is using that revenue to drive development and research. That is what the treaty was all about, can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese (for example) subsidized rocket launches for third parties like they have solar cells, or rare earth materials? Nobody would pay full price for launches locally, there would be no local business, and local rocket companies would shut down. (We've already seen this in other businesses) Now China decides to no longer sell those services or raise the price astronomically? (remember they did that with rare earth materials?) Now you are in a really tight situation. The whole RD-180 engine issue is exactly this problem. Challenging indeed. So India could "fix" this by signing on to the treaty and agreeing to the restrictions. They choose not to it seems (I have no idea why) and so they are excluded. Is that a US policy failure or an India policy failure?
- 1474295912 10y ago
  > So India could "fix" this by signing on to the treaty and agreeing to the restrictions. They choose not to it seems (I have no idea why) Indians are fiercely proud of their space program, which is in opinion a wonderful feat in terms of technology. Their main objective is to use it for Indian interests, like Oceans, weather and defence etc. They've no interest in pursuing extra business, if it comes at the cost of bowing down to US stipulations. They're getting nice business from many countries in the world like Germany, France, African nations etc. Source : I've read "Wings of fire" by APJ Kalam, which gives an interesting insiders view into ISRO/DRDO.
duncan_bayne 10y ago
> On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets Critics and advocates of American economic policy like to label it as capitalist and / or free-market (like there's a difference), but it's really not. For one major example, consider the incredible level of restriction on immigration.

aq3cn 10y ago

As much I know ISRO has less failure rate and they get the job with little budget in comparison to NASA or any other space agencies. This alone is the reason, one might be tempted to use Indian technology. > India's Mars mission, with a budget of $73 million, is far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite that is expected to set off for Mars later in November. Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/04/243082266/why-indias-mars-mission-is-so-much-cheaper-than-nasas http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/04/243082266/... For failure rate comparison: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
You also have to consider that Indian salaries aren't remotely close to US salaries and other local factors. Software engineers make 12x what they make in India. The US can't just have a $73m mission considering the standard of living for engineers and managers here. ISRO is notoriously cheap even by Indian standards. Its probably not realistic to expect this type of pricing the same way the US can't mass produce things as cheaply as China can.
- harichinnan 10y ago
  That's a long time ago. Now there are many companies and many jobs that pay a 100K USD in India. Also Indian software engineers get promoted really fast into management with vastly higher salaries.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    ISRO salaries straight from glassdoor: Scientist/Engineer ₹802,100 Scientist/Engineer ₹798,473 So, 800k rupee is about $12,000 USD. NASA's avg engineer salary is 10x that. edit: NASA employees also get generous government benefits like pensions and such. Federal employee benefits are the envy of the nation. Not sure why you people are arguing against basic facts here. Salaries, cost of living, etc are a fraction in India compared to the states. Thus you can't compare project costs.

rdtsc 10y ago

> Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India's space agency to launch their equipment. So interestingly why not India then? > Indian Space Research Organization has consistently punched above its modest weight class, racking up a series of cheap and practical achievements. Aren't we using Russian RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 engines which also seemed to punch above their weight class. Allegedly it was hard it believe it was possible to run engine at that efficiency level.

deepnotderp 10y ago
IIRC, ULA is the one that uses the RD-180s.
exDM69 10y ago
The Indian space program has been using solid fuel rockets in most of their space launchers. I'm not sure how that compares to the (liquid fueled) RD-180 in terms of efficiency, but it's a very different type of engine.
- avmich 10y ago
  I think these days you can find solid fuel boosters, LH2-LOX upper stage and storables - all on a single ISRO rocket. Can you also find a kerosene stage?
  - swatkat 10y ago
    Kerosene stage[1] will be ready in few years, probably by 2020. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200
avmich 10y ago
> Aren't we using Russian RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 engines which also seemed to punch above their weight class. Allegedly it was hard it believe it was possible to run engine at that efficiency level. I don't think professionals were that much surprized. George Sutton (author of an encyclopedia on the subject, https://www.amazon.com/History-Liquid-Propellant-Engines-Library/dp/1563476495 https://www.amazon.com/History-Liquid-Propellant-Engines-Lib...) writes: "The history of liquid propellant rocket engines (LPREs) in the former Soviet Union is remarkable because they have developed a larger variety and a larger number of LPREs than any other nation and the number of their LPREs that have flown is considerably higher than that of any other country." http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/2.6943 http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/2.6943 So having RD-180 performing as they do could be rather expected.

akshayB 10y ago

One of the things I always struggle to understand is whenever ISRO get mentioned people jump on US vs India salaries. We live in a world where globalization has changed everything. See what happened to Solar industry when China started dumping cheap solar panels across the global market. Auto manufacturing, software business and many other sectors it is a very common practice. If you have a target of launching something in orbit why not save the money and use technology used by ISRO save some money and use it for another project.

om42 10y ago
TLDR: They're two different agencies that have different cabailities and responsibilities. Other than logistics cost NASA's rockets have much higher payloads (think 100 tons vs 10 tons), number of rockets available, number of satellites launched into space (but I think ISRO technically has a better success rate), deep space missions and research(ISRO recently sent its first MARS rover), space stations, manned missions, NASA is also involved in aeronautics, and robots/rovers. Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-NASA-and-ISRO-in-terms-of-advanced-technology-and-science https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-NASA-an...
- shripadk 10y ago
  ISRO is moving towards it's first manned mission as well. It recently tested it's first Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD (Launch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70)

gnipgnip 10y ago

Indian PSU research centers are well-known for being incompetent (including DRDO, CSIR, HAL...) [1]; in this ISRO is something of an oasis (or so I've heard). These orgs are generally neither nimble, nor particularly interested in acquiring talent, unlike their American competitors (or even NASA). Hiring is often one large nationwide JEE-like exam held once a year to recruit new engineers. Not surprisingly few Engineers that end up working there are from top colleges. Given all this, it's not clear how long ISRO will be able to hold on to its first mover advantage, with regards to cheap launches. While INR being undervalued may be one advantage, it may not prove to be enough to compensate for bad logistics and attrition. Admittedly though, the latter are not as big problems for ISRO, as they are for manufacturing companies. If there are folks from ISRO here on HN, I'd love to know about their management/coding practices and the like. In any case, the whole "defense" line is a non-sequitur - Everyone knows that the Indian bureaucracy leaks like a sewer. - DRDO is hardly an organization that needs fearing; apart from the above anecdotal data, most of the components/tech used by the organization are imported. A Homi Bhabha is not apparent in the current state apparatus. - The state has hardly had any real geopolitical goals (after Nehru-Indira Gandhi). [1] Haldane called CSIR, "Center for the suppression of independent research".

pm90 10y ago
The assertions of incompetence of Indian PSU's are not without merit, although I think you are taking a rather pessimistic view of institutions. First of all, there are a whole lot of talented engineers in India, simply because of the population itself. Few go to the top colleges that you speak of and graduating from there doesn't necessarily mean they are the "best". So you can't take a lack of graduates from those colleges as a sign of lack of competence. Next, good institutions can take even "mediocre" people and enable them to do great work (Notice that I use "enable" and not "guarantee"). ISRO seems to have created such a culture, and as long as that tradition/culture continues, it should continue to do very well.
- gnipgnip 10y ago
  That's true; indeed, the fact that ISRO does so well supports what you claim. That however does not contradict the fact that India's exam system also filters out a lot of smart people, and trains them really well... most of whom have historically have left for the US.

madmax108 10y ago

Multiple friends who moved to the USA for their higher education (MS/PhD) in fields such as Aerospace Engg complain about the very tight regulations in the field. For many people, even being top of the class means coming back home, because companies like Boeing/ SpaceX etc have very tight US citizens only rules imposed on them. This is almost completely opposite to the Comp Sci. graduates who assimilate almost immediately into the workforce. In a way, this has helped India develop it's own space program because many graduates from top universities do come back home and join ISRO (albeit I'm sure many others don't for various reasons). Why is there so much country-based regulation in these fields? Is it because the traditional patriotism associated with the field (US vs Russia in the 60's was legendary)? or is it simply resistance to change?

seren 10y ago
A rocket is an intercontinental ballistic missile with a different flight plan. So every nuclear power want to stay ahead in the game.
- exDM69 10y ago
  I think the US is just adding a self-imposed constraint that hinders their own progress. Other nations have built ICBMs and have space launch capabilities too. The US is not significanltly "ahead in the game" and their development is slowed down by hiring US citizens only in the aerospace industry. Not all rockets are practical as ICBMs. ICBMs tend to use storable (hypergolic) propellants so they can be maintained and ready to launch at short interval. Many space launch vehicles, such as those built by SpaceX, use cryogenic propellants and need to go through a time consuming (and dangerous!) propellant loading before they can be launched. (note: the Indian and the Chinese space programs use primarily solid fuel and hypergolic propellants) I'm sure SpaceX, ULA and others would be happy to recruit non-US citizens if the regulations didn't disallow it.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Are there any remaining ICBMs that use liquid propellants? Liquid-fueled ICBMs vulnerable to a first strike, not to mention all those messy accidents with hypergolic fuels. Also, China's new Long March 5/6/7 rocket series reduces Chinese use of hypergolic fuels to a minimum. All 3 have now launched at least once.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

renger 10y ago

Why is United Launch Alliance always ignored in these discussions?

jakub_h 10y ago
It will continue to be ignored until it approaches the relevant pricing tier.

jwtadvice 10y ago

Another reason is that, with respect to the rise of China, the United States is committing to investing in a rising India to challenge China economically, politically, and militarily. Somehow the article fails to mention the burgeoning defense relationship between India and the United States, and the US imperatives to build out regional challengers and opposition to a China that is growing in power.

kerbalspacepro 10y ago
The article also fails to mention the existing defense relationship between Pakistan and the United States, and the United States' imperative to make sure that India and Pakistan both fear the other enough to not do anything rash.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Nice. The article somehow focuses entirely on a (primarily exaggerated) economic aspect of the new defense relationship. This is pretty common in the US press, and leads many of the people inside the country both to evaluate criteria with highly theoretical economic dogmas and to assess their country as both apolitical and unstrategic.

fdsaaf 10y ago

Use IRSO and we all lose. India's government is subsidizing these rockets. SpaceX, on the other hand, is developing technology that really makes space travel cheaper. Only the latter will move us forward in the long term.

shripadk 10y ago
How does Indian government financing ISRO have anything to do with the cost of the rocket? ISRO is wholly owned by the Government. Would the cost of building the rocket be substantially higher if it was a private company? Nope! SpaceX is developing technology that makes "space travel cheaper" not "deploying small satellites cheaper". Both fall into different categories altogether.
- greglindahl 10y ago
  ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers. The Russian space program had a lot of challenges when engineering wages went up a lot. India's success with outsourcing and other engineering is the cause. It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce. BTW there are several startups targeting small satellites. One is the Electron rocket from Rocket Labs. There's also the European Vega rocket, and Japan's Epsilon rocket. SpaceX has already had one launch purchased by a company that groups together small satellites to launch together.[1] All in all, small launches are a very active market. 1: http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falcon-9-rocket-to-provide-more-frequent-cost-effective-rideshare-availability-for-small-satellite-industry/ http://www.spaceflight.com/spaceflight-purchases-spacex-falc...
  - spikengineer 10y ago
    ISRO scientists are paid standard government scale salaries for engineers and scientists. Their salaries are also at the same scale as bureaucrats, civil servants and military. Increased salaries can only happen if indian government is ready to increase salaries all over it's 5 million large workforce. Government salaries have the same percentage growth all across the workforce. Hence I believe you are seriously mistaken about competitiveness of pay in ISRO. It is not feasible for the government to pay at the same scale as large multi national private companies to all it's workforce. India is just not rich enough. Even top level bureaucrat jobs like "Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India" don't get paid a lot compared to what salaries are like in the West.

droithomme 10y ago

This article seems fairly absurd, and probably is propaganda, given India's track record compared to the US regarding rocket design. On the other hand, India's Mars Orbiter Mission has been the lowest cost successful Mars mission to date, so they are not exactly slouches.