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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 ch

by 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.
  - shripadk 10y ago
    When you say "ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers" who are you comparing with? SpaceX/NASA? ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries? "It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce." It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits. "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]" Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads. "All in all, small launches are a very active market." ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      I was comparing to Indian salaries. For example, as you're probably aware, the outsourcing industry has caused a rapid rise in computer engineering salaries in India. A similar thing happened in Russia already. I only referred to small launches because you mentioned them. If you're interested in Indian rockets with larger payloads, you might be interested in checking out the GLSV Mark III, which is expected to reach production long before the RLV-TD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mark_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launc... I read about both the GSLV Mark III and RLV-TD in Western news sources. I'm a big fan of India's space program, but it's very tedious getting downvoted on HN for talking about it.
swatkat 10y ago
>> India's government is subsidizing these rockets What do you mean by subsidizing rockets? Launch costs are to be borne by customer, not Indian government.
known 10y ago
Take a cue from http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-minimum-wages-around-the-world-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-minimum-wages-aroun...

by fdsaaf 10y ago

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.
- shripadk 10y ago
  When you say "ISRO doesn't appear to pay competitive salaries for engineers" who are you comparing with? SpaceX/NASA? ISRO pays competitive salaries for engineers. At least as per Indian pay scale. Most ISRO scientists/engineers lead a comfortable life. You can't compare the pay scale of a SpaceX/NASA employee with that of ISRO employee because the economies of both countries are vastly different. Also, SpaceX/NASA wouldn't hire Indian scientists/engineers in bulk to make it competitive anyways. So where is the question of competitive salaries? "It will be interesting to see what ISRO's costs look like when increased salaries ripple through their workforce." It won't make any difference. ISRO is a completely profitable enterprise for the Indian government. So even if the salaries are increased it won't make any impact on profits. "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]" Yeah but these companies don't have the same track record as ISRO does. I checked the companies you mentioned and the launches range from 1-15 in the past decade with quite a few failed attempts. ISRO on the other hand has had 56 launches with only 8 failed launches. I'm only talking about launches from "Satish Dhawan Space Centre" and not even considering ISRO and Arianespace collaboration which launched heavy payloads. "All in all, small launches are a very active market." ISRO is not just focusing on small launches. It recently tested a Reusable Launch System: RLV-TD. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzxe6q60R70 Of course there is no brouhaha or chest thumping involved as the ISRO team is pretty modest about whatever progress it makes. Hence you won't find this featuring on your Western news channels. This reusable shuttle will be used for sending a manned mission to Moon.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    I was comparing to Indian salaries. For example, as you're probably aware, the outsourcing industry has caused a rapid rise in computer engineering salaries in India. A similar thing happened in Russia already. I only referred to small launches because you mentioned them. If you're interested in Indian rockets with larger payloads, you might be interested in checking out the GLSV Mark III, which is expected to reach production long before the RLV-TD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle_Mark_III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launc... I read about both the GSLV Mark III and RLV-TD in Western news sources. I'm a big fan of India's space program, but it's very tedious getting downvoted on HN for talking about it.

swatkat 10y ago

>> India's government is subsidizing these rockets What do you mean by subsidizing rockets? Launch costs are to be borne by customer, not Indian government.

known 10y ago

Take a cue from http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-minimum-wages-around-the-world-2013-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/a-look-at-minimum-wages-aroun...