7 ms·

> feature eight engines in total and able to carry a 300-kilogram payload to an altitude of around 700 km. The launch vehicle used in May’s test was only 6 mete

> feature eight engines in total and able to carry a 300-kilogram payload to an altitude of around 700 km. The launch vehicle used in May’s test was only 6 meters tall Significant military implications as well [0]. There is a significant spy-sat race going on in the region right now [1] with China, India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, US, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Israel, etc all investing in capabilities in the region. Also has an impact in enhancing India's Ballistic Missile strategy used to combat a two-front war [2], because Missiles are to Indian military strategy what Drones are for Chinese military strategy. Also highlights how the India-US relationship is built by the Indian-American diaspora. The VC who funded Angikul is Anand Rajaraman - the Stanford professor who started "Big Data" with Ullman, was one of the earliest investors in Facebook, and lead Amazon Marketplace after getting acquired by Amazon early in it's history (Marketplace was originally an Indian e-commerce startup called Junglee). As India gets richer, and America's immigration system gets more and more rickety, a reverse brain and capital drain has started to form, much like with Chinese Americans in the late 2000s. [0] - https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/agnikul-showcased-more-than-rocket-science-3056157 https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/agnikul-showcased-more-... [1] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Defense/China-and-India-lead-Asia-race-to-expand-spy-satellite-networks https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Defense/China-and-India-lea... [2] - https://www.usiofindia.org/publication-journal/Evolution-of-India-Ballistic-Missile-Defence-Program-Prospects-and-Challenges.html https://www.usiofindia.org/publication-journal/Evolution-of-...

fallingknife 2y ago
> America's immigration system gets more and more rickety It's completely insane that we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills and make it incredibly difficult for the most valuable immigrants to get in.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > It's completely insane It makes perfect sense when you understand the principal-agent problem and the current political landscape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    If the policy was the opposite you could also argue that. Its basically a fundamental problem of government, whatever the outcome. You have to be way more specific when you want to actually be insightful about the topic.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills You don't? There's no visa for that category.
  - teitoklien 2y ago
    you do, if you have sanctuary cities and entire states openly claiming they will not arrest people who break immigration law, it reduces the ability of USA to actually pass policies to take in more skilled immigrants who'll be a net benefit to America as a whole.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Like the War On Drugs, the human cost, violence, and intrusiveness of enforcement is worse than the alleged problem. The much-vaunted localism of America lets states and cities decide that it's not a problem for them to allow people to live there, and they don't want to help the big bad Federal government disrupt that. (it's still no picnic being in that category, unable to register for social security or even take an internal flight)
      - teitoklien 2y ago
        World isnt some amazing la la land, I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. It feels bad to say this, but to build a good well integrated state, integration is key, you cannot integrate people into a society, if you cannot even control the immigration rate. You can't just let people come to your country illegally, setup shop, and then tell everyone 'Cant do anything about it folks'. The human cost is paid in everything, the cost americans need to worry about, is whether the safety and future prospects of americans is safeguarded, not of people who break laws to illegally immigrate. It's like having sympathy for a next door neighbour child who is uncared for, and serving him/her food, while you're own child cries and starves to death. America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. Also, I'm not sure the people who arrive here illegally are as ready to integrate with America's culture, as some americans are ready to integrate with illegal migrants. I understand life is cruel, and maybe america should even do good things for it, but not at the cost of watching americans starve to death, veterans getting overdosed on the streets wishing after years of suffering to just die and be at peace, and watching them not being able to help them, because our resources are too stretched, Charity starts at home. Even the people who migrate illegally here, they'll help their own first, before even sparing one thought towards you. One needs to be realistic about certain things, it's perfectly doable to protect your own borders, Singapore does it against Malaysia, India does it against Pakistan and Bangladesh (big borders), China does it against neighbouring countries, most Asian countries can protect their own borders. Why can't america?
- sn41 2y ago
  It's quite understandable, imho. Immigration is being allowed precisely for cheap labor, especially when citizens are not prepared to go through the extra hardship - for example, I remember reading that the fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore around 1 am, were all immigrants, all on duty at that hour. For specialized labor, there is always a question of possible espionage and back-channel tech transfer. This is not so much perhaps for India as opposed to other technological rivals, but it may be one of the considerations in the immigration policy being counterintuitive.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    > fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore As an example of how strict immigration policy is, the crew were made to stay on the boat throughout, including while parts of the bridge were blown up.
    - axus 2y ago
      I'd inferred that it was the company keeping them there, after hearing stories like this: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.6002269/after-nearly-4-years-stranded-on-cargo-ship-in-egypt-a-syrian-crew-member-finally-goes-home-1.6002473 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-ed... This article goes into the actual reasons, the visas only came into play during the second month: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship-crew/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship... Basically the company would get in trouble if the crew left, and they are too cheap to hire replacements, so they threaten them.
    - qp11 2y ago
      pfft people who want to find a way around what anyone "allows" will do so. To desperate people rules dont matter. There are more than 50 countries right now standing with begging bowls outside the IMF cause their economies have no hope of growing without help. As long as that list has no hope of shrinking, people who live there and recognize that reality, are going to find ways to get out by hook or crook. Immigration is a symptom of growing global inequality. Without inequality reducing no rules or walls are going to stop the incoming waves.
- nathan_compton 2y ago
  I wouldn't defend america's immigration system (in my opinion the world should be borderless and you should be able to vote in any location where you can demonstrate that you've performed work for a wage or something like that), but if anyone should be allowed to seek labor by moving freely, it is the unskilled, who are already tremendously disadvantaged by globalization. Skilled labor is unlikely to be tremendously impoverished by being unable to move to the absolute optimal location. In other words, one could say its insane that we draw imaginary lines on paper and then confine human beings to those lines based on the accident of their birth location.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
    Those lines are not imaginary per se. It means that the people living within those imaginary lines have come together with similar ideals and unity, arrived by many years of co-operation, to bestow certain rights and privileges to their fellow neighbors. Those rights were paid in blood, sweat and tears. The reason people organized as tribes matters. Its part of our very nature. And those tribes also respected imaginary lines. Even animals respect some imaginary lines. Eventually, some may be accepted in the tribe. But no one would just walk in to the tribe. Its not how nature works.
    - nathan_compton 2y ago
      Hardly. The lines are basically drawn by aristocrats of one kind or another and the rest of us have to deal with it. They are expressions of power and very little else, and mostly not the power of the people. The rights paid for in blood, sweat, and tears, as you say, were wrenched from the hands of the kinds of people who draw borders and consist entirely of statements that are borderless assertions of the value of human beings, not citizens. You may be right that there is some kind of fundamental tribal mentality in human beings, but that doesn't mean that enshrining that reality in law or even nurturing it is morally right. The idea that borders benefit the common person better than, for example, a system which genuinely respected the dignity and right of human beings regardless of their geographical coincidences, is bullshit.
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  valuable immigrants are going to take my jerb and not flip my hamburger, pick the crops or mow my lawn.
nordsieck 2y ago
> Also has an impact in enhancing India's Ballistic Missile strategy used to combat a two-front war [2], because Missiles are to Indian military strategy what Drones are for Chinese military strategy. Almost no one uses liquid fueled Ballistic Missiles any more (I think China is the only one) because they are so operationally terrible. The eventual rocket sounds like it's a hair larger than RocketLab's Electron. Which is struggling to reach profitability after being in its segment for 7-8 years mostly without peer competition. Largely thanks to SpaceX's transporter (and now bandwagon) missions sucking most of the volume out of the market. Making a working rocket is undoubtedly an amazing accomplishment. But at the same time, I really wish that companies stopped making small-lift rockets. There's just no way for them to work financially.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > Almost no one uses liquid fueled Ballistic Missiles any more (I think China is the only one) because they are so operationally terrible. India does as well as China. But they are cheap! Very cheap. Read the 3rd article I linked - it's the actual Indian government strategy around BMD.
  - nordsieck 2y ago
    > India does as well as China. > But they are cheap! Very cheap. Read the 3rd article I linked - it's the actual Indian government strategy around BMD. The only place that liquid rockets are specifically mentioned: > Scientists are also working towards making interceptors used in both layers operate on solid fuels. This is because chemicals in the liquid fuels corrode the fuel storage tanks easily. Therefore, most of the missiles are not kept in a ‘ready-to-fire’ mode. Also, it takes a minimum of three to four hours to fill the liquid fuel in the missile,9 a hardly acceptable scenario wherein precious time will be lost in case of an emergency. It seems pretty clear that: 1. This particular rocket has no military application because the rockets that India uses use hypergolic propellant (presumably UDMH and NTO), while the planned rocket uses LOx and RP1, which are cryogenic propellants (well, at least the LOx is). 2. India is pretty clearly trying to move away from liquid fueled rockets because, as I said in my previous comment, the operational aspects are really terrible.

fallingknife 2y ago

> America's immigration system gets more and more rickety It's completely insane that we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills and make it incredibly difficult for the most valuable immigrants to get in.

nordsieck 2y ago
> It's completely insane It makes perfect sense when you understand the principal-agent problem and the current political landscape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
- panick21_ 2y ago
  If the policy was the opposite you could also argue that. Its basically a fundamental problem of government, whatever the outcome. You have to be way more specific when you want to actually be insightful about the topic.
pjc50 2y ago
> we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills You don't? There's no visa for that category.
- teitoklien 2y ago
  you do, if you have sanctuary cities and entire states openly claiming they will not arrest people who break immigration law, it reduces the ability of USA to actually pass policies to take in more skilled immigrants who'll be a net benefit to America as a whole.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Like the War On Drugs, the human cost, violence, and intrusiveness of enforcement is worse than the alleged problem. The much-vaunted localism of America lets states and cities decide that it's not a problem for them to allow people to live there, and they don't want to help the big bad Federal government disrupt that. (it's still no picnic being in that category, unable to register for social security or even take an internal flight)
    - teitoklien 2y ago
      World isnt some amazing la la land, I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. It feels bad to say this, but to build a good well integrated state, integration is key, you cannot integrate people into a society, if you cannot even control the immigration rate. You can't just let people come to your country illegally, setup shop, and then tell everyone 'Cant do anything about it folks'. The human cost is paid in everything, the cost americans need to worry about, is whether the safety and future prospects of americans is safeguarded, not of people who break laws to illegally immigrate. It's like having sympathy for a next door neighbour child who is uncared for, and serving him/her food, while you're own child cries and starves to death. America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. Also, I'm not sure the people who arrive here illegally are as ready to integrate with America's culture, as some americans are ready to integrate with illegal migrants. I understand life is cruel, and maybe america should even do good things for it, but not at the cost of watching americans starve to death, veterans getting overdosed on the streets wishing after years of suffering to just die and be at peace, and watching them not being able to help them, because our resources are too stretched, Charity starts at home. Even the people who migrate illegally here, they'll help their own first, before even sparing one thought towards you. One needs to be realistic about certain things, it's perfectly doable to protect your own borders, Singapore does it against Malaysia, India does it against Pakistan and Bangladesh (big borders), China does it against neighbouring countries, most Asian countries can protect their own borders. Why can't america?
sn41 2y ago
It's quite understandable, imho. Immigration is being allowed precisely for cheap labor, especially when citizens are not prepared to go through the extra hardship - for example, I remember reading that the fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore around 1 am, were all immigrants, all on duty at that hour. For specialized labor, there is always a question of possible espionage and back-channel tech transfer. This is not so much perhaps for India as opposed to other technological rivals, but it may be one of the considerations in the immigration policy being counterintuitive.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore As an example of how strict immigration policy is, the crew were made to stay on the boat throughout, including while parts of the bridge were blown up.
  - axus 2y ago
    I'd inferred that it was the company keeping them there, after hearing stories like this: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.6002269/after-nearly-4-years-stranded-on-cargo-ship-in-egypt-a-syrian-crew-member-finally-goes-home-1.6002473 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-ed... This article goes into the actual reasons, the visas only came into play during the second month: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship-crew/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship... Basically the company would get in trouble if the crew left, and they are too cheap to hire replacements, so they threaten them.
  - qp11 2y ago
    pfft people who want to find a way around what anyone "allows" will do so. To desperate people rules dont matter. There are more than 50 countries right now standing with begging bowls outside the IMF cause their economies have no hope of growing without help. As long as that list has no hope of shrinking, people who live there and recognize that reality, are going to find ways to get out by hook or crook. Immigration is a symptom of growing global inequality. Without inequality reducing no rules or walls are going to stop the incoming waves.
nathan_compton 2y ago
I wouldn't defend america's immigration system (in my opinion the world should be borderless and you should be able to vote in any location where you can demonstrate that you've performed work for a wage or something like that), but if anyone should be allowed to seek labor by moving freely, it is the unskilled, who are already tremendously disadvantaged by globalization. Skilled labor is unlikely to be tremendously impoverished by being unable to move to the absolute optimal location. In other words, one could say its insane that we draw imaginary lines on paper and then confine human beings to those lines based on the accident of their birth location.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  Those lines are not imaginary per se. It means that the people living within those imaginary lines have come together with similar ideals and unity, arrived by many years of co-operation, to bestow certain rights and privileges to their fellow neighbors. Those rights were paid in blood, sweat and tears. The reason people organized as tribes matters. Its part of our very nature. And those tribes also respected imaginary lines. Even animals respect some imaginary lines. Eventually, some may be accepted in the tribe. But no one would just walk in to the tribe. Its not how nature works.
  - nathan_compton 2y ago
    Hardly. The lines are basically drawn by aristocrats of one kind or another and the rest of us have to deal with it. They are expressions of power and very little else, and mostly not the power of the people. The rights paid for in blood, sweat, and tears, as you say, were wrenched from the hands of the kinds of people who draw borders and consist entirely of statements that are borderless assertions of the value of human beings, not citizens. You may be right that there is some kind of fundamental tribal mentality in human beings, but that doesn't mean that enshrining that reality in law or even nurturing it is morally right. The idea that borders benefit the common person better than, for example, a system which genuinely respected the dignity and right of human beings regardless of their geographical coincidences, is bullshit.
hindsightbias 2y ago
valuable immigrants are going to take my jerb and not flip my hamburger, pick the crops or mow my lawn.

nordsieck 2y ago

> Also has an impact in enhancing India's Ballistic Missile strategy used to combat a two-front war [2], because Missiles are to Indian military strategy what Drones are for Chinese military strategy. Almost no one uses liquid fueled Ballistic Missiles any more (I think China is the only one) because they are so operationally terrible. The eventual rocket sounds like it's a hair larger than RocketLab's Electron. Which is struggling to reach profitability after being in its segment for 7-8 years mostly without peer competition. Largely thanks to SpaceX's transporter (and now bandwagon) missions sucking most of the volume out of the market. Making a working rocket is undoubtedly an amazing accomplishment. But at the same time, I really wish that companies stopped making small-lift rockets. There's just no way for them to work financially.

alephnerd 2y ago
> Almost no one uses liquid fueled Ballistic Missiles any more (I think China is the only one) because they are so operationally terrible. India does as well as China. But they are cheap! Very cheap. Read the 3rd article I linked - it's the actual Indian government strategy around BMD.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > India does as well as China. > But they are cheap! Very cheap. Read the 3rd article I linked - it's the actual Indian government strategy around BMD. The only place that liquid rockets are specifically mentioned: > Scientists are also working towards making interceptors used in both layers operate on solid fuels. This is because chemicals in the liquid fuels corrode the fuel storage tanks easily. Therefore, most of the missiles are not kept in a ‘ready-to-fire’ mode. Also, it takes a minimum of three to four hours to fill the liquid fuel in the missile,9 a hardly acceptable scenario wherein precious time will be lost in case of an emergency. It seems pretty clear that: 1. This particular rocket has no military application because the rockets that India uses use hypergolic propellant (presumably UDMH and NTO), while the planned rocket uses LOx and RP1, which are cryogenic propellants (well, at least the LOx is). 2. India is pretty clearly trying to move away from liquid fueled rockets because, as I said in my previous comment, the operational aspects are really terrible.