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Mythbusting India's Mars Mission

240 points by tchalla 13y ago

thex86 13y ago
Someone commented on Reddit that space programs bring us (the human race) closer. The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite - instead of praising India or just reporting the news, all I see is "BUT THEY ARE SO POOR!" and skepticism. I don't want to say this, but I felt journalists were being almost "jealous" that India achieved this.
- mayanksinghal 13y ago
  I think the scientists involved would be totally fine with skepticism about technical decisions that they have made on such missions. I would argue that they might even appreciate it when it comes from people who actually understand the subject (instead of having knowledge worth one wikipedia page). But what might discourage them (and disappoints me, for being a citizen of the country in question) is the lack of trust that is being put in space exploration and petty cost-benefit analysis being used. The same analysis that has been refuted a million other times on hundreds of other occasions in all countries and continents.
  - kamakazizuru 13y ago
    yup - I totally dont understand this - why does no one apply this cost-benefit analysis when the US goes to pointless wars for years on end - spending literally TRILlIONS - for something that will have very limited positive outcomes. Especially given the poverty in the US itself - the number of homeless people and foreclosures.
- marincounty 13y ago
  I don't think anyone is jealous. We see the pictures, and we actually care.
  - kamakazizuru 13y ago
    right - and so do Indians I'm very sure - it's just that anyone with an understanding of science and a sound logical ability will know that tooting about how bad the poverty in a country is - when they're achieving something succesful - is anything but "concern". those problems have been there for decades - 70 million worth of toilets isnt going to solve indias sanitation problems. 70 million worth of space missions will inspire 70 million more kids to become scientists and engineers - and drive the country forward.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- LionRoar 13y ago
  Not jealous, just surprisingly misinformed and perhaps narrow minded :) Hope that India is going to work on the communications side of things, exciting times indeed!
- kamaal 13y ago
  >>The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite Indian press was no different. There was 20 minute debate(These guys are still debating if the mission was necessary) on whether the mission was necessary. The next 2 hour prime time news was about Sachin Tendulkar's last test match. Some channels just gave a passing reference. All that was shown is that ISRO had launched a mars mission with a 20 second clip of the rocket taking off. There is no popular demand. The general public is not in any position to understand what the mission is or why its important. How much effort was gone into it, and how it was done.
speeder 13y ago
This remembers me of the sad incident of Brazillian Sattelite Launcher explosion (that killed 21 engineers and flattened the launch pad) Lots of people around the world (including inside brazil) went: "Oh, brazil cannot do that stuff anyway, also why it is expending money in that shit instead of building x, or y" It made me very sad, for example I bet most of these people don't know Brazil relies heavily on sattelites to control forest fires, find illegal logging, mining and farming, find uncontacted native americans that need protection, and so on... In a country that is just huge, specially in relation to government resources and population, it is essential to use cheap tools to manage it, and sattelites are quite cheap in that regard (or people really think it is cheaper to fly up and down every square inch of forest with helicopters?)
shenoybr 13y ago
In my view, this money is well spent. It auguments and helps space research and exploration and puts India - a developing country - out there with the developed nations to boast of a successful space program. Skeptics will never die. Money can always be spent on something else. But for India, as a country, demonstrates that the country has a lot of potential and that it has smart people to pull the job off.
narrator 13y ago
As long as we're talking money and priorities: The budget for the film Gravity was $100 million dollars. Sending this Indian probe to Mars cost $69 million dollars.
- jonmrodriguez 13y ago
  Wow
- LionRoar 13y ago
  I like these kinds of perspectives :)
- slig 13y ago
  Not a fair comparison. They spent $100MM on a movie knowing that they will net $X00MM in profits.
  - wonderzombie 13y ago
    Could you explain how or why this is unfair? I don't think the OP was suggesting that Gravity's expenditure was therefore not worthwhile. If anything, your comment adds further weight to the comparison by illustrating the scale of a major motion picture in terms of expenditure and profit.
    - rikacomet 13y ago
      Science cannot be bought in the store, you don't have a market of people willing to pay you back. Its not constantly craved by humans unlike entertainment. And it is not limited to general rules of business, specially when we are going beyond our abilities, and stretching them even further. For example, ISRO have never had a engine before that could re-ignite after a 300 days period of cryogenic conditions of space. That technology developed in extreme conditions can be reverse engineered to make our cars perform better in winters. Or some other applications. Does that sort of returns even get reported ever?
  - mtgx 13y ago
    Don't be silly. Hollywood's movies are never profitable - if you check their accounting books at least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
velodrome 13y ago
Space exploration is in the interest of mankind. The more people who know the subject the better. Setting up shop on the moon and other planets gives humans (and other Earthly organisms) redundancy from an ELE (Extinction Level Event).
jlgreco 13y ago
One thing that space exploration detractors seem to have a difficult thing comprehending is exactly what happens to money spent on a space program. Seemingly, they are under the delusion that all that money gets stuffed into a rocket and blasted into space, never to be seen again. Of course the material cost of the rocket stages and probes/satellites is quite small, the vast majority of money spent on space exploration is spent on earth. Paying earth engineers earth dollars that they will in turn spend on earth. That 25 Billion USD Apollo program? That money didn't get sent to the Moon, damn near all of that money was spent in America. Hell, think of it this way: India needs satellites, so they can either dump money into another country that will build and launch those satellites for India, or they can dump that money back into India and develop those capabilities themselves. How could you possibly fault India for keeping their space money domestic?
- bcoates 13y ago
  How is consuming billions of dollars of the time of talented specialists a good thing in and of itself? There's an argument that it's the best possible thing they could be doing, or that India's space program is extremely cost effective, etc. But an expenditure is a loss not a gain--otherwise we could make ourselves rich by breaking all the windows in the world.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - kamakazizuru 13y ago
    I really tried to understand this - but completely fail to. Can you try and make any sense at all? How in the world is something productive - that leads to mankind as a whole gaining knowledge and information AND to India bolstering national pride and marketing itself as a Space logistics provider to the world - even remotely comparable to breaking windows? Geez - by your logic everyone should keep money in their mattress and go to bed.
    - fspeech 13y ago
AsymetricCom 13y ago
This post feels kind of circlejerky to me.
user901 13y ago
An alternate critical view of the Mars Mission. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-mars-/1190937/0 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-mars-/1190937/0 It does not talk about where else the money could have been spent, but what other types of missions ISRO should focus on.
rikacomet 13y ago
Indeed a good article. Right on the spot on mostly all things. Just to add, that investment in Space ventures is not profitable today, and hardly few people see it as a race at the moment, but if you look at what Deep Space Industries is doing in the US, you can say that this is a race itself. Which will turn highly profitable, when you can harvest resources in the future from places beyond our earth. Additionally, Scientific discovery is not your "buy in the store" thing, that one nation can just expect technologies to pop out of thin air, if they pay the price. Its a hit and miss, since ages. During renaissance, multiple scientist lost their whole empires of wealth, for what appeared to be only small advances back then. It took 1000 failures, and cost of those failures in time and money to build a bulb. And look today. Where we are. Well its a good thing that these critics are powerless to stop science, else India would have been still living on the preached ideals of these critics like " food to mouth" ideology. EXAMPLE: Imagine you have certain amount of money, and you have two choices: Buy Seeds or Buy food. Yes if you are about to die, you wouldn't even wait to have this question, but, otherwise when you are just hungry constantly, you would invest your money partly in seeds as well that is, if you are aware, that constructive measures like growing crop has its risks, takes time, and has no immediate return. So, if you can just hold on until the harvest even on a shoe string budget, like ISRO has over here, the seed that grew into the grain will surely fill you beyond your current means! May I even need to requote this? This is the best to describe space exploration to, such critics. "One small step for man, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND"
yalogin 13y ago
This is ridiculous. I saw hundreds of comments denouncing all the negative things about India's space program but have yet to see one actual negative comment about the program. Every one seems to be praising it and then there are these articles and comments (even on HN) some how defending the space program and their mars probe launch. Too much karma whoring going on.
misnome 13y ago
Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet. I'm sure once they have eliminated all poverty in their country, like the US, and then worked out the whole remote killing thing, they can continue on trying to do "Science" and "Advancing the state of human knowledge".
- mahranch 13y ago
  "Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet." You jest, but space is the new way to show off your nation's military prowess. It not-so-subtly shows competency with ICBM technology. North Korea did just that when they attempted to display their latest ICBM tech to the world by "launching a satellite into space" a few years ago. A lot of people seem to be overlooking the military applications here. India has a shaky relationship with Pakistan and (like it or not) space superiority will become the next "air superiority" militarily in the coming decade or 2.
hetman 13y ago
It's ironic seeing so much criticism from citizens of countries such as the USA which hasn't exactly solved its own poverty issues from the perspective of plenty of other countries. So where do you draw that arbitrary line? Also, it seems incredibly short sighted not to see how development of a sophisticated space programme won't benefit the people of a nation (certainly if the engineers and policy makers were prescient they could just invest their time building only the space devices that would directly benefit their people but the real world of engineering is too complex for things to work that way). It's fortunate HN is full of people that mostly see the benefits, but it's clear a lot of people elsewhere aren't that thrilled. I for one am glad India made this step. If a bunch of people are going to demonstrate what can only be described as overt jealousy, maybe it will spurn their own nations into greater efforts in the space arena.
bcRIPster 13y ago
Oh this argument in here is ridiculous. Sure the U.S. space program was expensive but the amount of bi-products of that program has far since justified the cost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
justanother 13y ago
One caravel and four carracks, carrying 270 men? A westward route to Asia? Senhor Magellan, why should we waste the Crown's treasury, when so many suffer?
jccooper 13y ago
If anyone is interested in the off-hand claim made in the article about ISRO being one of the few organizations to return a satellite to Earth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experime... SRE-1 was launched and landed in Jan 2007. It was a small sat with aeroshell and parachute for reentry, with water splashdown. Reentry has been done by: NASA, ESA, Russia, India, China, Japan, and SpaceX. Reentry is mostly for manned spaceflight, which was the driver behind the SRE mission. ISRO has ambitions in this direction, though the manned program seems to be on the back burner now. (There are other uses for re-entry: planetary exploration and sample return, mostly. But getting to other planets or getting samples from somewhere interesting tends to be pretty hard. Older spy sats used to re-enter their data payloads, but that's not needed anymore.)
- swatkat 13y ago
  Yes :) ISRO will be testing SRE-2 next year[1]. Ground tests of a crew module[2] are underway; hopefully orbital test would be done in GSLV Mk III in another two years[3]. Human space flight might be delayed (2020?) due to budget constraints, and also GSLV Mk III should be "human rated" first. I think ISRO gets an unfair treatment when they take up such forward-looking projects. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experiment_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experime... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle [3]http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Manned-expedition-hopes-rest-on-GSLVs-shoulders/2013/10/31/article1865523.ece http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Manned-expedition-hopes-r...
hawkharris 13y ago
As an American, I greatly admire India's achievements in science and engineering as well as the public education system that powers them. I hope that the United States will learn from and one day catch up to India in terms of higher education.
tod222 13y ago
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing—and if they don't support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. -Richard Feynman, Cargo Cult Science http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html
avisk 13y ago
More than the economic and scientific returns, the inspiration provided by these missions to millions of young children to pursue science and the interest it generates is priceless.
djsampath 13y ago
This is more of an opinion piece. Not a lot of facts but I have to admit that I found myself agreeing with the author more than once. http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove...
InclinedPlane 13y ago
It's difficult to do better than xkcd in bursting these sorts of arguments so succinctly: http://xkcd.com/1232/ http://xkcd.com/1232/ The fact is that the tradeoffs between important endeavors (like feeding the hungry and exploring the universe) are not as simple as people make out. To a certain extent there is a justification to do "useless" things even at the cost of "critical necessities". Should people stop pursuing art, music, philosophy, etc. in times of crisis? Certainly there are extremely hard times when you absolutely can't afford to do anything but concentrate on survival, but such times are rare. The world is never going to be perfect, but we can't let that stop us from making the world better, in every way. By pursuing science and art, and so on. Moreover, by investing in R&D and by advancing technology we frequently gain more than we spend. Consider, for example, the invention of the automobile. Originally a toy for the rich, today they help vastly increase the yield and efficiency of crops, and help to feed the poor. Imagine where we'd be if in the year 1200 the entire world had decided that it could not in good conscience pursue advancements in science or the arts until everyone in the world was no longer in danger of going hungry. We would still be in the middle ages, and there would be very much fewer people who were well fed. In the specific case of India, their investment in spaceflight technology is likely to bring them returns far in excess of the cost of this mission. Both in improvements to their industrial/technological base as well as in bringing new business for their growing aerospace industry.
nutanc 13y ago
Unfortunately, India does not have Hollywood to glamorize the space program. Well, it does have Bollywood, but they have other things to show :-) Just a sample for reference which was told somewhere else, the budget for the movie Gravity was more than the budget for the Mars mission by my country. A very good critique and explanation of why we need this mission is presented here,http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove...
linux_devil 13y ago
India as a nation is not poor , its the political class and public administration which is involved in corruption is poor. Here is the list of scams : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India . Coal scam is over $25 billion , CWG scam is worth $29 billion. Now I wonder if international media would have criticized such administration and if this amount of money which is equivalent to GDP of few nations would have been used to eradicate poverty. >"India's Mars program promises to return useful engineering and scientific data for a price that puts other space agencies to shame!" Even after so many scams and corruptions around , Indian scientists are able to launch this mission at such a low cost, it's really appreciable.
kamaal 13y ago
I'm not sure how authentic this is. But I saw this on Quora and it explains well how money spent of Space programs helps mankind. http://www.quora.com/NASA/How-necessary-is-the-NASA-program http://www.quora.com/NASA/How-necessary-is-the-NASA-program Read the first comment. I can't post the whole thing as HN has a limit on the comment length.
arunc 13y ago
Mission to Mars at $72M or just about ₹12/KM which is cheaper then my commute at ₹14.25/KM
hrjet 13y ago
Consider another perspective. When a new land is made habitable, how do you allocate it? If Mars or Antartica were to become habitable tomorrow, which parties would be able to purchase how much land and from whom? I think early explorers will have a stake in it, unless it comes down to a show of power, or something unlikely such as equal distribution of the new land to all citizens of all countries.
xerophtye 13y ago
I don't get it. A country that spends millions (if not billions) of dollars on Cricket and Movies every year, is being criticized for spending on space exploration with "there's so much poverty there! Build schools!". Where are these critics during the Indian Premier League?
NAFV_P 13y ago
They spent their money well. Sending an Olympic torch on a space walk is a waste of time.

240 points by tchalla 13y ago

Someone commented on Reddit that space programs bring us (the human race) closer. The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite - instead of praising India or just reporting the news, all I see is "BUT THEY ARE SO POOR!" and skepticism. I don't want to say this, but I felt journalists were being almost "jealous" that India achieved this.

mayanksinghal 13y ago
I think the scientists involved would be totally fine with skepticism about technical decisions that they have made on such missions. I would argue that they might even appreciate it when it comes from people who actually understand the subject (instead of having knowledge worth one wikipedia page). But what might discourage them (and disappoints me, for being a citizen of the country in question) is the lack of trust that is being put in space exploration and petty cost-benefit analysis being used. The same analysis that has been refuted a million other times on hundreds of other occasions in all countries and continents.
- kamakazizuru 13y ago
  yup - I totally dont understand this - why does no one apply this cost-benefit analysis when the US goes to pointless wars for years on end - spending literally TRILlIONS - for something that will have very limited positive outcomes. Especially given the poverty in the US itself - the number of homeless people and foreclosures.
marincounty 13y ago
I don't think anyone is jealous. We see the pictures, and we actually care.
- kamakazizuru 13y ago
  right - and so do Indians I'm very sure - it's just that anyone with an understanding of science and a sound logical ability will know that tooting about how bad the poverty in a country is - when they're achieving something succesful - is anything but "concern". those problems have been there for decades - 70 million worth of toilets isnt going to solve indias sanitation problems. 70 million worth of space missions will inspire 70 million more kids to become scientists and engineers - and drive the country forward.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
LionRoar 13y ago
Not jealous, just surprisingly misinformed and perhaps narrow minded :) Hope that India is going to work on the communications side of things, exciting times indeed!
kamaal 13y ago
>>The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite Indian press was no different. There was 20 minute debate(These guys are still debating if the mission was necessary) on whether the mission was necessary. The next 2 hour prime time news was about Sachin Tendulkar's last test match. Some channels just gave a passing reference. All that was shown is that ISRO had launched a mars mission with a 20 second clip of the rocket taking off. There is no popular demand. The general public is not in any position to understand what the mission is or why its important. How much effort was gone into it, and how it was done.

speeder 13y ago

This remembers me of the sad incident of Brazillian Sattelite Launcher explosion (that killed 21 engineers and flattened the launch pad) Lots of people around the world (including inside brazil) went: "Oh, brazil cannot do that stuff anyway, also why it is expending money in that shit instead of building x, or y" It made me very sad, for example I bet most of these people don't know Brazil relies heavily on sattelites to control forest fires, find illegal logging, mining and farming, find uncontacted native americans that need protection, and so on... In a country that is just huge, specially in relation to government resources and population, it is essential to use cheap tools to manage it, and sattelites are quite cheap in that regard (or people really think it is cheaper to fly up and down every square inch of forest with helicopters?)

shenoybr 13y ago

In my view, this money is well spent. It auguments and helps space research and exploration and puts India - a developing country - out there with the developed nations to boast of a successful space program. Skeptics will never die. Money can always be spent on something else. But for India, as a country, demonstrates that the country has a lot of potential and that it has smart people to pull the job off.

narrator 13y ago

As long as we're talking money and priorities: The budget for the film Gravity was $100 million dollars. Sending this Indian probe to Mars cost $69 million dollars.

jonmrodriguez 13y ago
Wow
LionRoar 13y ago
I like these kinds of perspectives :)
slig 13y ago
Not a fair comparison. They spent $100MM on a movie knowing that they will net $X00MM in profits.
- wonderzombie 13y ago
  Could you explain how or why this is unfair? I don't think the OP was suggesting that Gravity's expenditure was therefore not worthwhile. If anything, your comment adds further weight to the comparison by illustrating the scale of a major motion picture in terms of expenditure and profit.
  - rikacomet 13y ago
    Science cannot be bought in the store, you don't have a market of people willing to pay you back. Its not constantly craved by humans unlike entertainment. And it is not limited to general rules of business, specially when we are going beyond our abilities, and stretching them even further. For example, ISRO have never had a engine before that could re-ignite after a 300 days period of cryogenic conditions of space. That technology developed in extreme conditions can be reverse engineered to make our cars perform better in winters. Or some other applications. Does that sort of returns even get reported ever?
- mtgx 13y ago
  Don't be silly. Hollywood's movies are never profitable - if you check their accounting books at least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

velodrome 13y ago

Space exploration is in the interest of mankind. The more people who know the subject the better. Setting up shop on the moon and other planets gives humans (and other Earthly organisms) redundancy from an ELE (Extinction Level Event).

jlgreco 13y ago

One thing that space exploration detractors seem to have a difficult thing comprehending is exactly what happens to money spent on a space program. Seemingly, they are under the delusion that all that money gets stuffed into a rocket and blasted into space, never to be seen again. Of course the material cost of the rocket stages and probes/satellites is quite small, the vast majority of money spent on space exploration is spent on earth. Paying earth engineers earth dollars that they will in turn spend on earth. That 25 Billion USD Apollo program? That money didn't get sent to the Moon, damn near all of that money was spent in America. Hell, think of it this way: India needs satellites, so they can either dump money into another country that will build and launch those satellites for India, or they can dump that money back into India and develop those capabilities themselves. How could you possibly fault India for keeping their space money domestic?

bcoates 13y ago
How is consuming billions of dollars of the time of talented specialists a good thing in and of itself? There's an argument that it's the best possible thing they could be doing, or that India's space program is extremely cost effective, etc. But an expenditure is a loss not a gain--otherwise we could make ourselves rich by breaking all the windows in the world.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- kamakazizuru 13y ago
  I really tried to understand this - but completely fail to. Can you try and make any sense at all? How in the world is something productive - that leads to mankind as a whole gaining knowledge and information AND to India bolstering national pride and marketing itself as a Space logistics provider to the world - even remotely comparable to breaking windows? Geez - by your logic everyone should keep money in their mattress and go to bed.
  - fspeech 13y ago

AsymetricCom 13y ago

This post feels kind of circlejerky to me.

user901 13y ago

An alternate critical view of the Mars Mission. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-mars-/1190937/0 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-mars-/1190937/0 It does not talk about where else the money could have been spent, but what other types of missions ISRO should focus on.

rikacomet 13y ago

Indeed a good article. Right on the spot on mostly all things. Just to add, that investment in Space ventures is not profitable today, and hardly few people see it as a race at the moment, but if you look at what Deep Space Industries is doing in the US, you can say that this is a race itself. Which will turn highly profitable, when you can harvest resources in the future from places beyond our earth. Additionally, Scientific discovery is not your "buy in the store" thing, that one nation can just expect technologies to pop out of thin air, if they pay the price. Its a hit and miss, since ages. During renaissance, multiple scientist lost their whole empires of wealth, for what appeared to be only small advances back then. It took 1000 failures, and cost of those failures in time and money to build a bulb. And look today. Where we are. Well its a good thing that these critics are powerless to stop science, else India would have been still living on the preached ideals of these critics like " food to mouth" ideology. EXAMPLE: Imagine you have certain amount of money, and you have two choices: Buy Seeds or Buy food. Yes if you are about to die, you wouldn't even wait to have this question, but, otherwise when you are just hungry constantly, you would invest your money partly in seeds as well that is, if you are aware, that constructive measures like growing crop has its risks, takes time, and has no immediate return. So, if you can just hold on until the harvest even on a shoe string budget, like ISRO has over here, the seed that grew into the grain will surely fill you beyond your current means! May I even need to requote this? This is the best to describe space exploration to, such critics. "One small step for man, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND"

yalogin 13y ago

This is ridiculous. I saw hundreds of comments denouncing all the negative things about India's space program but have yet to see one actual negative comment about the program. Every one seems to be praising it and then there are these articles and comments (even on HN) some how defending the space program and their mars probe launch. Too much karma whoring going on.

misnome 13y ago

Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet. I'm sure once they have eliminated all poverty in their country, like the US, and then worked out the whole remote killing thing, they can continue on trying to do "Science" and "Advancing the state of human knowledge".

mahranch 13y ago
"Clearly the money could be better spent working out new ways to kill people remotely from an armchair on the other side of the planet." You jest, but space is the new way to show off your nation's military prowess. It not-so-subtly shows competency with ICBM technology. North Korea did just that when they attempted to display their latest ICBM tech to the world by "launching a satellite into space" a few years ago. A lot of people seem to be overlooking the military applications here. India has a shaky relationship with Pakistan and (like it or not) space superiority will become the next "air superiority" militarily in the coming decade or 2.

hetman 13y ago

It's ironic seeing so much criticism from citizens of countries such as the USA which hasn't exactly solved its own poverty issues from the perspective of plenty of other countries. So where do you draw that arbitrary line? Also, it seems incredibly short sighted not to see how development of a sophisticated space programme won't benefit the people of a nation (certainly if the engineers and policy makers were prescient they could just invest their time building only the space devices that would directly benefit their people but the real world of engineering is too complex for things to work that way). It's fortunate HN is full of people that mostly see the benefits, but it's clear a lot of people elsewhere aren't that thrilled. I for one am glad India made this step. If a bunch of people are going to demonstrate what can only be described as overt jealousy, maybe it will spurn their own nations into greater efforts in the space arena.

bcRIPster 13y ago

Oh this argument in here is ridiculous. Sure the U.S. space program was expensive but the amount of bi-products of that program has far since justified the cost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

justanother 13y ago

One caravel and four carracks, carrying 270 men? A westward route to Asia? Senhor Magellan, why should we waste the Crown's treasury, when so many suffer?

jccooper 13y ago

If anyone is interested in the off-hand claim made in the article about ISRO being one of the few organizations to return a satellite to Earth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experime... SRE-1 was launched and landed in Jan 2007. It was a small sat with aeroshell and parachute for reentry, with water splashdown. Reentry has been done by: NASA, ESA, Russia, India, China, Japan, and SpaceX. Reentry is mostly for manned spaceflight, which was the driver behind the SRE mission. ISRO has ambitions in this direction, though the manned program seems to be on the back burner now. (There are other uses for re-entry: planetary exploration and sample return, mostly. But getting to other planets or getting samples from somewhere interesting tends to be pretty hard. Older spy sats used to re-enter their data payloads, but that's not needed anymore.)

swatkat 13y ago
Yes :) ISRO will be testing SRE-2 next year[1]. Ground tests of a crew module[2] are underway; hopefully orbital test would be done in GSLV Mk III in another two years[3]. Human space flight might be delayed (2020?) due to budget constraints, and also GSLV Mk III should be "human rated" first. I think ISRO gets an unfair treatment when they take up such forward-looking projects. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experiment_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Capsule_Recovery_Experime... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISRO_Orbital_Vehicle [3]http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Manned-expedition-hopes-rest-on-GSLVs-shoulders/2013/10/31/article1865523.ece http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Manned-expedition-hopes-r...

hawkharris 13y ago

As an American, I greatly admire India's achievements in science and engineering as well as the public education system that powers them. I hope that the United States will learn from and one day catch up to India in terms of higher education.

tod222 13y ago

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing—and if they don't support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision. -Richard Feynman, Cargo Cult Science http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html

avisk 13y ago

More than the economic and scientific returns, the inspiration provided by these missions to millions of young children to pursue science and the interest it generates is priceless.

djsampath 13y ago

This is more of an opinion piece. Not a lot of facts but I have to admit that I found myself agreeing with the author more than once. http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove...

InclinedPlane 13y ago

It's difficult to do better than xkcd in bursting these sorts of arguments so succinctly: http://xkcd.com/1232/ http://xkcd.com/1232/ The fact is that the tradeoffs between important endeavors (like feeding the hungry and exploring the universe) are not as simple as people make out. To a certain extent there is a justification to do "useless" things even at the cost of "critical necessities". Should people stop pursuing art, music, philosophy, etc. in times of crisis? Certainly there are extremely hard times when you absolutely can't afford to do anything but concentrate on survival, but such times are rare. The world is never going to be perfect, but we can't let that stop us from making the world better, in every way. By pursuing science and art, and so on. Moreover, by investing in R&D and by advancing technology we frequently gain more than we spend. Consider, for example, the invention of the automobile. Originally a toy for the rich, today they help vastly increase the yield and efficiency of crops, and help to feed the poor. Imagine where we'd be if in the year 1200 the entire world had decided that it could not in good conscience pursue advancements in science or the arts until everyone in the world was no longer in danger of going hungry. We would still be in the middle ages, and there would be very much fewer people who were well fed. In the specific case of India, their investment in spaceflight technology is likely to bring them returns far in excess of the cost of this mission. Both in improvements to their industrial/technological base as well as in bringing new business for their growing aerospace industry.

nutanc 13y ago

Unfortunately, India does not have Hollywood to glamorize the space program. Well, it does have Bollywood, but they have other things to show :-) Just a sample for reference which was told somewhere else, the budget for the movie Gravity was more than the budget for the Mars mission by my country. A very good critique and explanation of why we need this mission is presented here,http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Poverty-and-Closet-Racism http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Indian-Space-Mission-Pove...

linux_devil 13y ago

India as a nation is not poor , its the political class and public administration which is involved in corruption is poor. Here is the list of scams : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India . Coal scam is over $25 billion , CWG scam is worth $29 billion. Now I wonder if international media would have criticized such administration and if this amount of money which is equivalent to GDP of few nations would have been used to eradicate poverty. >"India's Mars program promises to return useful engineering and scientific data for a price that puts other space agencies to shame!" Even after so many scams and corruptions around , Indian scientists are able to launch this mission at such a low cost, it's really appreciable.

kamaal 13y ago

I'm not sure how authentic this is. But I saw this on Quora and it explains well how money spent of Space programs helps mankind. http://www.quora.com/NASA/How-necessary-is-the-NASA-program http://www.quora.com/NASA/How-necessary-is-the-NASA-program Read the first comment. I can't post the whole thing as HN has a limit on the comment length.

arunc 13y ago

Mission to Mars at $72M or just about ₹12/KM which is cheaper then my commute at ₹14.25/KM

hrjet 13y ago

Consider another perspective. When a new land is made habitable, how do you allocate it? If Mars or Antartica were to become habitable tomorrow, which parties would be able to purchase how much land and from whom? I think early explorers will have a stake in it, unless it comes down to a show of power, or something unlikely such as equal distribution of the new land to all citizens of all countries.

xerophtye 13y ago

I don't get it. A country that spends millions (if not billions) of dollars on Cricket and Movies every year, is being criticized for spending on space exploration with "there's so much poverty there! Build schools!". Where are these critics during the Indian Premier League?

NAFV_P 13y ago

They spent their money well. Sending an Olympic torch on a space walk is a waste of time.