India successfully launches first mission to the Moon

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7679818.stm

by henning • 18 years ago

75 59 18 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

Kudos to India... I said this before when China shot a man around the Earth, and I'm going to say it again; I hope they spur another healthy space race.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

The next space race will be spurred on by applications that are not purely symbolic or scientific in nature. We are seeing this today with the rise of the private commercial space industry, and I fear that the military will be close behind.

tom_rath• 18 years ago

Close behind?!?!

Read a bit more space program history and you'll find the military is actually far ahead as far as applications (and budget!) are concerned.

jyothi7• 18 years ago

India becomes the 4th country after USSR, USA and Japan. It is a great moment for the developing nation.

gaius2• 18 years ago

India has nuclear power (and weapons) and aircraft carriers. To all intents and purposes, it's a developed nation. Underestimating India on the assumption that it is "developing" or "poor" is a mistake that will bite competitor nations on the arse if they're not careful.

known2• 18 years ago

"Poverty is still there, 80% of the population live on 20 rupees (25p) a day, according to a survey, but a large well off group has also emerged. Some 250 million are reckoned to be very well off, many of them very rich."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6946800.stm

g__g3• 18 years ago

While India is booming in many ways, it still cannot be called developed. There is still a huge divide between the rich and poor and poverty is still a major roadblock.

jyothi7• 18 years ago

You will have to see it to believe it. Nuclear power or Space research are just one off achievements but the general GDP per capita speaks volumes.

Once our director visited India, where I live, considering expansion of the insurance business. He went back shocked that India needs at least 20 more years to be even considered for a systematic underwriting. Such is the state of development, government and people.

Its unfortunate but true that India is far away from being considered a developed nation. Education or Patriotism cannot change much in a extremely corrupted political system which controls everything in the country.

akv• 18 years ago

The point here is not whether India is developed or not. Nobody in India realistically expects India to become a "developed nation" for another 30 years. The point here is progress... Going to the moon wasn't even thought of 10 years ago...

wheels• 18 years ago

Having just gotten technology from half a century ago isn't a very good metric for labeling a country developed.

jacobolus• 18 years ago

Yours is really a poor definition for “developed nation.” A more standard definition of development is based the amount of available capital in an economy. Compared to W. Europe, Japan, N. America, etc., India has a pitifully low amount of capital, per capita (also a poor population: 25% is still below the official poverty line, etc.). Interestingly, one of the chief factors slowing Indian economic growth may be that it has avoided specializing in products requiring cheap unskilled labor (e.g. textiles), as China, etc., have, instead wielding protectionist policies which supported local capital but ultimately weakened its ability to compete on the world market, and other regulation, like draconian labor laws, which have discouraged direct foreign investment. See <http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/01/why...;

morbidkk• 18 years ago

still almost 100% techies in India never prefer or think about joining ISRO/DRDO which are world-class research organizations.

seshagiric• 18 years ago

Not entirely right. Before the software industry's success in India, most engineers would either aim for ISRO/DRDO or other niche government organizations.

The software industry simply offers better prospects - better pay and faster career growth.

arjungmenon• 18 years ago

Partially true; because even before the software boom, most techies aimed at working in a foreign country (like the US) where they would be much more well-payed.

jyothi7• 18 years ago

I wonder the same. I myself would so much love to be at ISRO/DRDO. They have tons of other facilities to match the high pay at software companies.

I wish they had better ways of recruiting people with merit and passion. They are full of either Brahmins or SC/ST and people who are recruited through references.

sundeep2• 18 years ago

> full of either Brahmins or SC/ST

thank you for bringing your prejudices here. do you have any numbers to back that up?

> people who are recruited through references

this need not be a bad thing ,which is why most companies have a internal referral program.

vrs3• 18 years ago

> full of either Brahmins or SC/ST

These are contradictory. I think you need to pick one and make up your mind on who to blame.

By "full of brahmins" you are implying the that the forward class controls the power, has a strangle hold keeping down the lower castes. But if that were the case the SC/STs - the lowest of the low per the caste system - wouldn't be there. The presence of SC/STs implies that the system of reservation (whether you agree with it or not) is working and the forward class doesn't have a strangle hold (esp considering that OBCs also have reservations).

By "full of SC/ST" you are insinuating that the place is full of people who are there because of reservation (ie affirmative action) who don't really deserve to be there. But the presence of brahmins would imply that some people are actually getting in because of merit because the brahmins don't have any reservation whatsoever anywhere. So again, the system, albeit flawed, seems to be working.

If these places were somehow oscillating between power hungry brahmins trying to keep everybody else down and undeserving SC/STs I doubt that they would be a cohesive group doing good work which they seem to be.

Maybe you are just missing people of your background/religion/caste/language/area? I presume you are neither a Brahmin nor a SC/ST?

You also mentioned in your follow up post that these institution are in the south and casteism is always a problem there as if in comparison to the rest of the country. Casteism is a problem all over India and the following is not to justify it in any sense. But if anything I would say the south is probably better off than the rest of the country. The population of forward castes is below average overall so the lower castes have a much bigger voice democratically. This is also why TN had till very recently a 69% reservation and anti-reservation riots are a bigger deal in the North (remember the Mandal protests?) than in the south. Communal polarization too is in general higher in the North. Bangalore is usually considered a very cosmopolitan/diverse city and having lived there (and not being a native) I agree.

From a comparison of the different regions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_states_rankings ) the south overall seems to be doing better than the rest of India. The southern states are doing above average (and in many cases close to the top) economically, in literacy, infrastructure etc. The three top "technological centres" of India that one hears about mostly - Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderdabad - are also in the south. This inspite of the fact that India has mostly has Prime Ministers from the North (except for two - one of whom - P. V Narasimha Rao - is considered instrumental for our economic liberalization along with our current PM who was then the finance minister). So seems like these states have managed to have better governance. None of these are direct indications of casteism rates and I'm not trying to say that things are just fine in the south and there is no casteism. In general, it seems to me that economic growth/quality of life/good governance etc are indicators of reduced polarization. I don't have numbers to back that up, just an impression. My general impression is that while casteism definitely exists in the south, things are probably better there.

plinkplonk• 18 years ago

"still almost 100% techies in India never prefer or think about joining ISRO/DRDO which are world-class research organizations."

I've consulted for both the DRDO and the ISRO on some very technical projects.

You are partially right. Manpower is a problem in both organizations, with the best people going to the United States. That said "world-class research organizations" is a bit of a stretch. There are specific departments which do world class research, but by and large ISRO and DRDO are far from that ideal.

Plenty of "scientists" pushing paper and just wasting time in the office and waiting for 5 o clock in the evening so they can go home. Being part of the Indian government, the wastage of resources is appalling (to someone who's worked in the private sector / run his own business)

Mayank_kp• 18 years ago

India is actually 6th to launch mission to the moon. And ISRO/DRDO are not thought to be good career choices by young Indians by far!!! Also, I think that we will see this turn into a prestige issue with competing neighbours like Pakistan and China taking note and perhaps speeding up their mission too!!!

mamama3• 18 years ago

Yeah, but we really ought to stop using extraneous punctuation.

xiaoma• 18 years ago

Its first LUNAR PROBE would be a clearer headline. India is far from a manned mission.

profgubler• 18 years ago

I think this is a great step for India. It is great to watch India develop. Maybe this will create greater competition, and enhance every nations space efforts.

sanj• 18 years ago

"The mission is expected to cost 3.8bn rupees (£45m; $78m)."

Wow. That's amazingly cheap!

helveticaman3• 18 years ago

That's within the budget of many Silicon Valley duders. I would suspect that figure belies some costs they aren't taking into account.

stcredzero• 18 years ago

Space launch is just not as hard as we've been led to believe by those sucking at the government teat.

In 1980, a 2nd world country was getting ready to assemble a launch system that would've attained launch costs as low as $600 per kg. (This would've been limited to hardened or bulk cargoes due to high G forces, but that's still awesome and damn useful!) The price of this system was only $25 million (1980.) That's a game changing technology and it's still within the reach of a group of "Silicon Valley duders."

http://www.astronautix.com/country/iraq.htm

chollida1• 18 years ago

> Silicon Valley duders

What is a "duder"? Is that equivalent to "Silicon Valley dudes"?

jyothi7• 18 years ago

I would believe the opposite. It is India, labor and infra costs would be much lower.

In fact the actual spend would be lesser than $78M considering departments always over bill on construction/development costs.

subbu• 18 years ago

To put it in perspective, this is less than what Microsoft paid for PowerSet ($100 million for a search engine), Farecast ($112 million for a airfare pricing comparision tool) or less than what Google paid for FeedBurner ($100 million for a RSS reader).

The satellite plans to do a detailed mapping of the entire lunar surface. If a web startup built an application in the lines of Google Maps using these mappings that would probably sell for more than $78 million, more than the whole cost of the Moon mission. Bit if an exaggeration but you get the point.

rit• 18 years ago

If I recall correctly, part of the way that NASA is setup is to be deliberately spread out across many congressional districts - making it hard to cut it's legs out from under it because it will effect jobs in too many congressman's districts.

The downside to this is that it's also a great way of bringing lots of bullshit jobs into a district, and makes things VERY expensive.

Not surprising that India can do this cheaply - hopefully some of our private sector space companies will learn from what they're doing and improve on it.

eru• 18 years ago

It is still somewhat surprising that India can do this cheaply. After all they government is even more inefficient in general.

jessewmc• 18 years ago

Keep in mind how much of the cost is people-hours, which would be on the order of 10-20 times more in the United States.

aagnihot2• 18 years ago

I have read Dr. Vikram Sarabhai's biography(http://www.geocities.com/hari_ghk/vikram.htm) and in my opinion, his hard work has paid off. Also, most of top 20-30 Indian companies might be paying taxes more than $78 million each year, so we can easily say that the program is not a burden for most of us... As a geek, as an Indian, as an techno-historian, I am aware of how much of sacrifice people made to make this happen(eg: http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/11/18/stories/200...). Great work!!

India successfully launches first mission to the Moon

Related Stories