How India flew to the moon economy class

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/How_India_flew_to_the_moon_economy_class/articleshow/msid-3641756,curpg-1.cms

by luckystrike • 18 years ago

24 27 18 years ago

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

herdrick• 18 years ago

For less than half the price of a new Boeing 787. I'm boggled.

Herring• 18 years ago

Do 787s pay for themselves over their lifetimes?

baddox• 18 years ago

I don't think they've reached the end of their lifetimes yet (not even close), and I'm sure they will pay for themselves.

sdurkin2• 18 years ago

If NASA were allowed to keep the profits from its patents, it would more than pay for itself. Space exploration is a good investment, and I hope we start turning our eyes upward again.

RobertL• 18 years ago

It's too bad they couldn't have taken about half the population of northern pakistan with.

run4yourlives• 18 years ago

Those types of comments aren't appropriate in this forum. Save that crap for reddit.

subbu• 18 years ago

>> More than 30% of the sub-systems that went into Chandrayaan-1 were used by us in other operations.

A strategy followed by Indian IT services companies :) See what resources they have got in other projects, pull them over quickly, finish their part and let them go. This way the project's cost won't sky rocket because they are re-using a lot of stuff which on their own would've cost a lot more to build.

yters3• 18 years ago

I was way impressed with Indians' inventiveness with common material when I was there last.

vrs2• 18 years ago

Could you elaborate?

ckinnan• 18 years ago

As a proponent of increased space exploration, it's awesome to see the emerging space race between China and India. NASA (a creature of Congress) has stagnated US efforts by hanging on far too long to the failed and obsolete Shuttle platform as the centerpiece of our activities. A diversity of inexpensive US robotic programs are the way forward-- that plus lowering the regulatory and litigation barriers to increased private space launches in the US. It's tragic that we will waste $700 billion on a Wall Street bailout when that amount could send a man to Mars and create a permanent lunar base.

josefresco• 18 years ago

"failed and obsolete Shuttle platform"

I wouldn't exactly say the Shuttle platform has failed. Nor would I argue that it's obsolete ... yet (although getting there fast).

lacker• 18 years ago

The original idea that the Shuttle would be reusable and therefore cheap has not really succeeded.

kirse2• 18 years ago

Let me get this straight... You want to spend $700bn exploring and trying to settle on some rocks in space when our own economy is bleeding itself to death?

I'm not sure how you manage your priorities, but flushing $700bn down the space toilet when your country has a major economic crisis on its hands isn't quite the best use of $700bn either.

DTrejo• 18 years ago

It could be that our current plan ends up "pissing 700bn into deep space" regardless.

noonespecial2• 18 years ago

One could argue that our economy is in the state its in because we lost sight of real innovation like space exploration and focused instead on trading little pieces of paper with each other that had imaginary money scribbled on them.

Dollar for dollar, space exploration is some of the best money humanity has ever spent. I won't bore you guys again with teflon and velcro and rivet-less fuselages and all of the other wonders that manned space flight has brought to us. Google does that just fine, but have a think about it every once in a while.

sdurkin2• 18 years ago

I don't understand the "creature of Congress" slight. China and India both have government-controlled space programs, and they use far less subcontracting than we do.

jmtame• 18 years ago

entrepreneurs are always bailing the govt out. Elon musk is building all of NASA's rockets now.

jwilliams• 18 years ago

Then again, if you look at the Mars rover missions, they have vastly exceeded expections - so over-engineering can be a two-way street.

(Beagle2 might be a counterpoint to that).

seshagiric• 18 years ago

And here in India people are impressed when Obama expresses concern US is losing its dominance in space tech. Wish we had a politician like that.

aagnihot• 18 years ago

I will like to say that this is because of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai's Vision!

kashif• 18 years ago

And APJ Abdul Kalam...

SingAlong• 18 years ago

Ofcourse nobody forgets Mr.Missile Man :)

And Mr.Madhavan Nair as well.

How India flew to the moon economy class

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