India announces plans for a Mars mission in 2013

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/india-announces-plans-for-a-mars-mission-in-2013.aspx?pageID=238&nID=27844&NewsCatID=374#.UCtnBISQa1I.twitter

by Jerpo • 14 years ago

88 86 14 years ago

hurriyetdailynews.com

capex• 14 years ago

For those wondering why India doesn't first feed its citizens, here is a relevant post: http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a...

geuis• 14 years ago

This strawman argument has was already old 40+ years ago, and doesn't age well like fine wine or cheese.

kranner2• 14 years ago

I don't buy it.

India is struggling with implementing solutions to issues that appear to be more-or-less solved for other countries; such as a working road network, public transport in most cities, picking up and distributing food harvests and a 24-hour supply of electricity. If a mission to Mars might provide fundamental insights into solving such issues, other countries seem not to have needed them.

Added later: I don't believe this mission to Mars has nothing to do with good old South Asian jingoism, and outdoing the geographical neighbour I shall not name.

statictype• 14 years ago

India does have a significantly larger population than most other countries.

There's also the cultural difference. India is steeped in culture and religion that dates back farther than pretty much any other developed (or even developing) country.

I'm not giving an opinion on whether this is good or bad, just pointing out that straightforward solutions in other countries may not necessarily apply here.

biggfoot7• 14 years ago

So we should drop everything and focus on that alone?

We are also struggling with a massive brain drain. Such missions are going to inspire an entire generation and maybe create a sense of satisfaction and achievement. I, for one, do not doubt the importance of those in nation building.

Extrapolating from the words of Dr N D Tyson, the total spending on such space missions is not as high as we may think it is. India's GDP is good enough to not look at a space mission with a jaundiced eye.

iwwr• 14 years ago

In the grand scheme of things, these are tiny expenditures ($82 mil). Consider also that India is a federal state, with significant power awarded to local states infrastructure-wise. Some places are nearly westernized, others still very much in the 19th century.

alokm• 14 years ago

The problems in governance are not because of lack of funds. There is a lot of pilferage, corruption and systemic faults. I agree Space Missions wont help in those but it will help in ways it is supposed to (Science and Technical research).

retube• 14 years ago

What's key to a nation's development is education. Emabarking on these kinds of enterprises provides just that: it developes the knowledge, expertise and capabilities of both individuals and institutions in fields like computing, electronics, mechanical engineerig not to mention softer skills like project management, international relations and so on. Additionally these kinds of endeavours promote national pride and inspire schoolchildren to study science.

And finally, snarky for sure (assuming you're american), but people in glass houses etc. America has a large population of poor yet still finds room to spend 500bn a year on defense (whilst only a paulty few cents for NASA)

jlarocco• 14 years ago

> India is struggling with implementing solutions to issues that appear to be more-or-less solved for other countries; such as a working road network, public transport in most cities, picking up and distributing food harvests and a 24-hour supply of electricity. If a mission to Mars might provide fundamental insights into solving such issues, other countries seem not to have needed them.

Right, because the other nations sending probes into space solved all of their other problems first...

I could come up with a million reasons why government money spent on space research is a bad idea, but the reasons you gave aren't on the list.

antr• 14 years ago

"$82 million" mission? That budget doesn't even cover the fuel cost for a rover. Production of Pu-238 for the rover has been estimated at over $90 million, this does not include planning and starting costs.

Add to that the fuel for the launch vehicle; and fuel for the the cruise stage.

I can't trust this article.

arethuza• 14 years ago

Really? I'd have thought that about the cheapest thing about a launch would be the fuel.

The price per kg of LOX, LH2 etc. all seem fairly low to me, a quick search gives:

http://www.astronautix.com/props/loxlh2.htm

_delirium• 14 years ago

That does seem ambitiously cheap, but it's at least not orders of magnitude off. NASA currently has a call where they're taking bids for a low-cost interplanetary mission, with bids capped at $425m plus launch costs: http://www.space.com/11593-nasa-planetary-missions-shortlist...

If you take into account cheaper labor, I could imagine India coming in considerably lower than that, though I'm not sure how much lower. They could probably also save some money by using existing, already-proven technology, e.g. by purchasing some ex-Soviet designs and equipment rather than developing all custom hardware+software. That said, I would be very surprised if this launches on-budget and on-schedule.

uvdiv4• 14 years ago

The Atlas V which launched Curiosity weighs ~300 tons, which bounds its fuel cost at ~$300,000 (at $1/kg).

Uchikoma2• 14 years ago

Curiosity: Where is the $1/kg cost from?

hsuresh• 14 years ago

I am surprised that it costs lesser than India's unmanned moon mission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1).

If ISRO can pull it off for under $100 million, that would be quite an achievement. Given the recent commercial interests in space, there might even be an opportunity to become financially independent by offering services for others.

uvdiv4• 14 years ago

Why? It's only a few percent larger delta-V:

http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/index.php?id=29335&L=1

It's also much smaller -- this article puts the weight of the Mars orbiter at 500 kg total, vs. 1,380 for Chandrayaan-1.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/aug/09/india-s...

mayanksinghal2• 14 years ago

Indian organisations are notorious in having extremely low estimates that later blow up to 4-5 times. So while I have more trust in ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), their numbers might be off by a factor.

ballooney2• 14 years ago

> Add to that the fuel for the launch vehicle; and fuel for the the cruise stage.

What you've just said is the equivalent of someone witnessing a Ferrari crash into a tree and destroy itself, and saying 'Ouch, that's an expensive tank of fuel he's just wasted'.

In fact the costs of fuel for these things are trivially small, basically inconsequential, compared to the cost of the things that are using the fuel - the rocket and the cruise stage. You don't get them back, they're single use, expended as part of the mission, and they're expensive.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

Um, why do you think they're trying to make a rover like Curiosity when the article explicitly said that they were making an orbiter? A probe that never lands can just use solar cells since it doesn't have to worry about the atmosphere, and it doesn't have to worry about the rather difficult task of landing on Mar's surface or moving around there.

Putting a satellite in orbit around another planet is still a non-trivial exercise, but while $90 million is probably a low-ball figure it's not a totally unreasonable one.

uvdiv4• 14 years ago

Who said anything about them using plutonium?

danielweber• 14 years ago

India won't launch any Pu-238 missions. America and former USSR countries are the countries with any, and America buys it up from anyone in those places. The planet is probably going to run out unless we start manufacturing more.

And for an orbiter around Mars (like the article said), solar is probably the better choice anyway. I love nuclear power and nuclear propulsion, but it's often overkill. If we knew as much as we did now about Spirit and Opportunity we might have used solar for the MSL mission.

anuraj2• 14 years ago

There will not probably be a rover. It is going to be an orbiter mission with a small payload which is meant to crash into the surface. PSLV - the rocket meant to get the satelite into orbit is a war horse which was used for previous moon mission too. And yes, it is pretty cheap to build and operate.

spitx8• 14 years ago

Corroborated. http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article3775271.ece

owaislone4• 14 years ago

haha

metatronscube4• 14 years ago

Yeah that was my initial reaction as well, I just don't see it happening at all. I mean, we have to be serious here, they are going to put a Rover or something on Mars for $80 Million?!.......Nah.

I'm not saying that's they wont EVER, but they have to join us on planet earth before they start dreaming of other planets.

owaislone4• 14 years ago

Yeah. How about providing electricity to villages and providing actual+reliable broadband connectivity to the country. People die of hunger and cold in India.

plinkplonk2• 14 years ago

(Indian citizen fwiw)

As much as I like India and its space program, it is also true that these kind of grand pronouncements happen from time to time and are not taken very seriously here. And when the announced missions/projects do happen they are inevitably over budget and delayed.

E.g: cost of an unmanned lunar probe in 2008 - US $ 90 million (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1)

costs for a lunar lander/rover, proposed for 2016 (delayed from the original plan for 2014) - projected cost - US $ 80 million. Note this is the projected cost (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2)

Thus, I'd be very very skeptical of a mars probe actually being launched in 2013 at the same amount of money as was spent on a lunar probe 4 years ago.

See how that $80 million keeps repeating? Must be the maximum budget you can sell to a technically illiterate politician. ;-)

That said, I am all for India trying to explore space, with whatever constraints. Eventually there will be a Mars probe and that is great.

ktizo2• 14 years ago

Chandrayaan-1 was a pretty successful mission by all accounts though despite not lasting. It found evidence of water pretty much straight away, which was worth the budget all on its own.

gadders8• 14 years ago

I'm so glad the UK government gives them millions of dollars in aid every year. FFS.

jcbrand• 14 years ago

"Pranab Mukherjee and other Indian ministers tried to terminate Britain’s aid to their booming country last year - but relented after the British begged them to keep taking the money..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9061844...

metatronscube4• 14 years ago

Yeah they could at least distribute that money to the super poor, instead of turning round and smugly saying how its peanuts and they don't need it. There are folk there who would kill for a peanut to line their bellies.....literally!

gadders8• 14 years ago

I'm not blaming the Indian government, I'm blaming the UK one.

spitx8• 14 years ago

Perhaps you should look into solutions that could stunt the Croydonization, Shoreditchization and Finsburyization of the UK instead of turning cynical and bitter about the increasingly diminished role that the UK plays on the world stage.

The UK has showered herself with a surfeit of entitlements, post-war, that she no longer can pay for. Time to perhaps start making things that the world wants to pay for, besides bespoke umbrellas.

gadders8• 14 years ago

I have no idea what Croydonisation, Shoreditchization etc mean.

And the umbrellas I buy are probably Chinese.

mayanksinghal2• 14 years ago

I am sorry but the attitude of half of this thread is simply disgusting; from 'haha' to you better provide food before creating space missions. I was just as skeptical about the budget and our capabilities (Yes, I am an Indian - if that wasn't obvious already) but I, even after having actually suffered from poor infrastructure and have seen failed launches as well as people suffering from hunger, support the cause wholeheartedly.

If you have a problem with how your government's aid money is being spent in India, please go forward and lobby for the aid to get cut off. How we spend our tax money is a decision that we should be allowed to make.

Honestly, I am surprised that HackerNews has the sentiment of pointing out expenditures on science to be extravagant and unnecessary by using social conditions as excuse, while there is so much more we could save by changing our military, social or economic standpoints. US's military budget was $663.84B in 2010 [1] while United Nations budget was just around $5.2B during the same time [2] and it's not that United States is all free from hunger or food insecurities [3]. So please, whichever country that you belong to will have issues just like us. We probably have a lot more of those than you do, but we have the right to decide which of those do we want to tackle now at the expense of being behind in our long term goals. And I request you to keep your preferences to yourself and stop forcing your morality/ethics/logic onto us in such private matters.

  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States 
  [2] http://www.un.org/en/hq/dm/pdfs/oppba/Regular%20Budget.pdf
  [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger#In_the_United_States

gadders8• 14 years ago

You have the right to determine how you spend your own money. Whilst you are still taking handouts from other nations, then it is not a private matter.

The US does spend a lot on their military, and they may have some very deprived areas where people have less food than required (but I highly doubt anyone in the US starves to death).

Likewise, though, the US doesn't have young girls whose job it it to collect other peoples faeces with their bare hands [1]. I would say a country that has that doesn't need a Mars mission.

[1] http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=o0vpXaPf_9AC&pg=PT62&...

biggfoot7• 14 years ago

Of course the entire country of a billions makes all their women folk do such acts, don't we? You are right. How do we even dare!

spitx8• 14 years ago

Different countries, different priorities (perhaps ?)

Different things - equally noxious, depending on who you ask - get swept under the rug in different countries.

A lynching offense in one is not so in another.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333420/Paedophile-r...

ajays6• 14 years ago

As I walked out of the Van Ness MUNI station in San Francisco last night, I walked by at least 20 homeless people, just lying on the street. A couple on wheelchairs, the rest just lounging around. A few of them reeked of urine and feces.

And this is in, arguably, one of the richest cities in America.

So while this situation (homelessness, mental patients going without care, hunger), how dare the USA spend so much money on a Mars mission? On the military? Heck, why does the City of SF spend so much money on America's Cup, Outsidelands, etc. when thousands of people are homeless and on the streets? Yes, you may say that the City spends money on them too; but then why are they still on the streets?

Do you see my point? If you were to apply the same logic (or lack thereof) that you're applying to India to any other country (even the US), you will get the same answer: don't spend money on anything.

BTW: India is not "taking handouts" from other nations[1]. India is actually _giving_ handouts to others; e.g., they've given billions in aid to Afghanistan to aid in its re-construction.

[1] http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/politics/us-foreign-aid.htm couple of 100M doesn't qualify as a "handout" for a country the size of India. That's like me donating $5 to Obama's campaign and then expecting him to have dinner with me. WikiPedia link of top 25 countries; India does not feature in them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

w1ntermute5• 14 years ago

> the US doesn't have young girls whose job it it to collect other peoples faeces with their bare hands [1]. I would say a country that has that doesn't need a Mars mission.

This is primarily not an economic issue, it's a cultural one, a product of the millenia-old caste system. Watch this video[0] linked on GigaOM a few days ago[1], it explains the issue quite well (English hardsubs kick in at the 2 minute mark). Correcting it will take a lot more than money.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OUoXsryE3c

1: http://gigaom.com/cloud/how-indias-favorite-tv-show-uses-dat...

ashayh• 14 years ago

In a country of 1.2 billion, there will many, many people who are talented way above average.

Someone is a natural theoretical physicist. Others are mathematicians, rocket scientists, or maybe just great electronics and computer engineers. Or great artists.

While it is criminal that many people are suffering like you describe, it is also a (smaller)crime that the talented folks above are denied an outlet. What should they do? Why should they suffer just because the country as a whole has failed to solve poverty and caste issues for centuries?

It is of no use to anyone that these people sit around twiddling their thumbs. Not all of them can leave the country.

The relatively minor amount allocated for Indias space program is well spent.

plinkplonk2• 14 years ago

Never ever feed the trolls. - Old Internet saying.

(This argument always always comes up and goes nowhere, and is a well known time sink. People who keep bringing it up in every other thread are trolls. Lots of people with nothing to do but hate and or give unasked-for advice jump on these known timesinks if you give them your attention. Not worth responding to them. Respond to people who have something useful to say.

Meanwhile India (like every nation on Earth)does what it does, depending on local perception of policy needs and all the blather on Teh Internetz by people who have ideas on what she "should" be doing is irrelevant. Don't lose your temper, because it just ends up making trolls happy and derailing useful discussion)

smoyer• 14 years ago

As an Indian I think you and your countrymen (used in the gender-neutral sense) do have the right to criticize/guide your country's spending. And with respect to the US's military budget, you have to think of it as our form of welfare. Most of that budget goes to overpaid company executives, managers and maybe even engineers. Our economy would be in tatters without that spending (or maybe we're in tatters now but would be naked otherwise).

I'd love to see more of our budget employ people doing useful things (directly employ I mean) ... and space science seems like a good long-term investment. So I'll cheer for India's success and lament its problems along with you, but I haven't a right to dictate its policy.

rrrazdan• 14 years ago

If 80 million sounds too less for this mission, let us assume it balloons to 500 million. Even then look at the benefits it would bring. Make talented engineers/scientists stay in India and not migrate to places where 'more interesting' stuff is done. Check. Inspire a whole generation of people to take up science and engineering and to dream of thinking big, and actually have the confidence of knowing their dreams can come true. Check. Assorted scientific/industrial/capacity creation benefits. Check. All this at the miserly sum of 0.025 percent of your GDP. I think it is a very wise investment.

yumraj• 14 years ago

Anyone who thinks India doesn't need a Mars mission, please raise your hands up.

Done, good. Now you've given your opinion. Please sit down and shut the F up.

Whatever I write would pail in comparison to a thread posted a few days earlier:

Link: http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a...

HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4372563

Eduardo3rd• 14 years ago

I'm pretty shocked that HN wouldn't be in favor of any and all efforts to advance the space race. Everyone (deservedly) showers praise on Elon Musk whenever SpaceX has a successful launch, but when India wants to push the envelope the response is totally opposite.

Some awesome stuff has come from reaching for big goals with a constrained set of resources in the past. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of jugaad innovations the Indians can bring to the table in the aerospace sector.

svasan• 14 years ago

India has achieved quite a bit with its space exploration. It is the same space programme that has provided Indians with satellites that are applied to agriculture. The IRS-P6 Resourcesat has been deployed for studying cropping patterns [1]. I am sure other satellites have been used for various other agricultural applications. Frankly this "feed the poor first" meme of the western media [and some disillusioned folks] is quite irritating. The meme only goes to show that the western media does not really appreciate achievement from a "developing country".

When India was on its way to launch its first rocket [way back when], some parts of the rocket were carried by the ISRO scientists pillion riding on a bicycle. Time magazine, in true western style, ridiculed that inicident. (Unfortunately I am not able to find references for this. So recounting from memory here.) Now after the moon shot with Chandrayaan-1, we know who had the last laugh.

However, on this particular occasion, I think this announcement is a populist one. The Central Government has nothing to show in terms of achievement. The government's image is severely tattered, what with all the corruption charges, policy paralysis, lack of any real economic progress, etc. Nothing like whipping up some nationalism to distract the people from noticing the lack of government performance.

Without the political context, I am guessing this Mars mission might provide scientists with 1) Insights on developing long range space travel 2) Insights into instrumentation technology 3) Robotics related tech

And India has had collaborative associations with several space agencies from different countries. It is only adding to the already existing space related body of knowledge.

All the disillusioned folks who think they are entitled to dictate policy decisions on account of their country giving "handouts" to India, feel free to take a hike.

[1] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2025000

anuraj2• 14 years ago

While India is one of the poorest countries on the planet, and spends less than 1% of GDP on science and technology, India also produces largest number of engineers and a large number of science graduates every year. The country has more than 3million employed in IT jobs (not callcenter/BPO). India's space program is quite developed and ISRO's track record is not too bad. And yes, India produces more than enough food to feed its populace and more. The issue is one of primtive distribution chains, bureaucratic apathy and corruption. Foreign aid do not address these issues and is very meagre compared to India's GDP and government spending power. India needs to reform from within and that is a cultural journey.

India announces plans for a Mars mission in 2013

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