India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/10/01/india-u-s-to-agree-to-joint-exploration-of-mars

by ForHackernews • 12 years ago

414 92 12 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

danielweber3• 12 years ago

On one hand, this could be really encouraging, allowing India to increase its home-grown engineering capacity.

On the other hand, "international cooperation" is often the death of many projects, particularly space projects.

On the other other hand, it wasn't like NASA was about to do something huge and cooperation with India puts that goal at risk.

teamonkey3• 12 years ago

On the other hand, "international cooperation" is often the death of many projects, particularly space projects.

There are plenty of counter-examples. The ISS is an effort that spans the US, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe (ESA). Hubble is NASA-ESA.

mturmon4• 12 years ago

Other counter-examples: Planck, SOHO, Cassini/Huygens, Rosetta, ... -- all highly successful.

danielweber3• 12 years ago

Why is that a counter-example? The ISS is incredibly more expensive, complicated, and accomplishes less science because it's "international."

mturmon4• 12 years ago

...it wasn't like NASA was about to do something huge and cooperation with India puts that goal at risk...

Your nested counterfactuals are a little hard to unpack, but if I understand you correctly, it is somewhat the contrary, at least with NISAR. (Oops, I added another counterfactual.) NASA was about to NOT do something huge and the collaboration enabled it happen.

That is, before it became NISAR, the Earth-observing biomass/seismicity SAR mission was called Desdyni (http://decadal.gsfc.nasa.gov/desdyni.html). This mission was referred to as desirable in a 2007 National Academies decadal roadmap (covering the next 10 years), but there were too many other even higher-ranked missions in the pipeline. So it seemed like Desdyni was not going to get on the NASA roadmap any time soon.

The Indian contribution seems to have (for the moment) been enough to get it going, because in February NISAR entered "Phase A" which is NASA-speak for "we are starting the mission". There are later decision points depending on how ready the overall concept proves to be.

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

Desdyni

That is the ugliest project name I've ever seen. It beats any disemvoweled SV startup into a cocked hat. I'm not surprised it almost got cancelled.

innguest• 12 years ago

Why could they not have agreed to cooperate before NASA spent $650M on the Maven program which does the exact same thing that ISRO's $74M Mangalyaan does?

I demand a refund.

ceejayoz• 12 years ago

Oh, bullshit.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-key-differences-between-NA...

talltofu• 12 years ago

There is a certain sunk cost associated with being the first mover

thearn4• 12 years ago

I would consider technical collaboration in this space (pardon the pun) to generally be a great thing. Missions to Mars have historically been very difficult:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

Hopefully, this kind of partnership doesn't get weighed down too heavily by the intricacies of international politics.

anupshinde• 12 years ago

IF this works, this will surely accelerate the process of sending humans to other planets (may be not Mars)

privong• 12 years ago

Why do you say that? The techincal goals of this mission are fairly modest, and do not seem to bush the boundaries of launch technologry or involve technology that would be useful for human survival in space.

The agreement and mission are both good things, but I do not see how they will have much of an effect on human spaceflight.

Naritai3• 12 years ago

While I'm a big supporter of international co-operation, remember that the US has been striking a number of technical deals with India, as a part of a long-term political investment in bringing up a large democratic power to balance China. I think this has as much to do with that goal as it does with sharing technical information.

sillysaurus37• 12 years ago

I have a dumb question. What's a large democratic power, and how does it differ from China? I'm not implying China is in any way democratic, but rather inviting someone to further explain what the goal of the US is.

Is it likely that this is simply empire expansion rather than an altruistic goal of balancing China? Mainly I'm just wondering what the concerns might be if a large democratic power (and I'd still like to know what exactly that is, and how it differs from other modern powers) isn't brought up in the region.

Forgive my ignorance. I probably should have taught myself these things long ago rather than invested all of my time in programming and other pursuits.

Also, just to clarify, I am aware of the textbook definition of "democracy," "republic," etc, but it seems like those names are more of a flag for people to fight under than a definition for a state of being in the modern era. So I'm quite curious to understand the issues at play here.

pdx• 12 years ago

Substitute "large democratic power to balance China" with "large power to balance China", and I think it makes more sense.

U.S. foreign policy seems to be to hinder the expansion of other large powers in an attempt to keep them small enough to not be an existential threat at some point in the far future.

You send money and aid to whom ever is in a position to hinder those who are growing too powerful, whether the group you are sending that money and aid to is democratic or not.

This is not about right and wrong. It's about long term strategy, aimed at preserving the status quo for as long as possible. If you hinder your competitors, that keeps them from becoming even more of a threat to you.

andrewljohnson• 12 years ago

I am aware of the textbook definition of "democracy," "republic," etc, but it seems like those names are more of a flag for people to fight under than a definition for a state of being in the modern era

You seem to be assigning moral equivalence to democracy and Chinese communism/totalitarianism.

If you aren't just trolling, then differences include the right to travel, the right to free speech, the right to read the internet uncensored, and the right to vote.

randallsquared3• 12 years ago

Is it likely that this is simply empire expansion

The US' relationship with those places it has influence is more of a reverse empire: there's always a net outflow of money/resources.

Naga• 12 years ago

He means that India is a large (as in population, which is an indicator of possible industrial and economic power, military, etc) country that is a democratic country as well. That's important because democratic countries tend to align together, since public opinion matters and public opinion generally favours peace, especially against other countries that also generally want peace. So, the importance of India is that it could act as a counterweight to China in Asia. China obviously is an economic giant, but as a military power it is largely regional and has little ability to project force. A powerful India limits its abilities in Asia.

ForHackernews2• 12 years ago

What's a large democratic power, and how does it differ from China?

In this context, "large democratic power" refers to India, the world's largest democracy with over 1.2 billion citizens. Even the logistics to conduct fair elections for a populace this size are quite intimidating: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/ind...

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

What's a large democratic power

India is indisputably a democratic country, not withstanding its developing status or struggles with corruption; they just ran what is probably the largest general election in history a few months back, followed by a smooth transfer of power.

It's also large, because it has a population of 1.25 billion people, close to China's 1.36 billion people. And it's a power because it has nuclear weapons, although it is unfortunately not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Forgive my ignorance. I probably should have taught myself these things long ago rather than invested all of my time in programming and other pursuits.

Don't be obtuse. Not everything is code for something else. If you think the US's motives here are really empire expansion then fair enough - I don't really agree but I can certainly see why you might think so. But asking what 'large democratic power' means, without bothering to consider the possibility of it being a simple literal description, seems disingenuous.

helium• 12 years ago

Sure, just like probably the biggest reason the US put a man on the Moon is because of the Cold War. Still pretty cool.

Naritai3• 12 years ago

True! I do think it's a net win-win.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

that and our current "partner", Russia, isn't so reliable anymore. This can be simple acknowledgment of who else will be a viable when it comes to space exploration and exploitation.

falsestprophet2• 12 years ago

"Remember" that people on the internet state their opinion as fact without substantiating that opinion with facts.

The parent comment, which at this time is the #1 comment, does not contribute to understanding why the United States and India made this agreement.

bostonpete• 12 years ago

people on the internet state their opinion as fact without substantiating that opinion with facts

Do you have any evidence to back this claim up?

anigbrowl3• 12 years ago

Anyone who pays attention to international affairs knows that the US has been seeking a rapprochement with India; Prime Minister Modi just had his first meeting with President Obama the other day. Meanwhile, the US has been at odds with China over its ballooning territorial claims in the South China Sea, to the point of possibly terminating the ban on arms sales to Viet Nam. I don't think the GP needs to provide citations for such easily acquired current affairs knowledge.

john_b• 12 years ago

I wouldn't go that far. Naritai offered a possible motive for this deal which might not be obvious without the context provided by his/her comment (the part about the recent technical collaboration is true, and not just an opinion). That's one of the useful functions of internet comments.

mturmon4• 12 years ago

Sure it does. This political context is highly relevant.

Why do you think NASA is collaborating with ESA and ISRO but not China? Well, NASA is prohibited from bilateral projects with China due to a law passed by the US Congress in 2011:

http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2011/04/spending-bill-...

And, as pointed out nearby, the relationship with Russia is not exactly peachy:

http://www.space.com/26945-russian-holds-nasa-hostage-mike-g...

There are many reasons for this situation, so trying to reduce it to democracy vs. not has resulted in a lengthy and inconclusive exchange (seen nearby). But whatever the list of reasons, this international political context is highly relevant to the collaborations that are currently workable.

hkarthik• 12 years ago

Are the government officials using the scientists to further their own geopolitical ambitions?

Or are the scientists of both countries using their government officials to fund their scientific curiosities?

Probably a bit of both, IMO.

wilsonfiifi• 12 years ago

I was really hoping India's Mars probe would mean that the public in general would finally have a new independent source of information and data.

However this is great news and I'm sure the joint effort will speed up the tough task of uncovering the planet's secrets.

swatkat2• 12 years ago

Official press release: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/september/us-india-to-collabo...

And, NISAR Earth observation mission looks very exciting as well: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32478.msg12...

mturmon4• 12 years ago

NISAR is a very interesting mission from a technological point of view. It will have two radars, at least one of which gives 10m resolution, and they will be obtaining global coverage. The data rate is huge, larger than any Earth remote sensing mission to date (many TB/day).

Earth scientists are already having problems dealing with contemporary data volumes, and NISAR really raises the stakes.

peeters2• 12 years ago

This is exciting but makes me nervous. India is re-imagining "space travel on a budget", but if all of a sudden they have to play by NASA's rules and standards, their ability to innovate at low cost might be hampered.

Hopefully whatever form of cooperation they come up with lets India continue to operate mostly independently.

shas32• 12 years ago

You are implicitly assuming somehow they don't currently 'play by NASA rules (and NASA-level) standards.' Any evidence that this is so?

Karunamon• 12 years ago

Aren't NASA-level standards historically slow and inefficient? I was of the impression that private parties streamlining that process and coming up with a cheaper program is what led to NASA (or congress by proxy, whatever) abandoning manned spaceflight to the private sector.

In other words, maybe India is taking a leaf from SpaceX's book rather than NASA's

peeters2• 12 years ago

I'm not disparaging the quality of India's space program. I'm more saying that once you bring NASA into the picture there's the potential of inheriting 70 years worth of engineering requirements and process which could be detrimental to a fledgling space program.

Edit: And you added the "NASA-level" which put words in my mouth that I did not say nor mean. I meant what I said: "NASA's standards"; standards that NASA has developed for their programs and contractors, which may or may not be beneficial for India's space program.

melling• 12 years ago

I wrote this on the WSJ comments several hours ago but it's worth repeating here. I believe that it would be valuable if the US invested more basic research money in India. We might be able to greatly increase our research output in the basic sciences. Start small then increase the budget as research in India matures.

suprgeek• 12 years ago

Exciting news but is it an unqualified positive for both? Sometimes Constraints are what drives breakthrough innovations.

India's ability to Manage Significant space exploration programmes on a Shoe string budget is driven in part by the need to innovate on a "ShoeString" budget. What we as a race desperately need is low cost access to Space - which perhaps may not become such a priority if NASA is allowed to influence ISRO.

On the other hand maybe ISRO will influence NASA & wewill get the best of both - super low cost missions with super advanced payloads :)

cjensen• 12 years ago

NASA had a "go cheap" program to try crazy stuff on a shoestring that just might work. There were good results like Pathfinder ($150M) which tried the crazy idea of landing using an airbag.

The problem is that the Powers That Be were not understanding about the failures inherent in trying crazy ideas out. So we went back to expensive spacecraft which were less likely to fail.

Ankaios• 12 years ago

NASA has opportunities like the Small Explorers (SMEX, http://explorers.larc.nasa.gov/APSMEX/), Discovery (http://discovery.nasa.gov/p_mission.cfml), and New Frontiers (http://discoverynewfrontiers.nasa.gov/program/index.cfml) into which you can propose to conduct missions of different size/cost classes.

If you have low-cost mission concepts for achieving important scientific objectives, please propose them.

nether• 12 years ago

the desification of the US continues:

dean of harvard

ceo of microsoft

ceo of pepsico

ny ag

1/3 of mckinsey

krylon• 12 years ago

I've been hoping for a while for more international cooperation on space exploration. Going to space is not cheap, and if several countries pool their resources, under ideal circumstances the result should be more science for everyone.

But politics has kind of prevented that. For governments, space exploration seems to be more about showing off than about advancing science.

I hope that in the future, different countries cooperating on missions will become the norm rather than the exception. I know I'm being somewhat optimistic, but this article shows I am not being completely naive. Nice.

chelch• 12 years ago

I'm pretty sure there is a significant amount of cooperation when it comes to space exploration. Space missions often carry instruments from different countries. For example, the lunar probe that discovered water on the moon, Chandrayaan-1, carried instruments from different countries. Curiosity carried instruments from other countries too, if I'm not mistaken.

It's just that you don't read much about this in the newspapers, because newspapers would rather make it look like there's a space race going on.

ps4fanboy• 12 years ago

This is great news, I am surprised the EU doesnt have a more uniformed vocal space program.

WWKong• 12 years ago

Just a friendly reminder that India follows metric system.

tn13• 12 years ago

India and US also agreed to fight terror while US continued to fund terror in Pakistan.

Very likely US is going to put sanctions on Indian space research as soon as India declares its ASAT capabilities.

tauslu• 12 years ago

As usual, action speaks louder than words. This co-operation would probably not take place if India's mission did not take place or very few would listen their Indian counter parts if such agreement were signed without the mission.

India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

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