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India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

nytimes.com

171–180 of 221 posts

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most countries not in the resource curse (and even many with it) have continued to grow. Britain has seen zero net economic growth since 2006 (that's before any inflation adjustment). That's true of most of developed Europe. France's GDP is not much higher than it was in 2007, without an inflation adjustment (in real terms they've seen at least 20% contraction, plausibly worse given the currency debasement that has…

Most of those are already developed countries and about half the rest are “resource curse” (Russia, Nigeria,etc) it had significant war (Egypt, Ukraine, etc). The reason why India is likely to grow a lot is they’re still doing catch-up growth, they’re not primary resource export driven, and they’re industrializing. Additionally, it seems to me that something important happened to the global economy right after 2007,…

> The reason why India is likely to grow a lot is they’re still doing catch-up growth

With all due respect, as someone who has done work in developmental economics and macroeconomic finance, this is wrong. I’d encourage you to consider the literature. One never loses from a realistic view of the landscape.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of BJP members of parliment have criminal records/charges against them. Including murder and rape. I'm Indian but I've lost faith in Indian politicians years ago. Only way I see a reform coming about is if more of the youth view politics as a viable/worthy career path. Right now, the lunatic amount of emphasis on Engineering/Science paths to highschool kids is draining all talent. Source: https://economictimes.in…

> the lunatic amount of emphasis on Engineering/Science paths to highschool kids is draining all talent. What does this even mean? Politicians with criminal cases against them(not convicted) in India is as old as 1947. It's very easy to charge someone and shift the burden to the charged person that they prove themselves innocent. That doesn't mean there aren't bad people, it just takes a lot of time before this chang…

I don’t know anything about Indian politics. This feels like a deflection but I’d like to hear more.

You say many haven’t been convicted formally. Reading between the lines, how many of those cases are likely to have been guilty of the crime, regardless of the workings of the court?

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those are already developed countries and about half the rest are “resource curse” (Russia, Nigeria,etc) it had significant war (Egypt, Ukraine, etc). The reason why India is likely to grow a lot is they’re still doing catch-up growth, they’re not primary resource export driven, and they’re industrializing. Additionally, it seems to me that something important happened to the global economy right after 2007,…

> The reason why India is likely to grow a lot is they’re still doing catch-up growth With all due respect, as someone who has done work in developmental economics and macroeconomic finance, this is wrong. I’d encourage you to consider the literature. One never loses from a realistic view of the landscape.

Then surely you can point something out. Because I will bet you that India will increase real per capita income by a factor of 5 by the end of this century.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#174
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, where would we be without LASIK? I'll also note that that article notably elides things like ICBMs and the other myriad military applications, since it is clearly intended as a puff piece to make us view space technologies as benevolent and positive. As for my tone, perhaps you are right that I don't need to employ ridicule; but I wish to, because I feel contempt for this position so strongly I want to make it…

Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? That includes name-calling like "fetish", which the site guidelines also ask you specifically to avoid. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: alas, your comment history indicates that you've been using this site primarily for ideological battle rather than curiosity. We ban accounts that do that regardless of what they're battling for, becaus…

Actually, would you please ban me? I'm not sure i agree with you about ideology vs. curiosity, I'd say rather that ideology is one of the primary things I am curious about and something I appreciate about HN is that there are smart people here willing to discuss it.

But I do think my comments suffer from a meanness I'd like to avoid, and that my use of this site is something like a nicotine habit; I'd appreciate the nudge towards quitting.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#175

When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do. If developing countries spend a miniscule of their budget ( ISRO budget less than 2%), there is cynicism. I think what India is doing…

> When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do. Well, more energy should have been spent in that line of questioning. But there was nationalism at play, and the race to compete wi…

   But there was nationalism at play,
    and the race to compete with the USSR.
Oh, nationalism is for sure at play here, and proving itself as a country that can get to space is definitely demonstrating that they are just as good as any other nuclear superpower.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#176
To the naysayers, I only have one thing to say.

If in future (say 20 years down the line), a research agency needs to send their rover to the moon and they have two options: Pay $1bn to NASA, or $200mn to ISRO, who would you think they'd choose?

Private companies have already started using ISRO for launching mini satellites, and it may not be long before it becomes a cashflow positive company in the global market.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#177
post #15

Useful reddit page with links to all the livestreams (at least 4), timeline of updates, point form mission details https://old.reddit.com/r/ISRO/comments/ccbpvm/gslv_mk_iii_m1...

I was about to link this as well, glad you beat me to it. At the time of this comment launch is about (edit) 90 min hours away, they have finished liquid oxygen fueling, and loading hydrogen.

Looks like it was called off 4hrs ago due to a technical problem.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#178
I lived in India for several years. Given I was on assignment from the US, I wasn’t affected by the poverty but I saw it every single day. Personally, I find this technological effort exciting, but I would imagine that those less fortunate would find this a deeply irresponsible use of resources.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Olympic infrastructure is wasted since it involves stuff like building stadiums that are then unused after the Olympics. Investment for an Olympics-type event can be useful if it results in the creation of durable multipurpose infrastructure like transit lines though. The US Space Race helped us become a leader in satellite launch, which is a productive industry on its own terms now. Weather satellites, GPS,…

US Space Race was toward the useless side, given that GPS or comsat do not require human spaceflight. Soviet Union was more sensible.

Not sure, the Soviets also put men in space, did MIR, and they tried to go to the moon and build a space shuttle too, just failed at it.

The thing that I do wonder is when a country like India is just replicating the work already done by the USA, how much of the innovation / potential has already been tapped. (Or now with the USA return to the moon program, is developing Orion and SLS and the gateway really going to do much that the Apollo program didn’t?)

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