India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon • Hacker News Board

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#11

Post by nithinm » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 11:47 AM UTC

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

Maybe because many of the technologies used in space missions have military applications?

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#12

Post by Macha » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

mysterydip wrote: post #8

thewhitetulip wrote: post #5

I read that the maximum experiments are in the orbiter so this is a successful mission. The only thing for which it 'failed' was to let the ruling class do chest thumping by saying 'we are the fourth country to land a rover'. The ruling party had planned a great celebration today for it's 100 days in office, a date coinciding when the rover would land! They wanted to milk it for their nationalistic purposes while the…

Given the successful landing would've been a political bragging point, could contact have been lost deliberately by people with a different political affiliation?

A bit like asking would democrats have foiled the moon landing to deny Nixon the credit - I find it hard to believe the scientists who put years into the project would screw it up over a change in political leadership

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#13

Post by lenkite » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 11:51 AM UTC

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

In a world under one uniform system of tightly-integrated government or closely allied nations at the nearly the same economic and technological levels, one can certainly do this.

Otherwise, yes, you are right, it's a grand pipe dream. Will all the nations contribute equally in terms of technological, financial and expert human resources ?

Besides, tribal, nationalistic thinking is very good for competition and speeding technological progress. It is what took US and Russia to space in the first place. Nations and civilisations try ten times as as hard if they know someone is competing with them.

Imagine if the Russians today had a Space-X competitor...

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#14

Post by blisterpeanuts » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 11:55 AM UTC

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

You make a valid point, when it comes to general scientific research, and scientists already tend to work on international teams across cultures and geographical regions.

Space programs benefit from a fairly centralized approach, with teams of engineers working to analyze and correct glitches and anomalies in real time. It would be harder to coordinate a distributed team when time is of the essence.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#15

Post by nafey » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 11:57 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #10

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

Well let's revisit this statement in 500 years. Every decade has brought the world closer. Even the recent developments (brexit, trump) are reactions to increased pace of integration. You can find kfc, coca cola in socities as diverse as Mongolia and Madagascar. It will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on this and this will only keep on intensifying in my opinion.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#16

Post by inopinatus » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:01 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #10

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

Just because we’re separable into groups doesn’t mean we have to be in competition. That’s exactly the false equivalence of petty tribal nationalism that GP is calling out.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#17

Post by lenkite » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:03 PM UTC

nafey wrote: post #15

rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

Well let's revisit this statement in 500 years. Every decade has brought the world closer. Even the recent developments (brexit, trump) are reactions to increased pace of integration. You can find kfc, coca cola in socities as diverse as Mongolia and Madagascar. It will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on this and this will only keep on intensifying in my opinion.

Of-course you are right: there are likely to be several major wars in 500 years where smaller and poorer nations get annexed or more likely - simply subjugated by sheer economic dominance. The winners who perform this 'integration' will definitely be in charge of the space missions.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#18

Post by jddj » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:08 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #10

dragonsh wrote: post #7

It's a good effort by ISRO and it's scientist. Just can't understand why so many countries reinventing the wheels. Space missions should be multi-country efforts continuously as it belongs to all. We should not extend our tribal nationalistic thinking to space. Best scientist can be in any nation and more diverse the group and experience the better chances of success. I know I am just dreaming, but hopefully we can c…

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

If tribe was (I hope you'll agree) too small, and nations "too big", what in your view is the optimal scale for governance?

Personally, the most logical conclusion for me is that national governance being the highest level is a local maxima, and I think I'd take a long bet that if humans are around in another 1000 years, there would be a necessary requirement for at least some form of planet-scale government.

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#19

Post by roenxi » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:10 PM UTC

nafey wrote: post #15

rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We’re different groups of people with different interests, different values, different ideas principles cultures histories views of the world. It’s good for us to be competing to explore space (and in trying to develop technological advantages in general). For countries like India it’s critical to develop their own technologies on this front. Otherwise they’ll remain eternally dependent on America, etc., for acce…

Well let's revisit this statement in 500 years. Every decade has brought the world closer. Even the recent developments (brexit, trump) are reactions to increased pace of integration. You can find kfc, coca cola in socities as diverse as Mongolia and Madagascar. It will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on this and this will only keep on intensifying in my opinion.

" A 1910 best-selling book, The Great Illusion, used economic arguments to demonstrate that territorial conquest had become unprofitable, and therefore global capitalism had removed the risk of major wars. " [0]

If you assume that the world order should look like America in charge, everyone else playing quietly in their own garden then everything is fine. If you assume that the Asian, African and European powers might see the world differently, there is a lot of potential that the last 60 years are not the inevitable tide of history but a happy anomaly while everyone stood back up from WWII.

[0] http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2014/06/27/world-w...

Re: India Loses Contact with Probe Just as It Prepares to Land on Moon

#20

Post by mayankkaizen » Sat, Sep 07, 2019, 12:12 PM UTC

mysterydip wrote: post #8

thewhitetulip wrote: post #5

I read that the maximum experiments are in the orbiter so this is a successful mission. The only thing for which it 'failed' was to let the ruling class do chest thumping by saying 'we are the fourth country to land a rover'. The ruling party had planned a great celebration today for it's 100 days in office, a date coinciding when the rover would land! They wanted to milk it for their nationalistic purposes while the…

Given the successful landing would've been a political bragging point, could contact have been lost deliberately by people with a different political affiliation?

I am anti Modi but I so much wanted this mission to succeed. ISRO is the only organization in India which is doing great on global level. It was really irritating the moment Modi turned this mission into his PR gimmick. Had this mission succeeded, the public euphoria would have been something unparalleled. Recently public reactions to Pulwama attack (months of protesting, candle light marches), article 370 issue (people started dancing on the streets when it was removed) were actually terrifying because it showed the rise of maddening extreme nationalism.

But ISRO was away from this madness and political agenda. Now Modi has turned his eye on this organization, god save ISRO because Modi has tried to undermine the independence of every other major institutions like Army, RBI, EC, CAG etc.