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Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

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Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#31

Post by donw »

zizee wrote: post #24

Why do people always pass judgment on spending on things they don't agree with as if the money is destroyed. It's not like they pile all the cash onto the rocket and send it to space. Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India in this process and look at where the money is going. A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domes…

Exactly. Projects like this generate huge amounts of value for a country -- not only because they help to push money around the economy, in terms of salaries and invoices paid to rocket-building companies -- but also in terms of the skills gained by everybody that works on the project, as well as the international capital of being a spacefaring country.

Right now, launching satellites in the US is a pain in the ass, thanks to the combination of ITER[1] and the lack of a replacement for the shuttle.

If India can become a launch destination for US companies looking to throw birds into orbit, that's big. Doubly so because it's not like they don't have plenty of engineers. Hell, this might be the case already, and I just don't know.

[1] okay, now EAR, but still.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#32

Post by tn13 »

zizee wrote: post #24

Why do people always pass judgment on spending on things they don't agree with as if the money is destroyed. It's not like they pile all the cash onto the rocket and send it to space. Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India in this process and look at where the money is going. A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domes…

On top of that ISRO is a profit making organization [1]. ISRO regularly launches satellites for other countries and makes money in the process.

ISRO's expertise is also helpful to advance India's defense capabilities which could have otherwise remained hostage to USA's Military Industrial Complex.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antrix_Corporation

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#33

Post by tn13 »

spindritf wrote: post #22
thirsteh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might as well ask the same question about anything the U.S. does, given that the U.S. undisputedly has "more important" and unresolved domestic problems. In the words of Carl Sagan: "Just now, there a great many matters that are pressing in on us that compete for the money it takes to send people to other worlds. Should we solve those problems first, or are they a reason for going? "

The US does have more important and unresolved domestic problems but there are vanishingly few that could be solved with just more money.

US debt is one problem that can be solved purely by money and nothing else not especially Obama's rhetoric.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#34

Post by SamReidHughes »

zizee wrote: post #24

Why do people always pass judgment on spending on things they don't agree with as if the money is destroyed. It's not like they pile all the cash onto the rocket and send it to space. Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India in this process and look at where the money is going. A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domes…

> A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domestic scientists and engineers in India. This money will in turn get taxed and spent by the recipients and pumped back into the local economy.

This is a completely nonsensical line of reasoning, that's why. They're still paying folks to do ostensibly wasteful activities, and you're not going to successfully counter that with your perpetual motion economics.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#35

Post by seanflyon »

sliverstorm wrote: post #25
jgmmo wrote: post #19

"They've kept it small. The payload weighs only about 15kg. " Whoa... So basically that whole mission was for 30ish pounds of actual 'useful equipment' in orbit?

Yes. Remember that cost per kg for a launch- just in fuel costs- is still something like five figures USD. Weight is a tremendous source of cost savings. Compare to the Mars Science Laboratory, at 3,893 kg. They might have spent $150k in fuel costs, while we might have spent $38M.

> just in fuel costs

I think you mean 'just in rocket costs' as the fuel cost is negligible and the cost of the launch is 5 figures (dollars/kg).

For example the falcon 9 costs $12,618/kg to GTO and $4,653/kg to LEO. I don't recall the exact figure but fuel cost is a low single digit percentage of that cost.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#36

Post by seanflyon »

palakchokshi wrote: post #9
kazinator wrote: post #2

How about reliable electricity and water for your people, then Mars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Resources_in_India "Water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India "Over 300 million (300 million) people in India have no access to electricity. Of those who do, almost all find electricity supply intermittent and unreliable."

Ummmm you like posting links without thinking? Here are a couple of them for you. You see the fallacy in your argument? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Re... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Stat...

While I completely disagree with kazinator, you have not pointed out a fallacy and your links do not contradict anything kazinator wrote.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#37

Post by dkokelley »

tn13 wrote: post #33
spindritf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does have more important and unresolved domestic problems but there are vanishingly few that could be solved with just more money.

US debt is one problem that can be solved purely by money and nothing else not especially Obama's rhetoric.

I have a feeling this thread is leading down a very nonproductive path, but I'd like to salvage something of value from it and discuss the consequences of the national debt.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/10/21/141510617/what-if-...

I'd like to challenge the notion that the national debt is undisputedly a bad thing. The majority of the U.S.'s debt is in the form of treasury bonds - widely considered the most secure form of financial instrument. If the treasury bond can't be paid by the U.S., there are much bigger problems (such as the government of the largest national economy in the world collapsing). The treasury bond is utilized worldwide for its stability. It is used to moderate economic growth, and to stimulate it when it slows.

I'm not convinced government debt is entirely good, but I'm also not convinced that things would be better by paying it off.

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#39

Post by mrb »

jgmmo wrote: post #19

"They've kept it small. The payload weighs only about 15kg. " Whoa... So basically that whole mission was for 30ish pounds of actual 'useful equipment' in orbit?

NASA's MAVEN payload was just 4.3 times heavier (65kg vs. 15kg) but cost 9.1 times more ($671M vs. 74M).

So NASA is still 2.1 times more expensive per kg of useful payload. And costs scale less than linearly with the payload mass, so a bigger Indian mission would have likely been even more than 2.1 times more efficient than NASA...

Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling

#40

Post by skybrian »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #34
zizee wrote: post #24

Why do people always pass judgment on spending on things they don't agree with as if the money is destroyed. It's not like they pile all the cash onto the rocket and send it to space. Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created for India in this process and look at where the money is going. A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domes…

> A large proportion of the expense of this mission goes to paying the wages of domestic scientists and engineers in India. This money will in turn get taxed and spent by the recipients and pumped back into the local economy. This is a completely nonsensical line of reasoning, that's why. They're still paying folks to do ostensibly wasteful activities, and you're not going to successfully counter that with your perpe…

Well, it's not completely nonsensical since economics isn't anything like physics. More spending stimulates the economy regardless of how the results are used. (Hence the jokes about dropping money from helicopters, or burying money for people to dig up.)
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