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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

#41

Post by pravda »

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.

Your fallacy is... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

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

#42

Post by vaishaksuresh »

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."

"INR5 billion (US$82 million) provided for ultra modern solar power plants in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir."

"INR2 billion (US$33 million) provided for power reforms, INR5 billion (US$82 million) for water reforms in Delhi"

"10-year tax holiday to be extended to companies that start power generation by March 31, 2017"

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Union_budget_of_India

And yet, you complain about the mere $67 million spent on this mission.

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

#44

Post by gamblor956 »

pravda wrote: post #41
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. Your fallacy is... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

The broken window fallacy is that of breaking things and repairing/rebuilding them to generate economic activity, i.e., an endless cycle. The OP is arguing that this mission creates new economic assets and activities that expand India's economic base.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

mrb wrote: post #39
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...

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by tjradcliffe »

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…

"Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Train someone in rocket science and they'll be able to create wonders."

This is the logic of "useless" expenditures on space programs, and it is not some theoretical claim, but one that has been borne out many times in the US and elsewhere. This ground has been covered so many times in the past fifty years it isn't clear why anyone still believes that investment in space exploration is not a wise way to spend a modest fraction of taxpayer's money.

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

#47

Post by Retric »

dkokelley wrote: post #37
tn13 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sec…

There was actually a lot of economics saying the possibility of the US paying off the national debt in the Clinton years would be a bad thing. Unfortunately, 2 wars, massive tax breaks for the wealthy, and a 2 recessions have taken care of that problem.

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

#49

Post by tn13 »

In the words of Vikaram Sarabhai, the founding father of ISRO:

    "There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight."
    "But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society."

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

#50

Post by rz2k »

gamblor956 wrote: post #44
pravda wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Your fallacy is... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

The broken window fallacy is that of breaking things and repairing/rebuilding them to generate economic activity, i.e., an endless cycle. The OP is arguing that this mission creates new economic assets and activities that expand India's economic base.

In fact it is a similar situation if you believe that the mission itself does not produce sufficient value.

The salaries are not merely money being cycled around in the economy if the labor being paid for results in the scientists not having time or inclination to produce other labor. Furthermore, it is likely that the resources launched off of the planet could have been used for something else.

Whether or not it is equivalent to the broken window fallacy really does depend on subjective assessments of the value produced by the missions. However, it is also worth noting that even the broken window fallacy is not some universal law, and relies on its own assumptions. In certain market failure conditions destroying something and fixing it as a mechanism for increasing the velocity of money could have a net benefit.

Although it is very useful to distinguish between the real economy and money transactions as though money is an abstraction for resources being traded around, the best policies also acknowledge the existence of money, as well as friction in the economy.

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