proud to be an Indian!!
Did you do anything to contribute? If not, then there's nothing you can be proud of. It's like saying "proud to be white" when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon.
Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
131–140 of 190 posts
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window rem…
I don't think this reply works. Situation 1: There is a window. It gets broken. The shopkeeper pays for it to be replaced, instead of buying a book. Situation 2: There is no window, and there is no need for a window. But the shopkeeper pays for a window anyway, instead of buying a book. Situation 1 is restoring the status quo, situation 2 is financing new production - but they seem equally bad, because in both cases…
From the perspective of the Broken Window Fallacy, though, buying a new window is equivalent to buying a book. Need is not a component of the fallacy whatsoever. Thus, your final statement is incorrect. pravda was not pointing out anything; the fallacy is not applicable to this situation.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#133Why 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…
- Everything the government does is more expensive than that same thing done by the free market (this is by definition, as the government creates bureaucracy around each of its endeavors)
- Is the Mars mission the best allocation of those resources right now?
- Could this money generate more wealth, or the same wealth faster, if it were allocated elsewhere? (for instance, savings generating higher interest rates and more small business loans)
I can't understand how people think these programs are a good idea. I'm not against exploring Mars, mind you, and I think it's a good idea. But what we have to do is create incentives to encourage entrepreneurs to come up with ideas.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#134There are many point-of-views that one could(should) factor in to explain the circumstances: 1. Mindset due to poverty: There are many people below the poverty line so it makes sense for the scientific programs to aim for the cost-effective solutions not cutting-edge. 2. Experimental: If it was your first space mission, you wouldn't exactly load it with gadgets. Missions have a chance to succeed or to end in failure.…
> orders of magnitude
I am not sure if you understand what that means.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this reply works. Situation 1: There is a window. It gets broken. The shopkeeper pays for it to be replaced, instead of buying a book. Situation 2: There is no window, and there is no need for a window. But the shopkeeper pays for a window anyway, instead of buying a book. Situation 1 is restoring the status quo, situation 2 is financing new production - but they seem equally bad, because in both cases…
From the perspective of the Broken Window Fallacy, though, buying a new window is equivalent to buying a book. Need is not a component of the fallacy whatsoever. Thus, your final statement is incorrect. pravda was not pointing out anything; the fallacy is not applicable to this situation.
To be honest, I can't work out what part of my argument you think is wrong. Can you clarify your objection?
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is: will the society as a whole benefit more from money spent by scientists and engineers or from a better health and education system. I think this is a "win win win" situation for a specific range of wealthy people and not the society at all.
quite a bit of India's problems are culture based. There was big to do about building toilets all across India in an effort to improve sanitation and health. Guess what, people would not use them because going to the bathroom in town was taboo. They would walk past the new toilet facility and use the woods.
Please correct me if I am wrong. Wasn't there a cost associated with using these washrooms? I recall reading a study that surveyed people and found:
a. The primary target market found the cost to high
b. The primary market who had always used the woods were embarrassed of not knowing how to "use" the facilities and embarrassed to ask anyone about it.
c. There were some free locations, that were filthy.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
The shuttle was never primarily used to send Satellites into space... It was used primarily for maned missions. The Atlas V is the current standard for putting satellites into space. Sierra Nevada Corporation puts a satellite into orbit almost once a week. The pain you speak of is non existent.
> The pain you speak of is non existent. That's simply untrue. Access to launchers is the bottleneck to satellite development. Large institutional customers have access to space, but almost nobody else does. The commercial satellite industry has been shaped by the shortage of launchers, with satellites designed to be launched infrequently with long design lives. As a result everything is tremendously expensive. This…
That's completely untrue. At several points rodket production has been ramped down because demand was so low. The real issue is getting mass to orbit is stupid expencive. So, minimizing how much stuff needs to be in orbit is a huge priority. At the same time it takes little effort to give satilites a fairly long lifespan because solar power is abundant and most orbits are stable.
PS: In the end there is a fairly small list of things satilites can do, they can measure things, relay information, or act as a beacon. Useful, but we don't exactly need 10 independent world wide GPS platforms.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The shuttle was never primarily used to send Satellites into space... It was used primarily for maned missions. The Atlas V is the current standard for putting satellites into space. Sierra Nevada Corporation puts a satellite into orbit almost once a week. The pain you speak of is non existent.
> The pain you speak of is non existent. That's simply untrue. Access to launchers is the bottleneck to satellite development. Large institutional customers have access to space, but almost nobody else does. The commercial satellite industry has been shaped by the shortage of launchers, with satellites designed to be launched infrequently with long design lives. As a result everything is tremendously expensive. This…
> with satellites designed to be launched infrequently with long design lives
That's good and let's hope it doesn't change soon. We're already risking Kessler syndrome[0], and allowing any poor schmuck to launch throwaway satellites as a way to earn money is a huge, global tragedy of commons waiting to happen.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#139Why 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…
- Everything the government does is more expensive than that same thing done by the free market (this is by definition, as the government creates bureaucracy around each of its endeavors) - Is the Mars mission the best allocation of those resources right now? - Could this money generate more wealth, or the same wealth faster, if it were allocated elsewhere? (for instance, savings generating higher interest rates and…
> Everything the government does is more expensive than that same thing done by the free market (this is by definition, as the government creates bureaucracy around each of its endeavors)
This is stupid and definitely not true by definition. Free market is full of zero-sum games (like advertising) that waste resources and government can be significantly cheaper by the sole virtue of not having to compete with anyone. Even if free market is often better in practice, that observation is far from allowing for a general declarative statement like yours.
> I can't understand how people think these programs are a good idea. (...) But what we have to do is create incentives to encourage entrepreneurs to come up with ideas.
Because they provide hard to quantify mid-to-long-term benefits, and little profits short-term, which is the exact blind spot of entrepreneurs. Look, capitalistic economy is a greedy optimization algorithm (with the computer-science connotations of the word greedy); if something isn't immediately profitable, it won't be done, period, no matter the long-term benefits.
People like Elon Musk do space in spite of free market, not thanks to it - he had a dream and enough money to push cheap rockets down the market's throat whether it wanted them or not.
Re: Why India's Mars mission is so cheap – and thrilling
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zizee had 4 paragraphs, and pravda pointed out that paragraph 3 was fallacious. The fact that paragraphs 1 and 2 are not doesn't change this. I have no idea why pravda is being downmodded, beyond silly mood affiliation.
Because he's wrong, and so are you. The 'broken window Fallacy' is Bastiat's observation that while the income generated for glaziers from repairing rboken windows is indeed a form of economic activity, and that this is nice enough if you're in the window business, it's economically inefficient because the economic activity merely restores the status quo instead of going to finance new production - had the window rem…
But that's a wholly inappropriate analogy for this situation of expenditure going towards Indian scientists and technicians, because they were engaged in new and productive work...
You've completely ignored what Zizee said and substituted a different argument. Zizee said this:
Let's just forget for a moment that valuable skills and infrastructure are being created...
Zizee is claiming that even if the mars mission were useless (kind of like breaking/fixing windows) the project would be justified simply because salaries are being paid.