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India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

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Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#81

Post by ufmace »

falsestprophet wrote: post #67
anigbrowl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who pays attention to international affairs knows that the US has been seeking a rapprochement with India; Prime Minister Modi just had his first meeting with President Obama the other day. Meanwhile, the US has been at odds with China over its ballooning territorial claims in the South China Sea, to the point of possibly terminating the ban on arms sales to Viet Nam. I don't think the GP needs to provide cita…

Here we go again. Opinion: Anyone who pays attention to international affairs knows that the US has been seeking a rapprochement with India Unconvincing evidence: The President met with the President of India. Mr. Obama also met with the mayor of Gary, Indiana yesterday. It is easy to acquire incomplete current affairs knowledge. You are attributing the United States motivation to counter China to claims to the South…

Exactly what are you getting at here? If you have a problem with the fundamental point in the GP post, why don't you just say it? We all know that international relations are complex, and a quick summary will necessarily ignore, gloss over, or oversimplify many issues. It's still valuable when we'd like to get an idea of what's going on and why in a paragraph, instead of reading and writing hundred-page reports citing thousands of sources.

Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#82

Post by sillysaurus3 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #62
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a dumb question. What's a large democratic power, and how does it differ from China? I'm not implying China is in any way democratic, but rather inviting someone to further explain what the goal of the US is. Is it likely that this is simply empire expansion rather than an altruistic goal of balancing China? Mainly I'm just wondering what the concerns might be if a large democratic power (and I'd still like to…

What's a large democratic power India is indisputably a democratic country, not withstanding its developing status or struggles with corruption; they just ran what is probably the largest general election in history a few months back, followed by a smooth transfer of power. It's also large, because it has a population of 1.25 billion people, close to China's 1.36 billion people. And it's a power because it has nuclea…

The amount of nasty personal attacks I've attracted for the mistake of asking a question on HN has ensured I won't be making it again for a long time. Personal attacks are not allowed on HN, but that hasn't stopped you from calling me a person who is being obtuse and disingenuous. Did you ever stop to consider that I am ignorant of these matters, as I have said at least three times now? I don't know if you're having a bad day or what.

Imagine if I had asked a newbie programming question, after admitting to and apologizing for being a newbie programmer, and you'd responded as you did here. Would you be okay with that? Just because the topic is politics, suddenly it's totally okay to insult?

Anyway, thank you for the information. I hadn't heard of India's general elections and smooth transfer of power, so that helps clarify things for me. I appreciate it.

Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#83

Post by [deleted] »

ufmace wrote: post #81
falsestprophet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here we go again. Opinion: Anyone who pays attention to international affairs knows that the US has been seeking a rapprochement with India Unconvincing evidence: The President met with the President of India. Mr. Obama also met with the mayor of Gary, Indiana yesterday. It is easy to acquire incomplete current affairs knowledge. You are attributing the United States motivation to counter China to claims to the South…

Exactly what are you getting at here? If you have a problem with the fundamental point in the GP post, why don't you just say it? We all know that international relations are complex, and a quick summary will necessarily ignore, gloss over, or oversimplify many issues. It's still valuable when we'd like to get an idea of what's going on and why in a paragraph, instead of reading and writing hundred-page reports citin…

[deleted]

Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#85

Post by teamonkey »

danielweber wrote: post #49
teamonkey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, "international cooperation" is often the death of many projects, particularly space projects. There are plenty of counter-examples. The ISS is an effort that spans the US, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe (ESA). Hubble is NASA-ESA.

Why is that a counter-example? The ISS is incredibly more expensive, complicated, and accomplishes less science because it's "international."

Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

I doubt that a space lab as functional as the ISS could exist without international funding.

Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#86

Post by teamonkey »

danielweber wrote: post #74
ZenoArrow wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The ISS is incredibly more expensive, complicated, and accomplishes less science because it's "international."" Accomplishes less compared to what? Skylab? Mir? The ISS is designed to host up to 7 crew members. For purposes of comparison, Mir could host 3. What makes you suspect 7 astronauts can do less scientific work than 3?

Skylab construction cost: 10 billion in modern dollars ISS construction cost: 150 billion ISS science projects keep on getting cancelled for budget reasons. I think spending $150,000,000,000.00 building it has something to do with that.

Skylab was cheap(er) because it was launched in one single stage (IIRC it literally was a Saturn V cargo bay).

The ISS was designed to be built up over several years, over several launches, with each launch costing much less than Skylab but obviously more overall. It was a design decision that favoured amortizing costs for an age that couldn't afford another Skylab.

Re: India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars

#89

Post by chelch »

krylon wrote: post #76

I've been hoping for a while for more international cooperation on space exploration. Going to space is not cheap, and if several countries pool their resources, under ideal circumstances the result should be more science for everyone. But politics has kind of prevented that. For governments, space exploration seems to be more about showing off than about advancing science. I hope that in the future, different countr…

I'm pretty sure there is a significant amount of cooperation when it comes to space exploration. Space missions often carry instruments from different countries. For example, the lunar probe that discovered water on the moon, Chandrayaan-1, carried instruments from different countries. Curiosity carried instruments from other countries too, if I'm not mistaken.

It's just that you don't read much about this in the newspapers, because newspapers would rather make it look like there's a space race going on.

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