Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 221 posts

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#191

Post by th3iedkid »

Chathamization wrote: post #83
lewisjoe wrote: post #36

Folks who suggest dealing with poverty before launching machines to space: the economy doesn't work like that, FYI. If a country acquires deep technical know-how on engineering, it means the country can use it to spin out new industries and export that utility. That is how a country makes money. After world war II, Germany didn't give away all the remaining money to war survivors. They built rock-solid airplane engin…

This reminds me of the excuses for spending billions of dollars hosting the Olympics. "All the infrastructure improvements will help the locals!" Well, yes, but if infrastructure is your goal there are a lot less costly ways to go about it. I'm sure a country that decided to build an underwater amusement park would end up acquiring some technical know-how on engineering, but that doesn't make that a practical goal.

Wouldn't special lines of credit open up for a country/city willing to setup olympics ?

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#192

Post by BurningFrog »

BurningFrog wrote: post #117
lewisjoe wrote: post #36

Folks who suggest dealing with poverty before launching machines to space: the economy doesn't work like that, FYI. If a country acquires deep technical know-how on engineering, it means the country can use it to spin out new industries and export that utility. That is how a country makes money. After world war II, Germany didn't give away all the remaining money to war survivors. They built rock-solid airplane engin…

Germany did not do big government engineering projects. They had a certain distaste for that after the war... Instead they deregulated and let private enterprise rebuild their economy.

Kinda annoyed that my correct description of West German history is downvoted to -2 points by jerks who have nothing to say...

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#193

Post by Albertchrist »

It is also carrying one satellite of NASA. on top of that...India is planning to land their rover on south pole of the moon which is no yet done by any other country.By this probably we will get new information about moon which helps us to get more insights about chances of life on moon.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#194

Post by gdy »

omnimus wrote: post #165
melling wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“They are self sustaining industries.” So, you don’t know about all the subsidies for stadiums, etc? https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/30/news/companies/nfl-taxpayer...

I am very much against the subsidies for sports but (being from football country) there are many secondary effects why countries support it. From better population health to higher patriotism (international matches are only time people see the flag and anthem) and even crime rate. Its good for kids to have heroes/role models and sport heroes are usually the ones kids prefer.

In the USSR the cosmonauts were heroes.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#195

Post by gdy »

avip wrote: post #156
scotchmi_st wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that irritates me more than anything about the argument that sending people to space is a bad idea is the unique bias people have against space technologies. No-one ever says "We spend billions on Football; let's spend it on poor people instead", or "We spend billions on the music and film industries, let's shut those down and instead tax everyone for the average entertainment spend and send the proceeds to…

People say that all the time (we could take all that money from X and invest in Y). It's called a false dichotomy.

Why is it false?

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#196

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

whatshisface wrote: post #138
thetruthseeker1 wrote: post #129

When US was spending billions on Minuteman and Apollo missions, there were many problems in America, including poverty. Not sure? ask the African Americans in the south from that time. However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do. If developing countries spend a miniscule of their budget ( ISRO budget less than 2%), there is cynicism. I think what India is doing…

> However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do. That's not true. Public opinion about the moon missions was divided throughout the whole program, and a lot of effort was spent debating it. It is only in retrospect that it seems like a no-brainer, because everyone who was against it has been forgotten and we know it was a success.

That is great. However did you guys have a debate about US poverty after every Apollo mission? What about after you buy every F35? The cost of this Indian mission is about the cost of 1 F35. BTW, many decades back Indians also deliberated, and only then established ISRO.

Also, frankly, that's a question for Indians to debate and not a big fan of NY times casually questioning the judgement of that spending without giving it an elaborate treatment. I have seen this multiple times. India launched Mars craft, but there is poverty. India launches 100+ satellites in one mission, but there is poverty. Its irrelevant at that instant and seems only to diminish India's aspirations.

May be some of this journalists can take a look at Indian Budget, study it deeply, and find where the government can spend more wisely. I bet they will find more wasteful spending than the investment in ISRO and that may be helpful for the public to know.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#197

Post by Kaiyou »

voxadam wrote: post #75
Kaiyou wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an effort in spending wealth, instead of creating wealth. Since the country has a problem with poverty, effort should be directed towards creating wealth. It's mostly an issue with perception.

The US has a problem with poverty; should they eliminate NASA?

The US doesn't have a perception problem with poverty. It has the image of a rich country where lots of stuff comes from. Like Google, Microsoft etc.

India is perceived as a third world country, where people shit in the streets because they lack the infrastructure for even toilets. Whether this is true or not doesn't change the perception of these things. If a country that is perceived like India starts a space program, eyebrows will raise.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#198

Post by Kaiyou »

sidcool wrote: post #65
Kaiyou wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day what is needed is to create wealth, not to spend it. Spending wealth while lots of people in the country are living in poverty in a way, that doesn't directly address this problem may come off as having the wrong priorities. This is about perception.

Space is an excellent opportunity to create wealth and provide employment. So your argument is still wrong.

How would you use space to create wealth?

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#199

Post by switchb4 »

Gys wrote: post #104

Something in the line of 'Making America|India| Great Again' I guess. Good for them. Personally it helps me (living very comfortably in an European country) not to feel any guild reading articles like https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/world/asia/india-water-cr...

I can definitely say that you just have an average mind.

Re: India is sending a rover to the moon, and the country is pumped

#200

Post by kmlx »

thetruthseeker1 wrote: post #196
whatshisface wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, very little energy was spent on questioning whether spending in space was right thing to do. That's not true. Public opinion about the moon missions was divided throughout the whole program, and a lot of effort was spent debating it. It is only in retrospect that it seems like a no-brainer, because everyone who was against it has been forgotten and we know it was a success.

That is great. However did you guys have a debate about US poverty after every Apollo mission? What about after you buy every F35? The cost of this Indian mission is about the cost of 1 F35. BTW, many decades back Indians also deliberated, and only then established ISRO. Also, frankly, that's a question for Indians to debate and not a big fan of NY times casually questioning the judgement of that spending without giv…

> However did you guys have a debate about US poverty after every Apollo mission?

Yes.

Post reply on HN