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

nytimes.com

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

#211

Post by Kaiyou »

sidcool wrote: post #203
Tialco wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you joking? Have you seen the amount of space ventures that have gone bankrupt? Try and start a rocket company and go look for funding. It's a terrible opportunity to create wealth in the short term (10/20/30 year timespan). However, in the 30-50 year timespan, it seems like a terrific opportunity to create wealth (perhaps rivaled only by nuclear fusion) if we can work our way up to sustainable/reusable rockets a…

I am glad our fathers and grandfathers and ancestors before that had the ability to see beyond their own shadows.

Before you can do this you need to have accumulated wealth that you can spend. It's not a coincidence that the industrial revolution started where it did.

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

#212

Post by dang »

shripadk wrote: post #160
easytiger wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea. They basically went back to first principles on relativity I hear. They had nothing to go on. No well understood science in the public domain at all. And the objection was around the seeker technology more specifically

If you want to keep going back in time why not go all the way back to Science that was founded in India and was taken and adopted by the West? How about we go all the way back to the numeral system (which originated from the Brahmi numerals) without which there would be no foundation for any future Scientific discoveries? It is ridiculous to keep going back in time to justify something that is happening today. Every…

Please don't do nationalistic flamewar on HN, regardless of how provocative some other comments are. Everyone needs to make an effort here to prevent discussion from degrading into battle.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#213

Post by dang »

easytiger wrote: post #204
shripadk wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to keep going back in time why not go all the way back to Science that was founded in India and was taken and adopted by the West? How about we go all the way back to the numeral system (which originated from the Brahmi numerals) without which there would be no foundation for any future Scientific discoveries? It is ridiculous to keep going back in time to justify something that is happening today. Every…

How about you calm down and pay attention to the discussion. Total lunatic. I was stating my point around the closed science of the cold war era. India was doing nothing around that time. It then benefited, like everyone else in the world when the huge post war advances were done in public in peer reviewed science. When you do something ow, it is not from scratch. Its not an insult as you seem to think it is. Your be…

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please review the site guidelines and don't post like this to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've had to warn you about this more than once before. I don't want to ban you, so would you please fix this?

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

#214

Post by complexmango »

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…

Agreed. And the elephant in the room: All major space programs worldwide are an integral part of their respective country’s defense program. And were from inception.

India lives in a dangerous neighborhood, and protecting its citizens is by far the #1 priority of its government. The space program will always be well funded as a result.

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

#215

Post by throwawayover9k »

astazangasta wrote: post #76
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…

Space enthusiasts are always trying to sell their fetish with this line, but the fact is that technology development is not some generic facility; if you develop technology devoted to getting things up into orbit, it will basically give you the expertise to do that. It doesn't, say, develop your semiconductor design, biochemistry, medicine, agriculture, or whatever else your country might need. It basically helps you…

Well, at least in the case of India, most of what you pointed out has been directly benefitted by the space industry. India has its first major semiconductor foundry operated under the Department of Space. And the space agency spends a significant part of its on-ground budget on developing outreach programs for farmers to teach them how to use meteorological and soil data to get a better, more reliable harvest. Also, India is one of the few countries to have a civilian space agency led solely by engineers. The only time it rubs shoulders with the military is when it sources spacecraft and launch vehicle parts from the national defence supplier or when it shares data with the military in order to satisfy the government's political mandate.

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

#216

Post by taarushv »

vthallam wrote: post #147
taarushv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of BJP members of parliment have criminal records/charges against them. Including murder and rape. I'm Indian but I've lost faith in Indian politicians years ago. Only way I see a reform coming about is if more of the youth view politics as a viable/worthy career path. Right now, the lunatic amount of emphasis on Engineering/Science paths to highschool kids is draining all talent. Source: https://economictimes.in…

> the lunatic amount of emphasis on Engineering/Science paths to highschool kids is draining all talent. What does this even mean? Politicians with criminal cases against them(not convicted) in India is as old as 1947. It's very easy to charge someone and shift the burden to the charged person that they prove themselves innocent. That doesn't mean there aren't bad people, it just takes a lot of time before this chang…

> What does this even mean? Politicians with criminal cases against them(not convicted) in India is as old as 1947. It's very easy to charge someone and shift the burden to the charged person that they prove themselves innocent.

What I mean to say is this crime in politics will continue to exist unless there is more diversity in education paths in India. As a highschooler in your average tier 2 Indian city, The only options (simply based on educational quality, socio-economic pressure, and job opportunities) were a) engineering b) medicine c) law/accounting. I barely knew anyone from my high school that wanted to pursue public office (even later in life, if not immediately).

> That doesn't mean there aren't bad people, it just takes a lot of time before this changes. Singling out a single party on a forum where little people have cultural context just shows the bias.

That's a load of BS. If you managed to open the source I linked it clearly states 39% of Congress leaders have cases against them too. In the second line. I mentioned BJP because of the parent comment I was responding to. Your attempt at framing my comment as some sort of partisan propaganda is mindboggling.

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

#217

Post by londons_explore »

meruru wrote: post #146
sanxiyn wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of reasons to suspect "colonize other planets" or any such things won't happen in less than a lifetime. Unlike computing, physical challenge is daunting, and economic challenge is more so. As saying goes, if we would colonize Mars, why aren't we colonizing Antarctica, which is infinitely easier?

That's an interesting question. Why aren't we? I figure we basically already have technology-wise so there's not any research left to do and we have no reason to actually move there yet.

We (foolishly in my opinion) signed treaties which made Antarctica a research-only continent.

Imagine if we had done the same to North America - the world might have never developed most of today's technology.

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

#218

Post by meruru »

londons_explore wrote: post #217
meruru wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting question. Why aren't we? I figure we basically already have technology-wise so there's not any research left to do and we have no reason to actually move there yet.

We (foolishly in my opinion) signed treaties which made Antarctica a research-only continent. Imagine if we had done the same to North America - the world might have never developed most of today's technology.

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. It would be pretty cool if Antarctica had been populated and urbanized.

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

#219

Post by mav3rick »

Kaiyou wrote: post #197
voxadam wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 progr…

I am glad govt.'s don't work on perception. Also, the US' perception is also one of racism, poverty in Southern states. Doesn't mean it abandon its myriad programs in space and healthcare.

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

#220

Post by mav3rick »

Kaiyou wrote: post #34
mav3rick wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India's remote sensing satellites have helped millions of farmers.

How is this answering my question?

India's expenditure on space, helped many farmers create wealth and uplift their families. The very point you were trying to make.
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