unrelated comment triggered by looking at the link, why are Indian websites at large so crappy and appear to be from 1990s? Just like with the insane lawless vehicle traffic, people have become used to crappy websites in India.
Many NASA or ESA websites do not look one bit better. I don’t think this is something inherently Indian.
Both Bollywood and Mangalyan are a distraction from the core issues, poverty being one of them. Why do people react to criticism that is inevitable for such a mission? In my opinion, space probe to Mars is a good idea for space engineers and for the idea of adventure, it should be nurtured. But the moment the Indian Government a$$holes (who have eaten up more than 10000X that amount which a Mangalyan costs) and their…
Why did Kennedy call for the moon landing instead of fixing the civil rights problem? why did LBJ setup medicare/medicaid instead of fixing racism and other inequities? Why did Obama setup Obamacare without fixing poverty in America? why oh why?
LBJ did more to address poverty than any president save Roosevelt. If you're going to ask that specific question, ask about the money wasted on the Vietnam war and mayne the space program -- medicare/medicaid and the "Great Society" programd directly tackled poverty, and LBJ passed the civil rights act which, oh by the way, was Kennedy's legacy. Fixing healthcare is one way of directly addressing poverty. You can argue the methods (I would prefer single payer) but the intent is at least pointing in the right direction.
Before someone makes the inevitable "Why are they spending money on this instead of fixing poverty?" argument: The whole Mars mission costs about as much as making four Bollywood movies. http://www.firstpost.com/india/ten-price-tags-to-put-isro-ma...
People enjoy movies, which alleviates suffering, which ameliorates poverty. If poor folks get to watch movies, that is. Movies have very low marginal cost, making them among the most cost effective forms of entertainment.
Is this a science project, or a status project? Science would be best, but even as a status project, better Mars Orbiter than more nuclear warheads.
It's a technology development and demonstration, and science project. This is the first inter-planetary mission for ISRO, and the next step after their 2009 Moon mission, Chandrayaan-1 :)
Congratulations to ISRO. I was up all night following ISRO's updates :) Mission homepage: http://www.isro.org/mars/home.aspx Here are some pics from ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network) that was looking over the Trans Mars Injection, and the spacecraft itself: http://www.isro.org/mars/momimg.aspx Here's a color picture of Earth captured by MOM last week: http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c25/Imagegallery/m…
I saw a reference to the [interplanetary transport network](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Networ...) sometime back, and wanted to confirm if that is the only/best way to travel between planets and is that what the MOM is doing, i.e. it has entered into one of those paths where it does not need to spend any energy till it reaches nearby Mars.
Why did Kennedy call for the moon landing instead of fixing the civil rights problem? why did LBJ setup medicare/medicaid instead of fixing racism and other inequities? Why did Obama setup Obamacare without fixing poverty in America? why oh why?
LBJ did more to address poverty than any president save Roosevelt. If you're going to ask that specific question, ask about the money wasted on the Vietnam war and mayne the space program -- medicare/medicaid and the "Great Society" programd directly tackled poverty, and LBJ passed the civil rights act which, oh by the way, was Kennedy's legacy. Fixing healthcare is one way of directly addressing poverty. You can arg…
I read those as rhetorical questions and think you two may actually be in agreement.
Me neither. I vaguely defend myself by noting that HN seems to be fairly US-centric, and since I live in the US, I tend to hear more about things like SpaceX launches (watched the two aborted ones this week) than I do about the Indian, Chinese or Japanese space programs.
You're in luck - Chang'e 3 launches tomorrow ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_3 ), and assuming it doesn't blow up en route to orbit you'll probably hear more about it (especially as it's forecast to be the first spacecraft in decades to make a soft landing upon the Moon).
Damn, is there video being streamed anywhere?
Edit: I guess it already took off by the time I saw this.
Before someone makes the inevitable "Why are they spending money on this instead of fixing poverty?" argument: The whole Mars mission costs about as much as making four Bollywood movies. http://www.firstpost.com/india/ten-price-tags-to-put-isro-ma...
Both Bollywood and Mangalyan are a distraction from the core issues, poverty being one of them. Why do people react to criticism that is inevitable for such a mission? In my opinion, space probe to Mars is a good idea for space engineers and for the idea of adventure, it should be nurtured. But the moment the Indian Government a$$holes (who have eaten up more than 10000X that amount which a Mangalyan costs) and their…
I hear you, however it is worth remembering that space wizardry is just basic engineering done to the nth degree and it keeps engineers in the country who might otherwise have left. If you want your engineers to help find solutions to the problems of poverty in India, the first thing to do is to make sure they stick around and having a space industry helps with that.
Before someone makes the inevitable "Why are they spending money on this instead of fixing poverty?" argument: The whole Mars mission costs about as much as making four Bollywood movies. http://www.firstpost.com/india/ten-price-tags-to-put-isro-ma...
People enjoy movies, which alleviates suffering, which ameliorates poverty. If poor folks get to watch movies, that is. Movies have very low marginal cost, making them among the most cost effective forms of entertainment.
Missions like this make poor people rich (eventually). Movies make rich people more rich.