
Scientists sent a rocket to Mars for less than it cost to make “The Martian” - leslielemon
https://backchannel.com/isro-scientists-5ad220d6f38c#.bbt3fp4ql
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shas3
If you are interested in Indian women scientists and engineers, there is a
nice compilation (a bit tiresome to read, but worth it, IMO) of biographical
essays called 'Lilavati's Daughters'
[https://ia800402.us.archive.org/33/items/LilavatisDaughters-...](https://ia800402.us.archive.org/33/items/LilavatisDaughters-
WomenScientistsOfIndia/lilavatis-daughters.pdf)

My perception of it, growing up plugged in to the Indian science and
engineering community is this: Indian Government organizations (essentially,
the major employers till the 1990s) were quite progressive when it came to
women in the workplace than you'd think based on population statistics of
women-at-work, etc. The reason for this imbalance is inequality: millions of
women suffering terrible inequality in the lower socio-economic and lower-
caste segments of the population offset gains on the higher end.

~~~
gnufied
It it my somewhat anecdotal experience that, in spite of gender inequalities
there are far more percentage of Indian women in tech than their western
counterparts (particularly US).

I remember rubyconfindia 2010 - where 30-40% participants were women. Ola bini
or one of the keynote speakers commented this is first rubyconf. where he has
seen so many women and I could concur because I have been to many conferences
here in US and there never were that many women.

Tech. meetups is another story though. Most meetups in India are organized on
weekends and there are hardly any women.

~~~
BadassFractal
There were a couple of studies that showed that in developing countries where
social support structures aren't strong you generally see a lot more women go
into the less gender traditional fields such as engineering. See Eastern
Europe, China, India etc.

However once a country's quality of life goes up dramatically, women generally
(this word is key, there are always outliers) will gravitate towards more
traditional feminine occupations such as nursing, teaching, etc . See the
Scandinavian countries.

~~~
BeetleB
>There were a couple of studies that showed that in developing countries where
social support structures aren't strong you generally see a lot more women go
into the less gender traditional fields such as engineering. See Eastern
Europe, China, India etc.

I had to read that twice to follow you.

Be careful with your wording. What you meant was _government funded_ social
structures, as opposed to actual social structures (family structure, etc).
Most Indians who move to the US will be quick to tell you how much worse the
social support structures are in the US. In India, there is usually little
need for daycare (relatives almost always look after the kids). Same goes for
taking care of the chronically unhealthy people, etc.

~~~
mariodiana
My guess is that the fundamental driving force is this. There are great masses
of people in a country like India living in abject poverty. If you're smart
and lucky enough to have opportunity, what you have in India, that you don't
have in a country like the United States, is day-to-day contact with the
wretchedly poor. This staring you in the face puts your choices into stark
relief.

In the U.S., for example, a bright young lady with opportunities can rest
assured that, no matter what she chooses to study, life has a good chance of
turning out alright for her. Her family, friends, teachers, and so forth
generally agree. However in India, for example, it's far more likely that a
bright young lady with opportunities will be thoroughly encouraged -- some
might even say _pushed_ \-- to pursue only the most remunerative and
prestigious occupations. In plain language: "Do you want to end up in the
gutter?"

I wonder if these are the social structures that make the most difference.

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gnufied
This strikes too close to home. Growing up in India - one of my uncles drove
Autorickshaw's for living - each time he came to our home and saw me not
studying, his response was pretty much - "what the heck are you doing? Do you
want to drive autorickshaw's for living?"

I had no response to that.

Also - a lot of women in their 30s/20s now have seen - what it means to be a
homemaker in India. I think neither their mothers and nor themselves want a
life like that.

~~~
joericky233223
The mentality was if you are not required to do the physical work then why are
you not studying which will free from the physical work forever and you do not
have to live a life like the adult uncles who had no choice but to do the
physical work to survive . As a school going kids this attitude cause much
frustration and depression because they are not permitted to play. But I am
happy now that this hard love from my uneducated but well wishing uncles and
other souls had made me capable of using internet for other than social media.

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return0
I'm glad they chose a title that highlights the feat, instead of the fact that
they are women. And it's weird that most comments here focus away from the
impressive feat.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
It's like when those guys landed a spacecraft on a comet and everyone went
insane because one of the scientists wore a shirt with pictures of semi-naked
women that a _woman_ friend had given him.

Or when they discovered the Higgs boson and they used comic sans for their
slides and again people lost their minds.

I have to wonder what these people were reading or paying attention to as none
of that ever occurred to me until it somehow made "front page" news.

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ChuckMcM
So here is the punch line, can they make a movie of the incredible
accomplishment of these women and have it's proceeds cover the cost of
developing the mission? :-) That would be pretty profound serendipity.

One of the statements in the article that I really liked was this one, _" I
would star at the dark and wonder what was beyond it."_ That is the kind of
curiosity you want to nurture in your children.

~~~
sandGorgon
Slightly ot, but the most successful Bollywood movie of all time is about
Indian women wrestlers -
[http://m.imdb.com/title/tt5074352/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt5074352/)

In a country that makes more movies than anywhere else in the world, that's
saying a lot.

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throwaway6497
I hope this picture becomes a symbol of inspiration to all girls worldwide
that they are equals when it comes to excelling at STEM. We all need to
actively promote the right kind of imagery and narrative around us to build a
world where women are empowered are to go after STEM careers, and never ever
feel that they won't be able to do better than men.

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wooshy
"And they happen to be women." I don't know about you but I count three men in
that picture. Not even counting the rest of the people that undoubtedly worked
on this project who were a mix of men and women.

~~~
tigrank
It's marketing. Everything is marketing. It's obvious the target audience of
this article are women. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

~~~
tbabb
Just so long as the reason these women are getting attention is "marketing",
and not, you know, their actual accomplishments. Was afraid the spotlight
might be pointed away from men for a fraction of a second there.

~~~
bilbo0s
Sheez... what's with all of you people?

You have a team there that managed to send a man-made object to Mars. Who
CARES whether they are women or men? Some are women, some are men. You know
why? Because they had to WORK TOGETHER to achieve a goal.

I think you guys are losing sight of this achievement.

~~~
vineetch
Not acknowledging gender only makes sense when there has been no
discrimination against that gender in the past. Women in STEM and especially
in India have accomplished their successes in spite of heavy odds against
them. Women in India (traditionally) have been expected to stay at home and
take care of the family, not send rockets to Mars.

As such acknowledging their accomplishments while acknowledging their gender
is not a bad thing.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I wish they could be asked, though. Some people really do not like explicitly
acknowledging their special status, and wish that everyone would just focus on
their accomplishments instead of their traits.

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webaholic
Well, 'The Martian' made the money spent on it and more. It is up for debate
how much the rocket sent to Mars has given back on the investment. And by this
I mean that it's an apples to oranges comparison.

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larrydag
I don't know. There was a lot of R&D that went into that probe. That was the
FIRST probe to ever have that type of methane sensor put into interplanetary
orbit. I would think the intellectual property would be worth quite a bit.

~~~
greglindahl
You mean the methane sensor which doesn't actually measure methane? Yes,
there's a lot of learning in this space probe.

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nileshtrivedi
Apparently, the methane sensor was defective and the data it sent was
unusable: [http://www.space.com/34943-india-mars-orbiter-mission-
methan...](http://www.space.com/34943-india-mars-orbiter-mission-methane-
detector-flaw-red-planet.html)

~~~
narsil
It appears to have been a design issue and not necessarily due to the time
constraints placed on engineering to launch the spacecraft. Looks like there
would have been a strong chance of this occurring anyway, as the initial
assumptions of type of data to send back for analysis were insufficient.

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JamilD
Even taking into consideration cost of labour, it seems like US manufacturing
and infrastructure costs are excessively bloated. Is there any way to reduce
it while still maintaining an acceptable level of risk?

~~~
valuearb
We are probably not taking enough risk, esp. for manned missions. If qualified
astronauts are willing to take a 10% risk of death, why spend far more to
engineer for a sub-1% risk? Over time risk declines with more missions and
experience.

~~~
JamilD
That's what I was thinking too. Looking back at Apollo, it seems like they
were far more willing to tolerate a higher % risk. What changed? The lack of
competition with the USSR? A general shift in our culture?

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VygmraMGVl
I imagine NASA became a lot more risk averse after actually losing astronauts
in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

~~~
kchoudhu
If I recall, quite a few astronauts were killed on the way to the moon.

~~~
pilom
3 died on the ground during a test exercise. No American astronaut died _in
space_ until the Challenger explosion.

~~~
dragonwriter
> No American astronaut died _in space_ until the Challenger explosion.

No American astronaut died _in space_ then, either.

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valuearb
It looks like their payload was 2,900 lbs to orbit, and then they used engines
on the orbiter to spiral up and enter mars injection orbit. Total scientific
payload was only 30 lbs.

It's unclear from Wikipedia whether the booster put it into LEO or closer to
GTO, but it appears it has has the capability to put 3k lbs near GTO.

For contrast, a Falcon 9 can put 18k lbs in GTO for $62M, so maybe a 1,800 lb
scientific payload to Mars. But that doesn't include payload costs and payload
development cost, so probably well over $100M. And building a probe in 18
months has to be really hard.

It will be interesting if Falcon 9 prices drop because of re-usability, say to
$30M, whether that will open up the opportunity to do lots of custom probes to
inner planets and asteroid belt.

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thebiglebrewski
Haha wow I can't believe the negativity in these comments. Congratulations to
this team for a big achievement! I'm in support of anything that gets us
closer to a multiplanetary society. Cheaper space technology is one of those
things, even better that a lot of women were involved on the the job, that's
inspiring. Kudos to this team!

~~~
ChiliDogSwirl
>Haha wow I can't believe the negativity in these comments.

To be fair, the article's presentation rather invites them. It's basically
presented as "Look what these Indian women accomlished for 10X less money than
your male-dominated American groups spent." It's put Americans and males on
the defensive, so naturally they will defend...

~~~
ajamesm
There's no reason American men can't see this project as a success and an
inspiration, instead of some kind of indictment on their gender or whatever.

~~~
kodfodrasz
The parent comment did not blame the project, but the article.

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danm07
That's not surprising. Hollywood is egregiously wasteful in its spending. If
it takes $100M to film a movie, that equates to ~100 Series A rounds. With a
~80% write-off rate, that's ~20 successful companies for roughly the same
money (except the money won't be sitting at the bottom of your DVD rack a year
later).

~~~
apersona
Yeah, but Hollywood tends to make money back from their films, which allows
them to spend money like that...

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spenrose
The phrase "cost to make" is a problem here. Most of the millions in movies
are spent to claim a share of a fixed-size amount of our collective attention.
You could "make" an identical video artifact for a small fraction of The
Martian's budget. It just wouldn't get seen.

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spodek
Also, the actual Titanic sank in less time than the Titanic in the movie.

~~~
azernik
And the attack on Pearl Harbor was shorter than the movie version.

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nawitus
"These Scientists Sent a Rocket to Mars"

These and other scientists who worked on the mission to be more precise.

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ram_rar
While comparing Frugal Engineering vs Art. Cost does not seem like the valid
factor to compare. Also, Wages in India are paltry compared to the USA.

~~~
harigov
Not totally true. These scientists do make quite a lot of money. Also, their
life is well set - they get cheap housing, cheap food, cheap consumer goods,
free healthcare, etc., Even in terms of Indian standards, these scientists get
ridiculous subsidies for everything so much so that they can simply put all
their money in a bank without any living expenses. Not to mention other
benefits like an official car with a driver, VIP status (if you are level E or
above), etc., If all you measure is money, maybe they can't match up with any
scientist working in the US. If you measure by living standards, they are much
better off.

~~~
aianus
I know plenty of Indian and Chinese people who moved to Canada despite
becoming relatively poorer in goods and services.

There is a lot of value in law and order, education, clean air, and political
stability.

~~~
harigov
That is one more thing that these folks from ISRO and big Indian organizations
enjoy. They are usually out of cities and are completely self-sufficient. You
rarely if ever get out of your organizational town, and the town itself has
lots of greenery.

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vasira
But Martian movie made more than the money spent on it.

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yashksagar
It's not about who made how much money. It's about redefining the economics of
space exploration. Comparing it to a movie makes it easier to understand.

~~~
vasira
Yes, you said right !Its easy to understand

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TheAdamAndChe
Wow, literal quotas? That's just discriminatory.

~~~
dgudkov
All gender-based quotas are discriminatory. Even a 50% quota would be.
Professional choices should not be made based on gender.

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sremani
If you think that is discriminatory, India also has caste based and in certain
cases religion based quotas.

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bsder
It's a rocket to Mars. That's always cool.

However, there is a big difference in sending a rocket to Mars with 2015
technology vs. 1960's technology in terms of cost, reliability, materials,
etc.

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cortesoft
I am confused as to why you are bringing up 1960's technology? I don't see any
comparisons anywhere to the original NASA programs of the sixties.

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bsder
By implication. Quoting:

"Only 40 percent of missions sent to Mars by major space organizations — NASA,
Russia’s, Japan’s, or China’s — had ever been a success. No space organization
had entered Mars’s orbit on its first attempt."

Those first attempts were all on quite a bit older technology.

Don't get me wrong, the engineering is still really hard. And the sensor
technology is cutting edge. But the breathless marketing prose could use some
toning down.

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jordache
What a horrible title.

Into the Wild was a movie about a homeless traveler. It cost $15million to
make.

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nyrulez
No offense to the Martian mission but I probably got better enjoyment and
insight out of the movie so far than the actual mission. Not that it is or
should be the only metric, but is the metric that matters to me today.

~~~
masthead
Exactly.

NY"rulez" -_-

