

How India flew to the moon economy class - luckystrike
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/How_India_flew_to_the_moon_economy_class/articleshow/msid-3641756,curpg-1.cms

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ckinnan
As a proponent of increased space exploration, it's awesome to see the
emerging space race between China and India. NASA (a creature of Congress) has
stagnated US efforts by hanging on far too long to the failed and obsolete
Shuttle platform as the centerpiece of our activities. A diversity of
inexpensive US robotic programs are the way forward-- that plus lowering the
regulatory and litigation barriers to increased private space launches in the
US. It's tragic that we will waste $700 billion on a Wall Street bailout when
that amount could send a man to Mars and create a permanent lunar base.

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kirse
Let me get this straight... You want to spend $700bn exploring and trying to
settle on some rocks in space when our own economy is bleeding itself to
death?

I'm not sure how you manage your priorities, but flushing $700bn down the
space toilet when your country has a major economic crisis on its hands isn't
quite the best use of $700bn either.

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noonespecial
One could argue that our economy is in the state its in because we lost sight
of _real_ innovation like space exploration and focused instead on trading
little pieces of paper with each other that had imaginary money scribbled on
them.

Dollar for dollar, space exploration is some of the best money humanity has
ever spent. I won't bore you guys again with teflon and velcro and rivet-less
fuselages and all of the other wonders that manned space flight has brought to
us. Google does that just fine, but have a think about it every once in a
while.

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kirse
My post, and the one I responded to, have absolutely NOTHING to do with the
past and all the innovation space exploration brought us. You completely
missed my point.

Right now, given our current credit and debt crisis, space exploration (aka
extraneous spending) should NOT be at the top of the list. Paying the bills
needs to be the focus here, and while space exploration might be the "best
money ever spent" as you claim, you might have forgotten that we don't have
any money to spend right now.

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noonespecial
That there is exactly the point. Its the _"we don't have time to build a mill,
we've got grain to grind"_ argument.

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herdrick
For less than half the price of a new Boeing 787. I'm boggled.

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Herring
Do 787s pay for themselves over their lifetimes?

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baddox
I don't think they've reached the end of their lifetimes yet (not even close),
and I'm sure they will pay for themselves.

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jwilliams
Then again, if you look at the Mars rover missions, they have vastly exceeded
expections - so over-engineering can be a two-way street.

(Beagle2 might be a counterpoint to that).

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subbu
>> More than 30% of the sub-systems that went into Chandrayaan-1 were used by
us in other operations.

A strategy followed by Indian IT services companies :) See what resources they
have got in other projects, pull them over quickly, finish their part and let
them go. This way the project's cost won't sky rocket because they are re-
using a lot of stuff which on their own would've cost a lot more to build.

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yters
I was way impressed with Indians' inventiveness with common material when I
was there last.

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vrs
Could you elaborate?

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yters
The scarcity of their everyday lives means they have to hack together
innovative uses of what we would consider junk, or do without many of our
strictures.

For instance, I bet you've probably seen the youtube video of rush hour
traffic merging and crossing on an Indian street without stoplights, signs, or
road markings. Maybe even witnessed it first hand if you happen to be Indian.
I saw a lot of this kind of driving.

You'll also see interesting combinations of car, bicycle, and motorcycle
parts. Someone created a bicycle version of the ubiquitous rickshaw, v. useful
for the crowded inner city such as around mosques and temples.

The street food vendors often have constructed their stoves out of random
assemblages of metal.

That's about what I can remember right now. Sorry I don't have more instances.
I mainly took away the overall impression that the Indian populace, at least
in New Delhi, are pretty innovative. This impression of the general Indian
psyche is reinforced by people like Ramanujan.

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vrs
Thanks for elaborating. Yes, I'm Indian. I was just wondering b'cos what you
said is different from what I've heard more often (which is some variation of
"can't think for themselves/need lots of guidance/need to be told what to do"
which I don't buy. But then, I'm biased :) )

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yters
I think that's more a function of their academic training than their natural
aptitude.

I had a year of similar schooling when I was growing up, and it was pretty
stifling.

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aagnihot
I will like to say that this is because of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai's Vision!

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kashif
And APJ Abdul Kalam...

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SingAlong
Ofcourse nobody forgets Mr.Missile Man :)

And Mr.Madhavan Nair as well.

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seshagiric
And here in India people are impressed when Obama expresses concern US is
losing its dominance in space tech. Wish we had a politician like that.

