
Chandrayaan 1 captured by Moon - bootload
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7718015.stm
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electromagnetic
Well congratulations to India. It's about time the Space Industry got more
diversified. NASA is a constant source of disappointment, it's current
devotion to human space exploration is something I see as highly important as
it is actually advancing useful technologies. However, due to lack of funding
all its other projects are at risk of getting axed more now than ever.

The last mission to the moon was in 1972, since then the technology for
interplanetary travel hadn't advanced. There's so many complaints that there's
no reason for landing humans on the Moon or Mars, and generally yes there's
nothing there that a robot can't do. Except all the people stating this
neglect the fact that there's billions of dollars worth of potential income
tied up in what's necessary to get to Mars.

If humans can safely travel to Mars, then the whole prospect of space stations
becomes easily accessible. Not to mention that finding a light weight
radiation shield has applications all the way from portable x-ray machines for
the third world to being able to efficiently build nuclear powered aircraft.
Hell, nuclear ramjets have already been tested and low-weight radiation
shielding could help push to a completely reusable launch vessel.

~~~
yters
What drives our interest in space exploration? I haven't seen a convincing
case that it gives us a lot of something, besides the excitement of having a
new frontier to explore.

If we're looking for new places to live, I think on or under the sea is a more
practical initial direction.

~~~
electromagnetic
433 Eros, the asteroid NASA investigated contains more gold than ever
extracted on Earth. The total amount of gold on Earth is calculated at
$3,000,000,000,000 and this is excluding all the stuff held in private
collections and any fabled Aztec lost city of gold. However, I think there's
enough economic incentive in space if we actually put a little money in to
begin with.

If you're wondering just how much 3 trillion dollars is, well that's like the
entire cost of the Iraq War there in one rock. Hell, you could buy Alaska and
still have like 2.5 trillion to spare.

This is the ridiculousness of the arguments against advancing space
exploration and technology, because there's more gold in one rock than in the
entire world. That's not to mention, there's predicted to be asteroids
containing mostly platinum and even more precious metals. For an asteroid of
similar size to 433 Eros containing only 10% of its mass as a rare-precious
metal like platinum, well that's when you get the capability to buy out the
entire planet.

So I call 100% bullshit on people claiming there's no economic incentive in
space exploration. There's more precious metals than anyone has ever dreamed
of, there just needs to be a little spending to get it. Once companies like
Virgin and all the other ones trying for space flight and then lunar orbits,
it isn't going to be long before one of them figures out they can get to a
rock like Eros and mine the hell out of it.

~~~
alextp
Actually, injecting 3 trillion dollars of gold in the market is just going to
drive the price of gold way down. It's almost the same thing as printing cash,
really, since the value of gold is mostly figurative.

~~~
noonespecial
Its not finding gold and bringing it back here that's necessarily the draw.
Its finding enough titanium outside of the gravity well to build a space
station the size of Texas...

Hell, if we're outside the well anyway, we could build the flippin thing from
concrete.

In short, mining space solves just about all of our resource problems, up
there and down here, forever.

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paraschopra
I guess there are a lot of Indians on HN. Or, is everyone proud of this
accomplishment.

BTW, I am an Indian and extremely proud of the steps my country is taking
towards the big league.

~~~
jgrahamc
I think people here appreciate the Indian achievement because it reflects on a
number of Hacker News axioms:

1\. It's better to hack something than design for perfection. India had a
number of launch failures prior to this success, but kept at it at low cost.
They literally launched early and got feedback :-)

2\. The cost of creating technology start-ups is getting lower all the time.
India did this on the cheap and was able to piggy back on years of prior work.
It would be interested to see a comparison of the cost of getting into lunar
orbit between 1945 and today.

3\. It doesn't matter who you are, it's what you do that counts.

4\. There are some places in the world that are best suited for particular
technology start-ups: Boston and SV for software, anywhere along the Equator
for a minimal delta-v.

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nebula
<i> India had a number of launch failures prior to this success, </i> If you
are referring to a lunar satellite kind of mission, this is not true.
"Chandrayan- I" is their very first shot at it. Even the launch vehicle (PSLV)
has a very good track record.
[<http://www.isro.org/pslv-c11/brochure/Page10.htm>] "During 1993-2008 period,
PSLV had twelve consecutively successful launches carrying satellites to Sun
Synchronous, Low Earth and Geosynchronous Transfer Orbits."

When it comes to hacking spirit, they are pretty good though:
[http://www.isro.org/newsletters/spaceindia/octdec2003/webpgs...](http://www.isro.org/newsletters/spaceindia/octdec2003/webpgs/pg19.htm)
[Transporting a Sounding Rocket nose cone on bicycle during the early days of
ISRO]

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orbit
I've always been fascinated by different types of orbits, and the math that
goes into calculating them. Does anyone know what a good resource might be for
learning about them? Are there any college classes that deal with them
specifically, or is that just wishful thinking? Thanks!

~~~
olefoo
[http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/catalog/urbana/2009/Spring/AE/50...](http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/catalog/urbana/2009/Spring/AE/502.html)

The google bait you want is "Orbital Mechanics"

~~~
jrp
& 'celestial'

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zeynel
There's more info about Chandrayaan on this blog with a nice picture of earth

[http://onionesquereality.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/chandrayaa...](http://onionesquereality.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/chandrayaan-1s-first-
pictures/)

