

India successfully launches first mission to the Moon - henning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7679818.stm

======
bradgessler
Kudos to India... I said this before when China shot a man around the Earth,
and I'm going to say it again; I hope they spur another healthy space race.

~~~
Prrometheus
The next space race will be spurred on by applications that are not purely
symbolic or scientific in nature. We are seeing this today with the rise of
the private commercial space industry, and I fear that the military will be
close behind.

~~~
tom_rath
Close behind?!?!

Read a bit more space program history and you'll find the military is actually
far ahead as far as applications (and budget!) are concerned.

------
sanj
"The mission is expected to cost 3.8bn rupees (£45m; $78m)."

Wow. That's amazingly cheap!

~~~
helveticaman
That's within the budget of many Silicon Valley duders. I would suspect that
figure belies some costs they aren't taking into account.

~~~
stcredzero
Space launch is just not as hard as we've been led to believe by those sucking
at the government teat.

In 1980, a 2nd world country was getting ready to assemble a launch system
that would've attained launch costs as low as $600 per kg. (This would've been
limited to hardened or bulk cargoes due to high G forces, but that's still
awesome and damn useful!) The price of this system was only $25 million
(1980.) That's a _game changing_ technology and it's still within the reach of
a group of "Silicon Valley duders."

<http://www.astronautix.com/country/iraq.htm>

~~~
dmix
Your missing one variable: profit.

No rich silicon valley _duder_ is going to spend $25 million unless hes gets a
return.

~~~
helveticaman
Would status count as a kind of profit?

------
aagnihot
I have read Dr. Vikram Sarabhai's
biography(<http://www.geocities.com/hari_ghk/vikram.htm>) and in my opinion,
his hard work has paid off. Also, most of top 20-30 Indian companies might be
paying taxes more than $78 million each year, so we can easily say that the
program is not a burden for most of us... As a geek, as an Indian, as an
techno-historian, I am aware of how much of sacrifice people made to make this
happen(eg:
[http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/11/18/stories/200...](http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/11/18/stories/2002111801050200.htm)).
Great work!!

------
Mayank_kp
India is actually 6th to launch mission to the moon. And ISRO/DRDO are not
thought to be good career choices by young Indians by far!!! Also, I think
that we will see this turn into a prestige issue with competing neighbours
like Pakistan and China taking note and perhaps speeding up their mission
too!!!

~~~
mamama
Yeah, but we really ought to stop using extraneous punctuation.

------
morbidkk
still almost 100% techies in India never prefer or think about joining
ISRO/DRDO which are world-class research organizations.

~~~
jyothi
I wonder the same. I myself would so much love to be at ISRO/DRDO. They have
tons of other facilities to match the high pay at software companies.

I wish they had better ways of recruiting people with merit and passion. They
are full of either Brahmins or SC/ST and people who are recruited through
references.

~~~
sundeep
> full of either Brahmins or SC/ST

thank you for bringing your prejudices here. do you have any numbers to back
that up?

> people who are recruited through references

this need not be a bad thing ,which is why most companies have a internal
referral program.

~~~
jyothi
I thought I shall mail you instead but couldn't find a contact or any useful
information on your profile page.

Please walk into IISc and you shall know. It is not merely about the number it
is about the people who would control the system. I agree the divide based on
caste is gradually lowering however we are still not there yet.

It is a fact that all of these research institutes are concentrated in the
south - IISc, ISRO, DRDO (and the rest in CV RamanNagar, Bangalore) and
casteism has always been the problem here.

NASA has a large number of Indians. I am sure Indian Research would be in a
lot better state if they evangelize and hire more youngsters.

We definitely have a smart bunch of people in pure sciences than in business.
Why do you think we cannot retain them here in India ?

~~~
sundeep
you are bringing up two very different things here.

1) you said IISC was " full of either Brahmins or SC/ST" , and when asked to
back it up , you're saying "Please walk into IISc and you shall know".

That means nothing. You can either prove it or you cant. It seems like you
cant,so lets drop it.

2) "We definitely have a smart bunch of people in pure sciences than in
business. Why do you think we cannot retain them here in India ?"

This is a very interesting question to me. And it seems like you are playing a
very important part in retaining "smart" people by organizing/being involved
in things like Barcamp.in etc.

------
profgubler
I think this is a great step for India. It is great to watch India develop.
Maybe this will create greater competition, and enhance every nations space
efforts.

------
jyothi
India becomes the 4th country after USSR, USA and Japan. It is a great moment
for the developing nation.

~~~
gaius
India has nuclear power (and weapons) and aircraft carriers. To all intents
and purposes, it's a developed nation. Underestimating India on the assumption
that it is "developing" or "poor" is a mistake that will bite competitor
nations on the arse if they're not careful.

~~~
g__g
While India is booming in many ways, it still cannot be called developed.
There is still a huge divide between the rich and poor and poverty is still a
major roadblock.

~~~
jbert
But doesn't every developed country depend on a large pool of cheap labour
(i.e. poor people, working for low wages)?

You could look at is as Europe and the US just outsourcing their cheap labour,
whereas India keeps it in-house?

~~~
g__g
What you are not getting is that while outsourcing does mean cheap labour for
Europe and US, it is not necessarily cheap for India(you mentioned keeping in-
house). What you think is cheap are standard wages in India. It is cost
cutting for US companies but not for Indian companies.

~~~
jbert
No, I do get that. Perhaps I wasn't clear.

I was trying to point out that these same pool of people (low-paid workers in
India and/or China) are necessary to the economies of all developed economies.
And so it's not really fair to say India isn't a developed economy simply
because it contains this pool of people.

------
xiaoma
Its first LUNAR PROBE would be a clearer headline. India is far from a manned
mission.

