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Comment by aq3cn | Hacker News Reader

As much I know ISRO has less failure rate and they get the job with little budget in comparison to NASA or any other space agencies. This alone is the reason, one might be tempted to use Indian technology.

> India's Mars mission, with a budget of $73 million, is far cheaper than comparable missions including NASA's $671 million Maven satellite that is expected to set off for Mars later in November. Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/11/04/243082266/...

For failure rate comparison: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/24/6838079/india-mars-mangalyaan

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MOM and MAVEN were just about simultaneous (arriving at Mars two days apart), but they weren't comparable. MOM's primary mission objectives were things like "navigation." MAVEN would be NASA's 3rd orbiter at the time, to say nothing of the 4 or so previous orbiters, and so they weren't trying to just repeat earlier things.

Now, if you compare launch costs, you get a better feel for the differences. Those were about $43 million (MOM) to $187 million (MAVEN). But MAVEN was almost twice the mass.

SpaceX will give you a Falcon 9 Full Thrust launch, fixed price, for $62 million, which can launch something twice as big as MAVEN to Mars.

So SpaceX and India are price competitive on a kilogram-to-GTO basis.

The difference being, of course, that the Falcon 9 Full Thrust hasn't actually left Earth orbit yet.

Mark to market applies as much to space technology as it does to credit default swaps.

Falcon already delivered DSCOVR to Sun-Earth L1, while PSLV only flew MOM to a highly elliptical Earth orbit and MOM had to use its own propulsion for TMI.

Sun-Earth L1, while not in Earth's orbit, is still within the Earth's Sphere Of Influence as it has a negative Characteristic Energy value.

Cite?

I don't object to the respondent: it's true, SpaceX has broken out of earth orbit -- but that's still a far cry from deploying to Mars.

My point stands: SpaceX needs to get to Mars once before we can start calling them serious interplanetary contenders.

I'm not sure why it's important to debate whether or not a company is a "serious interplanetary contender", but I do think it's important to get the facts correct.

>> Falcon already delivered DSCOVR to Sun-Earth L1, while PSLV only flew MOM to a highly elliptical Earth orbit and MOM had to use its own propulsion for TMI.

Wait till PSLV delivers Aditya-1[1][2] to L1.

[1] http://www.isro.gov.in/aditya-l1-first-indian-mission-to-stu...

[2] http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/aditya-1.htm

The price you quote for a SpaceX launch covers the reusable portion of the payload only, not the full unlocked capability of the launch vehicle. That's an Apple's to Oranges comparison.

You also have to consider that Indian salaries aren't remotely close to US salaries and other local factors. Software engineers make 12x what they make in India. The US can't just have a $73m mission considering the standard of living for engineers and managers here. ISRO is notoriously cheap even by Indian standards. Its probably not realistic to expect this type of pricing the same way the US can't mass produce things as cheaply as China can.

That's a long time ago. Now there are many companies and many jobs that pay a 100K USD in India. Also Indian software engineers get promoted really fast into management with vastly higher salaries.

ISRO salaries straight from glassdoor:

Scientist/Engineer ₹802,100 Scientist/Engineer ₹798,473

So, 800k rupee is about $12,000 USD. NASA's avg engineer salary is 10x that.

edit: NASA employees also get generous government benefits like pensions and such. Federal employee benefits are the envy of the nation. Not sure why you people are arguing against basic facts here. Salaries, cost of living, etc are a fraction in India compared to the states. Thus you can't compare project costs.

ISRO salaries are extremely low compared to NASA's (or any engineer in the US). Indian government positions do offer more "benefits" but it still does not add up to nearly half of what an average NASA engineer's salary. You also have to take into account that what ISRO puts into space versus NASA is very different (due to budgeting and that the ISRO has become more active recently).

Don't go on these numbers alone. There are a lot of other perks that you get when you work for a government organization or PSU in India. For example housing, transport, pension etc is all taken care by the organization.

Housing yes. Transport is taken care of only for official purposes. Only once in 2 years is a family travel paid for by LTC (IIRC). Pension is now more like the 401(k) in the US.

the cost of living is much lower in India. $12,000 is a good chunk of money if you live in India.

Actually, $12k (INR 800k) is a good salary in Bangalore (ISRO's main office), but only for an entry level position. If you are in your 30s, you would need at least double this to live nicely. This is quite less compared to the salaries of people working in multinationals in Bangalore.

Just so you know, people who look for competitive salaries, don't really dream of working in ISRO. It's not nearly as attractive to decent Indian Engineers as NASA is in America.

> China

I don't how does China come into picture. I don't expect China to help India in space programs.

Second, technological investment in space program is not mass production.

This is a very important factor, for sure. Its very fortunate that the Indian education system does produce a lot of engineers. Quality is a problem, for sure, but I would argue it is much easier to train someone who has had some exposure to Math/Science than to start from scratch. This is one of the areas where India's large population and emphasis on education (specifically engineering) seems to be paying off very well.

Unfortunately the majority of grads are unemployable. India definitely produces high quality engineers but they are limited to a few good schools and occasionally an exceptional student from somewhere else. You only need walk down the street in India to see ads for private engineering colleges run in shacks.

> You only need walk down the street in India to see ads for private engineering colleges run in shacks.

What are Indians going to do when there few good colleges.

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