ISRO successfully conducts landing experiment of the Reusable Launch Vehicle
thehindu.com
thehindu.com
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
I am not very familiar with rockets, so this might be out of ignorance but wouldn't the plane like characteristics of this TD make it hard to use for actual launch rockets as they travel quite a bit up and having the winged body might add extra overhead compared to a cylindrical stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Flight_Experiment#/...
This winged RLV, vertical landing launchers etc. are research programs that are generally under funded low priority programs. With the launch of India's human spaceflight program, RLV went even further down or priority list. I don't expect anything to come out of this in this decade, until after HSP program launches.
> I don't expect anything to come out of this in this decade, until after HSP program launches.
From a commercial perspective, wouldn't putting more money into heavy launch vehicles and reusability make more sense? Russia's space business will take a hit with the sanctions and that leaves the market open for a price competitive provider other than SpaceX?
Surely, that also leaves the market open for an alternative to SpaceX for putting people into space? But yes, reusable launch vehicles should be a high priority.
As an Indian taxpayer I'm frustrated that I effectively cannot control how my money is used.
The central government spent $2 B on the Central Vista project, which is a wholly unnecessary construction project for our 550 MPs to feel better about themselves. Incidentally, this is the same as the entire annual budget allocated to ISRO, which benefits hundreds of millions of Indians and no doubt has an effect of all of us.
I would much rather they double ISROs budget and let MPs work in the perfectly adequate building they already had.
Odisha cyclone in 1999: 10,000 dead. Odisha cyclone of similar intensity in 2019: < 50 dead because ISRO was better equipped to track the cyclone path giving enough time for Govt to evacuate people to safety.
Ignore the ignorant including "liberal", "progressive" publications like NYT which publish racist cartoons on Indian space program.
edit: here's a link https://archive.is/g0msl Shocking that the NYT published something like this
I think one way to look at it is... The underdog Indians managing to rub shoulders with the likes of NASA and ESA at a fraction of the latter's budget, which isn't wrong. ISRO's missions are typically about two orders of magnitude cheaper than NASA's, while still being very productive.
Somehow threads about India just devolve into ridiculous mudslinging like no other. White people clinging to tired old stereotypes. Indians are half to blame too, being over-sensitive and oddly conservative.
There is an additional factor. Anglophone internet tends to be dominated by Americans. So, discussions about say Denmark don't get too heated because there aren't too many Danes participating.
How are you getting this through the cartoon? All the cartoon shows is a poor asking for permission to get into an elite club
When Pakistan successfully became a nuclear capable nation in 2000s, Indians had the same reactions - to laugh at their stupidity of misplaced priorities.
The cartoon is trying to make an invalid point and insult India with their joke, that is how it became racist. It did not become racist by the idea of painting a set of people with broad brush.
The cartoon shows an unwelcome 'Indian' is knocking the door of super powers to be let in the elite club room amusing those inside it. If this is the case it is a huge discouragement for India because no matter what we do, even without any cheap superficial attempt to impress other countries, we will be mocked at with backdrop of embarrassing history that is no longer true and widespread as they make it seem to drive home the point with. This callousness is what makes NYT racist.
Is it not racist to think India is hungry and desperate for power recognition, show off and then being complacent after like the people inside the room?
The subsequent money we get from West to deploy their payloads through the same advanced missions was also improving our poverty and cheaper for them .
Apart from mere recognition of a fact of our achievement, we know we have other problems we are famous for and funded by International bodies, including West themselves. So what makes NYT want to rub the salt into the wound in as if we forgot, at a time of celebration? Where else is it coming from, if not from the place of disdain onto this other nation?
You have to have some special kind of psychopathy to make fun of other country's poverty when they do know that the space missions are conducted after calculating all the costs and SWOT analysis taking into account of such poverty. Or do you think we are not intelligent enough for that?
It is this contemptuousness that I call NYT racist, not the one you elaborated upon.
Maybe instead of accusing someone of racism, try to appreciate the history behind the joke.
Cows were used for initial testing of satellite, so the NYT guys have done their homework.
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/the-rocket-science-behin...
Please stop this spreading this non-sensical misinformation.
The cartoon shows two formal dressed westerners in elite space club room startled by one uneducated man knocking with a dhoti and starving sleepy cow he catches by a rope just like village people used to do strolling on the streets of the past.
Is this the research you do to depict our Indian scientists and leaders or is it the idea that elitist differentiation of class, wealth and societal backwardness was to be shown here?
Besides, nowhere on the article it mentions that they have done their homework based on this story. Cows were not used. Open Bullock carts were used. Do you think putting a bullock cart in a cartoon would have been more difficult task to achieve than putting a Chandrayan on Moon? But no, you just have to stick to stereotype and squeeze out a rational meaning from it.
Give me a good citation and accuse me of throwing the racism card around.
@philonoist did that right out the gate in this article with no evidence or support. It's their goto thing.
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/the-rocket-science-behin...
It’s not racist or any of the rest of the stuff.
Not all cartoons will be good.
I guess I just ignore the ignorant, including "deeply insecure" and raging about minor criticism.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/current-satellite-missions/curre...
The US, in particular is notorious about weaponizing sanctions.
Its not about just using the data.
Excerpt: Touching Lives is not merely a chronicle of the community outreach of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It is the story of journeys to far corners of India meeting people whose lives have been transformed by technology.
More books about ISRO: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33814.0
I'm Desi American and honestly, HN commentators from both India and the US need to stop being little bitches. It's made HN go to shit.
Boomer American HN commentators - stop being so god damn racist about South Asians. Caste and poverty doesn't define us.
Millennial+Uncle Indian HN commentators - stop using the "school shooting" trope and ultranationalism. Y'all are basically acting like Wumao.
Bring on the downvotes. I'm so sick of all the bullshit on this site
"It's baffling to me that India is putting so much money into being part of the next space race, when they still have such vast and prominent problems on the ground.
You could say that for many countries, but there is a difference in degree IMO."
Said every racist and ignorant ever. You think we don't have people who make cost benefit analysis before investing in such projects? We don't have parliament and budget sessions?
The payloads we deploy immensely help us socially and technologically advance. Do you know that?
Ed tech itself got eGyanKosh, Swayam, NPTEL, private teachings on govt. platforms so cheap that by next year about a quarter million adults will be uplifted out of poverty. That funding is given to satellites launched by ISRO. Did you know that?
Had it not been for ISRO, we wouldn't have had larger outreach of instant cash transfers and payments. Did you know that?
Had it not been for ISRO we wouldn't be able to fight societal superstitions or bring in public health education drives let alone dumb down power play of society by caste and gender. Do you know that?
That also includes targeted courses for farmers about endemic genetic problems, weather, pests to Artists about film-making. Did you know that?
Even the money we get to deploy other western country's payloads makes people lift out of poverties in a single digit of percentage of populations in a city for every year! Do you know that?
But no. A random pompous clueless stranger on the internet comes to an sweet intelligent discussion site and declares he is baffled and India should now hold a inter-ministerial meeting to stop space projects.
These people have been everywhere from NYTIMES cartoonists to HN unfortunately. I don't understand how should one ban from this site either.
You are not contributing to the intended discussion of this site relating to the link posted, but yourself. You just want to throw around how baffled you are and sleep back in your mother's basement.
Somehow when Murica does it we should all cheer for it as a great ray of hope for all humanity. Anyone else, there's a long line of "umm, actually..." guys. They just can't accept that a non communist, democratic country can compete with them
... meanwhile there are people shitting on the streets of San Francisco (seen with my own eyes), and people OD-ing (as in dying from drugs) on the streets of San Francisco, and homeless people camped on the sidewalks by the 1000s in cities like San Francisco and LA.
And yet nobody bats an eye when America "wastes" money on going back to the moon.
The international poverty line is $2.15 per day. The GDP per capita in India is $2.2k which means the program costs the average Indian 0.06% of their wages or less than a day at the poverty line and this doesn't even account for progressive taxation where mostly middle class and above Indians pay the taxes that fund the space program.
No world leader is going to read any racist rant on internet and make decision out of it, so chill.
The US space programme has been questioned in almost exactly the same terms since its inception, without any hint of a racist motive. If it’s reasonable to expect NASA to justify its existence on a cost benefit basis, I think it’s reasonable to question any space programme on that basis. I don't think it’s reasonable to infer racism in this case when there was no specifically racist content in the comment.
If we’re going to convert skeptics into supporters, the way to do that is respectful reasoned argument, not impugning their motives for even asking the question.
That is what is happening with @Zurrrrr guy. In fact, he is not questioning. He is just implying inefficiency and opinionating on inferior problem solving skills of India on things he won't cite his research on. That is what makes it racist.
When US was cross questioned about cost benefit analysis and comparative budge analysis, it was promptly done so by NGOs and UN backing up with how that strategy is flawed. But US was hell bent on prestige of being first in space and that reply was apparent and open to criticism.
There was no deeper prodding/questioning into the specifics or support of arguments by @Zurrrrr here. There was just a quick judgmental attitude which made me claim prejudice in him. I urge you read his comment again.
Making someone specifically racist comment is not the bar to judge. Why would someone educated make it so blatant in 2023? Racists will always incorporate euphemisms and innuendos among many other tools to crystallize their thought of racism.
Why Explore Space? - https://lettersofnote.com/2012/08/06/why-explore-space/
Here is an interesting letter by Ernst Stuhlinger, then an associate director of science at NASA's MSFC, written to a nun in the 1970s. He explains the crucial role of space exploration in a country's growth. This topic sparked some engaging conversations on HN in 2012 and 2015:
Otherwise, you're really stooping down to the same level.
> random pompous clueless stranger
> sleep back in your mother's basement
> sweet intelligent discussion site
You're certainly not acting like you're interested in keeping this space "sweet and intelligent"
I can't be fighting a fellow bully and simultaneously be a student participating in group discussions in classroom when it comes to arseholes like the above.
This one was the first or maybe second from my side since 2014. You see, I couldn't have imagined this rude surprise of racism at HN. It felt so personal, even though there is no abnormal attachment to my country, I felt I had to give him a good earfull.
I have nothing against comments of criticism like these, even though coming from a fellow Indian, you see - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35407658
It doesn't feel like I got blew by my own people reading that comment. It didn't knock the wind out of me. It didn't make me insecure.
That said, the sentiment isn't unique to India, and NASA is questioned the same since forever. "Will not tolerate" isn't something that one should feel or write against an opinion, even when presented in a sarcastic way. Make fun of it, argue against it, or ignore it, after all India isn't going to stop its space program because someone in NYT published a cartoon.
Make fun of it. Argue against it. Ignore it.
I understand how provocative nationalistic flamebait can be, but that's a reason to take a step back and consciously not take the bait. Otherwise we end up in a downward spiral, as happened here.