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Comment by thyrox | Hacker News Reader

Not asking rhetorically but why is this a big deal? Is it because it's going to the south pole? What are some other benefits to be gained from this?

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A look at the previous lunar missions [1] should give an idea. There have been 7 lander missions since 1976 (not including impactors):

- 3 by China: All success

- 1 by Japan (along with a rover from UAE): Failed

- 1 by Israel: Failed

- 1 by Russia: Failed

- 2 by India: Previous one failed. This one succeeded

I can see why the entire world would be excited by something like this. I hope that there will be routine landings by different players and that the landing guidance would be perfected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M...

why 1976 is a starting point? Why not counting successful Lunokhod rover missions? Looks like you're trying to to fit facts to narrative.

There was a fervent space race before that. Do you believe that anybody forgot about the countless interplanetary missions before that? Every time someone tries to collect data points, someone like you will start accusing vested interests rather than argue the reasons behind the data.

Edit: Added later:

Consider these questions:

1. Russia's lunar missions were all done in 18 years until Luna 24. Why did they then wait 47 years for Luna 25?

2. The US's last lander mission and manned mission was in 1972 (Apollo 17). Why do they want to restart it again after waiting more than half a century?

Or am I making this up too? The simple fact is that the current lunar missions are undertaken by an entirely new generation. Those from 1976 has long retired. That's good enough to consider them as two separate timelines.

Actually 3 by India.

1- was an orbiter: Success

2- Orbiter+ lander&rover: Partial success, orbiter succeed but lander crashed.

3- Lander&rover: Succesful.

Two points I'm aware of:

1. No one has managed to make a landing on the moon's South Pole yet.

2. Since the South Pole doesn't get any sunlight at all, it's believed that there's a possibility of discovering ice/water there.

* bottoms of craters on the South Pole.

Some places there get eternal sunlight instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light

Assuming that CY3 landed somewhere it gets eternal sunlight, I can see how this can be an issue. Many landers and rovers have horizontal solar panels - they would work as long as the sun is reasonably above the horizon. However, the sun is always going to be near the horizon at the poles. That would not only require the solar panel to be mounted vertically, but also be oriented towards the sun somehow.

It's a big deal because India has never landed on the moon before; only three nations have.

This is the first time India soft-landed anything outside of Earth. That by itself is a big deal. Soft-landing guidance on a body without atmosphere is much more complex than launch guidance.

> With this mission, India became the first to impact the Lunar south pole and the 7th nation to reach the lunar surface.

Wiki article for Chandrayaan-1 from 2008.

India became the 4th to land successfully with Chandrayaan-3 just now. Others have crashed or deliberately impacted.

Impactors and landers are classified differently. So both your comment and the one you were replying to are correct.

Besides what others said, it gets extra spice from the fact Russia failed to do the same just days ago.

And the BRICS summit is going on right now... What a powerful display of softpower.

Modi will be soft landing in his chair with a smile at the BRICS summit.

Agree.

The quicker russians will get rid of putin infestation the sooner this disgrace will end.

Lots of people could say the same about Biden or _____ leader.

Russian space program is a shadow of what it once was. Their history is full of daring missions and extraordinary achievements. I wish they would engage in a space race than in a war.

Might be time for China to reconsider its role with Russia in future manned moon missions. Any prestige the Russian program once had has long since faded, even ground operations at Baikonur are now at risk with equipment being impounded by bailiffs from Kazakhstan to service billions in debt.

Coincidentally, China's first Mars (orbiter) mission Yinghuo-1 failed because it was hitchhiking on the Russian orbiter Fobos-Grunt that failed in an Earth orbit. India launched an orbiter soon afterwards and became the first country to get it right in the first attempt.

Russia retains an (rapidly diminishing) edge in certain areas of space. One of them is engine design. China is still keen on buying the best Soviet engines, namely Energia's RD-170 and its variants but of course Russia is less than keen on parting ways with them.

Even CALT, the major launch vehicle provider in China, admits it will be well into the late 2020s/early 2030s before they can get an engine as good as the RD-170. Their YF-130, while technically very good according to recent tests, is still a bit less efficient. Think about that, a 40 year gap. Aerospace is hard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-170

I'm surprised that the Atlas V's first stage has these Russian engines.

Using Russian engines, like the ISS collaboration was an attempt by the US to keep soviet rocket scientists in business in civilian roles so they wouldn't be incentivized to spread around the world proliferating ICBM tech.

In the process the US paid a huge price (decay of domestic design capability) and it's debatable if the goal was achieved.

Edit: Thankfully the decay has been made up for over recent years with the boom in private launch companies and of course, SpaceX's work.

Very interesting, do you know where I can read more about that?

This feels like a good writeup untainted by more recent events on the US-Russian cooperation https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/partner...

Not as "cool" as the SpaceX stuff, but Angara, Amur, Soyuz-5, Soyuz-7 are all in the works.

American space program is a shadow of what it once was. Their history is full of daring missions and extraordinary achievements. I wish they would engage in a space race rather than constant illegal, brutal, destructive and absolutely unnecessary war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

It isn't really the gotcha you think it is when you see Falcon 9s flying and landing multiple times a week, the most advanced conventional rocket engines ever being mass produced, two scifi-esque lunar landers under serious development and all the other things.

The American space program is far and away the world leader by a huge margin, while almost 2 decades ago things were dicey, the current Ameircan space program is definitely befitting of its glory during the mid/late 19th century.

I agree with everything you wrote. But you missed my point - America has an incredible space program despite their wars. If wars were the cause of space program degradation, Russia would actually be ahead.

Ah, yeah not much arguing with that.

I'm not a supporter of war mongering by any country. And what I hoped for Russia is what I hope of the entire world. But the assumption that the impact of their war efforts on their economy are similar is completely wrong. Russian economy is in shambles due to it while America goes on as usual.

This is objectively false, their economy is actually experiencing growth which has been widely reported:

- https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2023/04/11/wo...

- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locat...

- https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/double-digit-growth-r...

Russian space program started with killing a bunch of cosmonauts they pretended never existed…

They also created a bunch of tech that Americans thought impossible at the time - especially the staged combustion cycle with oxygen-rich preburner. And the American space programme too had its share of human losses due to sheer hubris - the 2 shuttle disasters included and possibly Apollo 1 as well. Let's not understate the achievements of the Russian space engineers and the bravery of their astronauts just because of the current political situation.

Speaking of that, was that another failure of a modified Fregat or am I just too dumb to speak on this topic?

- Only 3 other countries have landed on the moon

- Its landing on the south pole where nobody's ever landed before

- Russia failed to land on the moon a week or two back

This is a big deal because since 1976, only China has (edit: had!) managed to land something successfully on the Moon. And also space exploration is cool in general.

Mission to unexplored south pole of the moon and investigating the presence of surface water at the bottom of craters that don't receive sunlight.

Simultaneously capability development and demonstration for ISRO

They've made a controlled landing on the moon. Just because it's been done a few times before, ever, doesn't make this a small accomplishment.

We get to see more images of the Moon's surface. In a previously unexplored region.

How is that not a big deal?

Aliens. They are out there somewhere.

Nah. Escaped nazis.

This was a fun movie (which I assume you're referencing): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/

I'd be curious if it's at all interesting from a technical perspective. It was impressive in the 60s and 70s because a lot of new things needed to be discovered and understood to make it happen. But now a days.. are there really technical aspects that would not be covered in a typical engineering course?

I get it's very expensive and hence difficult to pull off - but this makes it comes off as mostly nationalism and a big display of disposable income (which for a country with so much poverty is .. something)

Technically no one has landed in the crater ridden South pole on the dark side of the moon. Scientifically it's useful to course these uncharted parts of the moon both for water/ice and mineral composition.

I don't see how poverty comes into play here: every nation had similar issues when they were doing space exploration. They are two unrelated spheres. Solving one doesn't mean the other won't be

The budget with which this mission was accomplished is something.

Less than a typical hollywood movie budget.

Less even than some Bollywood movie budgets.

The money used on these programmes doesn't burn up, it gets recirculated. As an Indian I consider this a pretty good use of tax payer money.

It's a common perspective. My personal experience (working in the defense sector) is that these kinds of endeavors end up tieing up a lot of very smart doing vanity projects that in effect don't "generate value" for society. All the people involved wouldn't just be sitting on their hands if the moon project didn't exist. But I guess it could be worse.. they could be working on moving money around or pushing ads on to people

A lot of poor people were genuinely happy and inspired today.

Sorry to say but no contrarian thought in your comment.

What typical engineering course covers the design of reliable systems which work mostly autonomously in environments with huge temperature variations, vacuum, inaccessibility for repair, significant radiation, mass constraints, sensor limitations etc?

Designing stuff for space involves a lot of challenges that typical engineering does not.

Plus, while the US and USSR may have done the necessary technical work, India doesn't get most of that knowledge and thus has to learn the lessons itself.

This may not be a popular question, but given the amount of poverty in India, is a space program really the best expenditure?

As a geek, I love the space program.

As a human, I don't think it makes sense given the poverty.

A nation isn't a singular-minded entity; rather, it comprises diverse citizens who assume various roles and contribute uniquely to global improvement. Just because they've successfully landed a rover on the moon doesn't imply the abandonment of all efforts to alleviate poverty.

Honestly, why does the recognition of India's positive accomplishments always seem overshadowed by the specter of poverty and other challenges? Did the Americans eradicate every societal issue before embarking on their lunar mission? Indians should be proud — this accomplishment is truly remarkable and signifies positive societal strides toward a better collective future. Such achievements ignite hope, and progress is fundamentally built upon hope, regardless of the symbolic origins it might stem from.

An alternative perspective to consider, what happens to all the skilled engineers interested in and capable of working on advanced technologies like those intended for space if a country decides to put all other development on hold to singlemindedly focus on eradicating poverty?

What would happen to the next generations of talented potential engineers? What value would there be to pursuing an advanced education? Since obviously a space program isn't the only "luxury" that should be put on hold if poverty exists!

The talent would all leave and the next generations would be less incentivized to pursue the very kinds of careers that help a country develop.

Look at the US military budget

https://cdn.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2020/12/002_mi...

versus education

https://i0.wp.com/cef.org/wp-content/uploads/slide2-1.jpg

As a human I think you should arrest Elon Musk immediately for misleading advertising and fraudulent claims.

As a human I think the US should open its borders for immigrants from Asia.

As a human I think the US should scrap the petrodollar and licence as much nuclear tech as possible.

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