India, U.S. Agree to Joint Exploration of Mars
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
Is it likely that this is simply empire expansion rather than an altruistic goal of balancing China? Mainly I'm just wondering what the concerns might be if a large democratic power (and I'd still like to know what exactly that is, and how it differs from other modern powers) isn't brought up in the region.
Forgive my ignorance. I probably should have taught myself these things long ago rather than invested all of my time in programming and other pursuits.
Also, just to clarify, I am aware of the textbook definition of "democracy," "republic," etc, but it seems like those names are more of a flag for people to fight under than a definition for a state of being in the modern era. So I'm quite curious to understand the issues at play here.
U.S. foreign policy seems to be to hinder the expansion of other large powers in an attempt to keep them small enough to not be an existential threat at some point in the far future.
You send money and aid to whom ever is in a position to hinder those who are growing too powerful, whether the group you are sending that money and aid to is democratic or not.
This is not about right and wrong. It's about long term strategy, aimed at preserving the status quo for as long as possible. If you hinder your competitors, that keeps them from becoming even more of a threat to you.
1) Democracy is the US rallying cry, our allies are more defensible when we do so in the name of democracy.
2) The powers that be are highly adept at manipulating a voting population so making an ally a democracy will likely turn it into a predictable/manipulable Plutocracy of sorts.
*fixed implication that India wasn't a Democracy, was simply stating a motive for the "Democratic" part of "Democratic Power"
Not sure if all that had any major effect on the cold war, but it certainly had serious repercussions in current Middle East wars and soured US relationships with India.
With China and Russia as a threat now, US may be trying to appease India to balance out the powers here. Plus India no longer closely associates with Russia.
Seperately, India is trying to stand up on its own feet with a strong economic growth and there is political and public will to support India's growth with the rise of Modi, AAP and the young educated/worldly generation.
I don't know how serious it is (I think some members consider it more important than others) but India and Russia are two of the five members of the BRICS group, so there's definitely still some degree of cooperation beyond just trading partners.
India had no other option than buy arms from USSR to balance out the Pak arms build up.
And hence the relation between India-USSR/Russia continues to this day. USA is getting a slice of the arms pie but the high cost of American arms hasn't helped to break the past ties.
You seem to be assigning moral equivalence to democracy and Chinese communism/totalitarianism.
If you aren't just trolling, then differences include the right to travel, the right to free speech, the right to read the internet uncensored, and the right to vote.
I am aware the truth is significantly more nuanced than that, but in my post I'm interpreting the motives of the US government, not my personal take on the matter.
update: pdx's comment does a great job of providing a deeper explanation.
Haven't you ever wondered about something that you knew nothing about? How would you learn about it other than reading and asking questions? I have no idea how you concluded that I might be trolling, especially after I both admitted ignorance and asked to be cut a break for it.
Regarding your list:
- Right to travel: There are many people from China living in the US. Do you have more info about this point? I don't understand how their right to travel is restricted.
- Right to free speech: If you were to try to start a new news organization to compete with CBS/Fox/etc, the organization wouldn't get very far unless it had a clear political agenda and was funded by supporters of that agenda. I'm interested to hear about what it's like in China in comparison to the US.
- Right to read the internet uncensored: There's no debate on this point.
- Right to vote: Candidates seem to be elected based on how well-funded they are. Or rather, no one votes for an underfunded candidate, so these are equivalent. Again, I am interested to hear about China's system, and why it's morally inferior in comparison to this.
Thanks for your time. I realize I probably sound pretty dumb here, but I'm here to learn, not to defend my position. In fact, I have no position. Only questions.
In other words, since you could get shot by a cop in the US even though you did nothing wrong, that means American is no better than ISIS who massacres thousands of innocent civilians?
I would argue there are real, important differences in the points you called out as equivalent (or near-equivalent).
I would argue there are real, important differences in the points you called out as equivalent (or near-equivalent).
Which points did I say were equivalent? I said no such thing. I was saying, "I have no clue what I'm talking about, and I have no clue what life in China is like, so please correct me."
But since I've said that multiple times and it's still not getting across, I think it's better for HN if everyone would just ignore my chain of comments.
Well, that's probably true, since politics is a mindkiller. :)
If you want to understand current foreign policy of the US, I recommend reading history, rather than politically aimed books or essays. History books and essays will often have political aims as well, but the slight remove from the present day introduces somewhat more consensus, and understanding how the world got to the current situation will inform your political understanding more evenly than reading a lot of posturing for one political position or another, in my opinion.
Regarding right to travel - there are problems in China with internal migrants not getting the rights that locals get. For example, if someone moves to a new city for economic opportunity then they may find it difficult qualifying for education for their children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Effect_on_rural_w...). There are restrictions on some government officials from travelling outside the country (e.g. http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1367723/shaan...) - again these kinds of restrictions probably occur in some jobs in the west, but are less widespread. Similarly there are restrictions on some activists, which are probably more widespread in China - although one would want to be wary of the newsources on this as there is a natural bias.
In western democracies one of the main differences with the Chinese system is that there is significant communication effort around elections and attempting to educate people on the political system. There are parallels within the Chinese system but the western system involves a lot more direct communication. I am not saying one system is morally inferior to the others, but arguments can be made regarding the costs and benefits of the different systems.
My wife is urban mainland Chinese, with no particular political or social axe to grind. She's not some dedicated protester or anything and nor are any of her family, one of whom is a government official. From personal experience I can say many, and probably most ordinary Chinese are perfectly well aware of just how appaling, venal and corrupt their government and political system is. They're patriotic and would fight for China as a nation against any foreing power, but they're not totally ignorant or stupid.
Right to travel - The Hokou system in China restricts country people form accessing education, health care and social services in cities where they dwell. Even if they were born there! Most cities have hundreds of thousands of country people living in them with no actual right to be there whatsoever. People not of Han ethnicity face severe bureaucratic problems exercising rights Han Chinese take for granted. It's not official, but it happens.
Free Speech - There are publications espousing every possible political or religious belief that can scrape together the cash in the west, not so in China. Speech on the internet counts, in China it is not free. Western publications are routinely banned.
Right to Vote - True democracies have more than one political party, and it is possible for the party in power to change. You may have noticed this actually happened in India very recently. It also happened here in the UK at the last election, and in the USA the election before last. In fact the current president of the USA is constitutionaly barred from even standing in the next election. These are manifest expressions of democracy actualy working before your eyes. The only reason marginal political groups don't get much representation is because they're marginal for a reason - people choose not to vote for them. The Chinese people have no such choice.
Your example of comparing the challenges of starting a news organization to compete with the likes of Fox News to that of the censorship that has been going on in China for years seems to a stretch, to say the least. Same goes for your "right to vote" comparison.
I recommend you visit Amazon and pick up a couple of books on China if you are interested in getting up to speed on what is going on. Also, check out the events that have been going on in Hong Kong.
If, as your comments suggest that isn't your goal, then spending 30 minutes on wikipedia would be a better use of time than asking HN about Chinese politics.
The US' relationship with those places it has influence is more of a reverse empire: there's always a net outflow of money/resources.
In this context, "large democratic power" refers to India, the world's largest democracy with over 1.2 billion citizens. Even the logistics to conduct fair elections for a populace this size are quite intimidating: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/ind...
India is indisputably a democratic country, not withstanding its developing status or struggles with corruption; they just ran what is probably the largest general election in history a few months back, followed by a smooth transfer of power.
It's also large, because it has a population of 1.25 billion people, close to China's 1.36 billion people. And it's a power because it has nuclear weapons, although it is unfortunately not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Forgive my ignorance. I probably should have taught myself these things long ago rather than invested all of my time in programming and other pursuits.
Don't be obtuse. Not everything is code for something else. If you think the US's motives here are really empire expansion then fair enough - I don't really agree but I can certainly see why you might think so. But asking what 'large democratic power' means, without bothering to consider the possibility of it being a simple literal description, seems disingenuous.
Imagine if I had asked a newbie programming question, after admitting to and apologizing for being a newbie programmer, and you'd responded as you did here. Would you be okay with that? Just because the topic is politics, suddenly it's totally okay to insult?
Anyway, thank you for the information. I hadn't heard of India's general elections and smooth transfer of power, so that helps clarify things for me. I appreciate it.
This book: read it.
I wouldn't blame you.
Here in Australia there was minimum coverage. Its almost like the developed countries didn't want their public to know that some developing countries are doing well.
But I have seen Australia's main TV station ABC run NZ votes, Indonesia Votes, Thailand votes special. Didn't happen for India.
Funny trying to hide the actions of 1+ billion people :)
The parent comment, which at this time is the #1 comment, does not contribute to understanding why the United States and India made this agreement.
Do you have any evidence to back this claim up?
Opinion: Anyone who pays attention to international affairs knows that the US has been seeking a rapprochement with India
Unconvincing evidence: The President met with the President of India. Mr. Obama also met with the mayor of Gary, Indiana yesterday.
It is easy to acquire incomplete current affairs knowledge.
You are attributing the United States motivation to counter China to claims to the South China sea. I can think of dozens of other sources of friction between these countries that also contribute: human rights, intellectual property protection, hacking of US government computers, hacking of US corporation computers, influence in SE Asia, influence in Africa, claims in the East China sea, support of North Korea, support of Iran, support of Assad, climate policy, trade imbalance, nuclear proliferation, etc.
But, some claims in the South East China sea are the reason the US is partnering with India on the space program? Not supported by facts.
Why pollute Hacker News with unsubstantiated opinions or worse half backed (more like 1/128 baked) analysis?
I'm all for fact-checking, but HN is not Wikipedia, in the same way that current affairs coverage does not and need not substitute for a history book.
Why do you think NASA is collaborating with ESA and ISRO but not China? Well, NASA is prohibited from bilateral projects with China due to a law passed by the US Congress in 2011:
http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2011/04/spending-bill-...
And, as pointed out nearby, the relationship with Russia is not exactly peachy:
http://www.space.com/26945-russian-holds-nasa-hostage-mike-g...
There are many reasons for this situation, so trying to reduce it to democracy vs. not has resulted in a lengthy and inconclusive exchange (seen nearby). But whatever the list of reasons, this international political context is highly relevant to the collaborations that are currently workable.
Or are the scientists of both countries using their government officials to fund their scientific curiosities?
Probably a bit of both, IMO.
India's ability to Manage Significant space exploration programmes on a Shoe string budget is driven in part by the need to innovate on a "ShoeString" budget. What we as a race desperately need is low cost access to Space - which perhaps may not become such a priority if NASA is allowed to influence ISRO.
On the other hand maybe ISRO will influence NASA & wewill get the best of both - super low cost missions with super advanced payloads :)
The problem is that the Powers That Be were not understanding about the failures inherent in trying crazy ideas out. So we went back to expensive spacecraft which were less likely to fail.
If you have low-cost mission concepts for achieving important scientific objectives, please propose them.
Hopefully whatever form of cooperation they come up with lets India continue to operate mostly independently.
In other words, maybe India is taking a leaf from SpaceX's book rather than NASA's
I've seen nothing that tells me that this reputation is anything more than 1) the bureaucracy inherent to any large organization, 2) requirements of very complex, cutting edge engineering and science, 3) requirements of engineering systems that must work perfectly the first time (unlike Facebook, NASA can't 'move fast and break things'), and perhaps most of all 4) the public's habit of attributing characteristics to 'the old established thing' (NASA) and to the 'new shiny thing' (SpaceX, etc.)
Name every place in the solar system where NASA missions currently are located. Outside the solar system? Where they have gone historically? Their achievements are staggering; history-making events are routine; they are by far the greatest explorers in the history of humanity. Certainly they aren't perfect and every organization can improve, but they do pretty well.
> I was of the impression that private parties streamlining that process and coming up with a cheaper program is what led to NASA (or congress by proxy, whatever) abandoning manned spaceflight to the private sector.
Manned spaceflight hasn't been delegated to the private sector, only flying to Earth orbit (or only low-Earth orbit?). NASA has been doing it for 50 years; the technology is mature enough that private companies can do it and NASA can invest its resources in bigger challenges, including a manned mission to Mars (in the long term).
They are derided as slow and inefficient but when you consider how long those Mars rovers are lasting, well bring on more of whatever NASA is on.
Depends on the cost. If someone can make a Mars Rover that costs 1% as much but lasts 10% as long, that's progress.
If the rover itself costs 1% as much, probably not. If the cost of the rover plus getting it to Mars is 1% as much, sure.
Edit: And you added the "NASA-level" which put words in my mouth that I did not say nor mean. I meant what I said: "NASA's standards"; standards that NASA has developed for their programs and contractors, which may or may not be beneficial for India's space program.
Indian space program was started in 1962[1][2]; and over a period of time ISRO has pretty much mastered technologies related to launch vehicles, satellites, science missions etc. This new joint working agreement pertains to following areas:
1) Mars exploration:
"The joint Mars Working Group will seek to identify and implement scientific, programmatic and technological goals that NASA and ISRO have in common regarding Mars exploration. The group will meet once a year to plan cooperative activities, including potential NASA-ISRO cooperation on future missions to Mars."
"One of the working group’s objectives will be to explore potential coordinated observations and science analysis between MAVEN and MOM, as well as other current and future Mars missions."
2) Earth observation:
"The joint NISAR Earth-observing mission will make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes."
"NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimeter across."
Moreover, ISRO and NASA have worked together earlier as well. Few examples: ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission carried NASA's scientific payloads[3]; NASA, NOAA and ISRO share ISRO's Oceansat2's oceanographic data[4]. So, I don't think this new agreement would be detrimental to ISRO's operations :)
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Committee_for_S...
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organisat...
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1#Instruments_from_...
And, NISAR Earth observation mission looks very exciting as well: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32478.msg12...
Earth scientists are already having problems dealing with contemporary data volumes, and NISAR really raises the stakes.
However this is great news and I'm sure the joint effort will speed up the tough task of uncovering the planet's secrets.
But politics has kind of prevented that. For governments, space exploration seems to be more about showing off than about advancing science.
I hope that in the future, different countries cooperating on missions will become the norm rather than the exception. I know I'm being somewhat optimistic, but this article shows I am not being completely naive. Nice.
It's just that you don't read much about this in the newspapers, because newspapers would rather make it look like there's a space race going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars
Hopefully, this kind of partnership doesn't get weighed down too heavily by the intricacies of international politics.
On the other hand, "international cooperation" is often the death of many projects, particularly space projects.
On the other other hand, it wasn't like NASA was about to do something huge and cooperation with India puts that goal at risk.
There are plenty of counter-examples. The ISS is an effort that spans the US, Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe (ESA). Hubble is NASA-ESA.
Accomplishes less compared to what? Skylab? Mir?
The ISS is designed to host up to 7 crew members. For purposes of comparison, Mir could host 3. What makes you suspect 7 astronauts can do less scientific work than 3?
ISS construction cost: 150 billion
ISS science projects keep on getting cancelled for budget reasons. I think spending $150,000,000,000.00 building it has something to do with that.
The ISS was designed to be built up over several years, over several launches, with each launch costing much less than Skylab but obviously more overall. It was a design decision that favoured amortizing costs for an age that couldn't afford another Skylab.
I doubt that a space lab as functional as the ISS could exist without international funding.
Your nested counterfactuals are a little hard to unpack, but if I understand you correctly, it is somewhat the contrary, at least with NISAR. (Oops, I added another counterfactual.) NASA was about to NOT do something huge and the collaboration enabled it happen.
That is, before it became NISAR, the Earth-observing biomass/seismicity SAR mission was called Desdyni (http://decadal.gsfc.nasa.gov/desdyni.html). This mission was referred to as desirable in a 2007 National Academies decadal roadmap (covering the next 10 years), but there were too many other even higher-ranked missions in the pipeline. So it seemed like Desdyni was not going to get on the NASA roadmap any time soon.
The Indian contribution seems to have (for the moment) been enough to get it going, because in February NISAR entered "Phase A" which is NASA-speak for "we are starting the mission". There are later decision points depending on how ready the overall concept proves to be.
That is the ugliest project name I've ever seen. It beats any disemvoweled SV startup into a cocked hat. I'm not surprised it almost got cancelled.
The agreement and mission are both good things, but I do not see how they will have much of an effect on human spaceflight.
I demand a refund.
dean of harvard
ceo of microsoft
ceo of pepsico
ny ag
1/3 of mckinsey
Very likely US is going to put sanctions on Indian space research as soon as India declares its ASAT capabilities.