ISRO to launch Google satellite | Hacker News Reader

ISRO to launch Google satellite

asianage.com

186 pointsunmole36 comments

This is a great example of how investing in space can have returns for India. You often find comments in such articles saying that India should be focusing on poverty alleviation, healthcare, and infrastructure instead of investing in a space program. The problem with this strategy is that India (and developing countries in general) will always be playing catch-up to other countries; And without finding new sources of wealth, India will be hard pressed to obtain the necessary resources to uplift itself from poverty. Another thing these commenters fail to point out is that most of the countries that are rich today got where they are not by funding massive welfare programs, but by expanding into new frontiers in search of wealth.

So the strategy today's developing countries should be following is to find new frontiers in science, technology, entrepreneurship to create wealth while in parallel trying to provide basic facilities to their people. Developing countries are in some ways like startups- Perpetually strapped for cash and resources, struggling to stay afloat and facing tough odds. The key for them is not to try to compete in areas where others already dominate, but to disrupt them (by trying drastically different approaches) or to seek new fields. Microsoft didn't try to compete with IBM in mainframes, they went for the then-burgeoning PC market. Apple is the world largest corporation not because it competes head-on with Microsoft in the PC market, but because it disrupted mobile. Similarly, space is a good avenue for India to compete in, where there are few incumbents and where India can exploit its natural advantages (such as it's eye for cost-saving and huge, inexpensive talent pool).

Updated: Edited to removed lines that detract from main point.

I'm in favour of space and scientific exploration as the next guy, but it is incorrect to equate basic sanitation and education with a welfare state. It seems pretty obvious to me that providing everyone with clean water and sanitation will have far greater economic (and social) impact than giving a very small number people access to very advanced technology.

India has some of the worst sanitation conditions in the world. You and I take clean drinking water and sewage treatment for granted.

There is a pretty strong case that educating women, giving women control of their reproductive systems, and giving women good hygiene, sanitation, and toilet facilities is the best possible way to lift populations out of poverty.

http://www.iamin.in/en/mumbai-north/news/mumbai-ranks-second...

http://www.globalpartnership.org/education

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/half-the-sky/economic-emp...

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/09/3138901/rubio-ma...

http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/our-policy-focus/

http://www.unwater.org/worldtoiletday

http://www.wateraid.org/uk/what-we-do/the-crisis/women

I am not saying that India should take all its money from education and sanitation and put it in rockets and r&d. I am not speaking against welfare programs either. I am saying that the whole attitude that "India shouldnt have a space program until everyone has toilets" is self-defeating and means that India will never have a space program, and probably never have enough toilets either.

The core of my point is that a small percentage of the budget should be kept aside for r&d in science and technology (and also to encourage entrepreneurship) because the returns from such endeavours can be tremendous. If you put x dollars to buy a toilet you will only ever get 1 toilet but if you invest x dollars wisely you could in time pay for a hundred toilets.

I think it depends a bit on the ideology the government wants to follow in which one to prioritise.

I assume one favours lifting people out of poverty through opportunity of economic opportunity (subsidising R&D at the expense of other industry). The other is to lift people out of people through welfare (subsidising sanitation through the expense of other industry).

The latter would definitely help in the more immediate term but wouldn't be sustainable. It's a hard pill to swallow but prioritising a better economic climate may be better in the longer term.

There is also another way to look at it where the improvement in sanitation can improve living standards, thereby improving the economy through a different root of the problem. I think the government is taking an approach that uses less welfare.

I would favour the space plan since the ISRO currently has a very high launch success rate and an incomparable cost. For India and the world as a whole it is more optimal to promote its development. The material/'hard cash' export value of launching satellites can help more in the longer term to subsidising sanitation than approaching it directly and sooner.

That's true, but it's a fallacy to imagine that India's science and rocketry programs somehow take resources away from sanitation efforts. In fact India's space program actually brings in revenue, as this story shows. More importantly, it provides inspiration to Indians, showing them what they are capable of doing. That, more than anything, is what is truly necessary to allow India to tackle the fundamental problems it faces.

There are plenty of other sources of money besides taking it from space research.

This is why I'm still pissed off at Bill Gates' attack on Google [1] for trying to get Internet to Africa instead of just investing in curing malaria. What an incredibly short-sighted thing to say from someone who's apparently admired by many for his ideas.

The people there get malaria because they are the Dark Ages in terms of living conditions. Bringing Internet there, allowing them to at least educate themselves, giving them the opportunity to find jobs online, or to create a local market is what will give them the chance to get out of poverty and afford better living conditions.

The Internet will also help them live in more democratic societies where abuses by the government or criminal groups are exposed and dealt with.

There are usually two schools of thought for dealing with Africa's poverty. One deals with the now, and it's about giving Africans free food, free cloths and free medicine - forever and ever, and yet it never seems to be enough. It merely helps some survive.

And the other is about the future, and about trying to help people help themselves out of poverty. It's much more sustainable and it's about much more than just helping Africans survive. It's about getting them to catch-up to other countries in terms of living conditions, income and of course healthcare. T

[1] - http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/09/bill-gate...

This is a better link for the quote, it provides the question and the rest of what Gates said (it is linked from your link):

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-08-08/bill-gates-o...

One of Google’s (GOOG) convictions is that bringing Internet connectivity to less-developed countries can lead to all sorts of secondary benefits. It has a project to float broadband transmitters on balloons. Can bringing Internet access to parts of the world that don’t have it help solve problems?

When you’re dying of malaria, I suppose you’ll look up and see that balloon, and I’m not sure how it’ll help you. When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there’s no website that relieves that. Certainly I’m a huge believer in the digital revolution. And connecting up primary-health-care centers, connecting up schools, those are good things. But no, those are not, for the really low-income countries, unless you directly say we’re going to do something about malaria.

Google started out saying they were going to do a broad set of things. They hired Larry Brilliant, and they got fantastic publicity. And then they shut it all down. Now they’re just doing their core thing. Fine. But the actors who just do their core thing are not going to uplift the poor.

His answer is arguably self serving, but given the question, I wouldn't go so far as to call it an attack, it's a "I don't think their approach will help really low income countries", not a "it's useless".

Bill wanted to talk about his charity work. Comparing it to the commercial enterprises of his company's (largest?) competitor was probably not how he wanted the interview to go. Why should the two things be compared at all?

Because as a philanthropist his ostensible goal is to help people, and if he was consistent a project that would help people understand what conditions affect their likelihood of getting diarrhea would certainly be a blessing and something to work with.

It just boggles my mind. A lot of people in Africa and the poor parts of India live in almost pre-germ-theory times, where the link between sanitation and disease is one competing myth in an oral tradition. Anything that has the potential to deliver video explaining sanitation could easily have an enormous benefit.

An internet connection is not the crucial missing step towards delivering such a video. If you have the video produced in the right language and have the trust and attention of the people, you can use pretty much anything to show it.

One of things the Gates Foundation does is worry about effectiveness, I think where they are spending their malaria dollars, they have some idea of the effectiveness of spending a comparable amount of money on education. If you look at the purpose entries here:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Policy/Regi...

Many of them are policy initiatives and programs to increase access to information.

Not just that, satellites also help monitoring any weather abnormalities like cyclones. It helps if one could be warned.

Exactly, this is what I always wanted to say.People working so hard here to remove this tag.

At the same doesn't India have significantly higher (like orders of magnitude) costs to criminal and civil prosecutions? I think that few nation states of successfully competed/emerged onto the world stage when at a disadvantage of that magnitude.

Antrix has done a great job of marketing secondary payload opportunities. Many university-satellites have been launched by PSLV; they've become the de-facto small-satellite launch provider in a lot respects. My alma mater has launched a couple of satellites successfully [1], with the first one, Delfi-C3, launched from Sriharikota in 2008 (still operational!).

Europe has been trying to push Vega [1] as the European offering in this market. It's exciting to see how the launcher space is developing, especially for small payloads. I know a few startups that are targeting this space because of studies, like undertaken by SpaceWorks [1][2], that point at the expected explosion within the coming 5 years.

Given that I'm working on space debris risk mitigation at the moment, I'm looking at this from a somewhat different perspective. Most small-satellites to date have been launched to low enough orbits that they can meet the 25-year de-orbit guideline without too many issues. With the commercial market rapidly expanding though, there are a lot of applications that require higher orbits, and that's when space debris becomes a huge issue. Keeps me in a job!

All in all, great news for ISRO, and hopefully a sign of more international collaboration and commercial expansion in the years to come.

[1] http://www.delfispace.nl

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_%28rocket%29

[3] http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/IAC-14.E6.1.3... (PDF)

[4] http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/SSC14-I-3_v1.... (PDF)

There are some good developments giving an international exposure to Indian space research. Another commendable achievement is the Team Indus winning a $1 million prize money [1] as a part of Google's Lunar X-prize, for achieving significant milestones. They are mostly a team of fresh IITians mentored by a few senior guys [2] - entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and technology and industry veterans who started this. This was the only team from India participating in the X-prize, and is one of the 5 teams internationally to be selected for the first round of funding, from amongst other well funded entities. Incidentally my company Sasken [3] has provided the team with space in our Bangalore office for their operations and it is indeed exciting to see them succeed.

[1] http://yourstory.com/2015/01/team-indus-from-india-wins-goog... [2] http://www.teamindus.in/about-us/ [3] http://www.sasken.com

A couple of months ago, I met a brilliant scientist[1][2] who runs a space startup in India that specializes in brokering deals to launch non Indian space payload on ISRO's launch vehicles. Her company is called Earth2Orbit[3], although I am not sure whether this deal was brokered by them.

[1] http://travel.cnn.com/mumbai/susmita-mohanty-indias-own-moon...

[2] http://www.earth2orbit.com/people/people.html

[3] http://www.earth2orbit.com/index.html

Skybox can sell live satellite video, I saw a demo last week that was pretty dramatic. They are currently very limited by having one satellite.

Suddenly I realize the importance of the Google investment in SpaceX to launch 700 internet service satellites. Surely those could include cameras. Will we get realtime Google Earth?

Here are some of the videos for those interested: http://www.firstimagery.skybox.com/hd-video/

Ah yes, Google, working hard to make '1984' a reality for the purpose of profits and advertising.

It is still cheaper compared to 1984 standards.

Now we're talkin. If ISRO pulls this off the space industry will be officially Bangalored.

Crowdfunded military intelligence in near future? People interested in what's happening on some specific place putting their money to pool and purchasing live video feed from the region?

Big validation in the age of space madness. Keep them coming team ISRO.

Time for the outer space research to get big at Isro bAngalore,India

Did someone say Skynet?

Is it INSURED?

I am sure it is insured.

However, PSLV, ISRO's rocket has the best success record in the world. It has launched 71 satellites so far. 40 of these where of non Indian so this is not the first time ISRO is launching a non Indian satellite. It took Chandrayaan to moon and Mangalyaan to mars. I am sure Google's satellite is in safe hands here.

Looking up "yaan" - Hindi for vehicle.

Yes, it's like a generic word for this purpose. An instrument/machine that moves, or takes you or stuff from one point to another.

You can put it like "chandra" (moon) + "yaan" and it becomes "a vehicle that goes to the moon; or is built for a purpose related to moon"; or "vaayu" (air) + "yaan" and it becomes an air-plane. "jal" (water) + "yaan" and it's a ship.

In our trains there are "shayan" (sleeping) + "yaan" - here it means "coach", i.e. sleeper coaches as opposed to those sitting coaches.

Probably not necessary. The Indian rockets are generally more cost effective and reliable than the American ones.

Cost effective, sure. But where have you read that they are more reliable?

Google PSLV. It's over two decades since their last launch failure (and 18 years since a partial failure). At least 26 consecutive successful launches since the late 90's putting over 70 satellites into orbit. it also holds the record for the most satellites successfully put into orbit in a single launch.

PSLV has a good record, certainly, at 28 launches with one full and one partial failure. It's not particularly better, though, than Atlas V (52 launches with one partial failure) or Delta IV (28 launches with one partial failure) or Soyuz-FG (49 launches with no failures). Ariane 5 (with 77 flights and 2 full and 2 partial failures--all at the early stages of the program) ain't bad either.

Number of satellites per launch is a curious metric. And a mostly useless one, I would think, considering modern cubesats, nanosats, and (soon) chipsats. I also dispute PSLV holding that record. PSLV C9 seems to have carried 10. Antares Orb-1 in January 2014 is recorded as carrying 34 spacecraft. If KickSat had worked, SpaceX CRS-3 would have ended up deploying something like 110 individual spacecraft.

Cubesats etc. are going to lead to a whole lot of new records that don't mean anything over the next bit of time. FWIW, Orb-1 was an ISS resupply, so you could argue that it didn't really deploy those satellites, just shipped them up to the ISS. However, a Dnepr launch back in June carried 37 satellites and deployed them in to orbit (11 of those belonged to my employer, Planet Labs). http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/06/19/dnepr-launches-37-sat...

I just glanced at the PSLV wikipedia page, and it looks like it's mostly for polar orbits. That's pretty cool, as it's quite different from the ISS' 55 degree inclination orbit that the commercial resupplies can get you, and changing inclination is expensive in terms of fuel.

As a guy with vested interest in getting more satellites up in orbit, this is great news!

Thanks for the info, looks like quite a few reliable launch vehicles out there. I was mostly just trying to counter the kneejerk comment higher up about insurance and Indian rockets.

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