NASA Needs an Indian Tutorial, Bloomberg Review
“What can the U.S. space program learn from the Indian one? Not much, if the standard is outer-space achievement: India’s modest record mostly includes feats the U.S. accomplished decades ago. But if the standard is having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish — and getting that done quickly and economically, there might be a lesson or two. Consider the speech that India’s new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, gave Monday, shortly after India’s space program successfully launched five satellites belonging to far wealthier countries on an Indian-designed rocket. Combatting criticism that India’s space program is a profligate waste when so many of the nation’s citizens struggle to fulfill basic needs, Modi offered a concise vision for why such launches are necessary: Many misunderstand space technology to be for the elite. That it has nothing to do with the common man. I however believe such technology is fundamentally connected with the common man. As a change agent, it can empower and connect, to transform his life.”
India’s Rocket Missions Are Cheaper Than What It Takes To Make A Single Hollywood Movie Inquisitor
“India’s Mangalyaan satellite to Mars, cost a total of $75 million. The entire budget for the mission didn’t even cross a measly $100 million. The movie Gravity alone cost $100 million, quipped India’s newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “I have heard about the film Gravity. I am told the cost of sending an Indian rocket to space is less than the money invested in making the Hollywood movie.”
Related stories at @india_inspace
THAT is an excellent perspective 🙂
Wasn’t there once a US agency that tried to do practical aerospace research on a limited budget?
ISRO doesn’t have to pay US wages
Point taken, but is the wage differential sufficient to account for these prices?
ISRO isn’t saddled with FAR and the accountancy idiocies of cost-plus contracting either. Way more significant than wages. SpaceX doesn’t pay Indian wage rates either, but its projects under milestone-based Space Act Agreements came in at a dime on the dollar of what NASA would have required.
When the Bloomberg title says: “NASA needs an Indian tutorial” but buried at the end of the article the author says: “Certainly, NASA can’t — and probably shouldn’t — be like its Indian counterpart” leaves the article as pointless click-bait. No, NASA should not pay their Engineers Indian wages nor should they use Indian sourced technology. The common complaints that SLS has no payload or NASA priorities keep changing (aka Orion development) are ultimately political decisions which lay at the feet of Congress.
Adjusted for the per capita GDP of that starving and diseased country to the US per capita GDP, that trip to Mars cost $2,650,000,000. Infecteous disease is ravishing the country as doctors groups are begging for just a few million dollars to train disease specialists. More than half the children are damaged by malnourishment while 10s of millions of meals worth of money is blown on a mis-guided prestige stunt. Even the quoted cost should be viewed with suspicion. Indian government agencies are virtually opaque and India is near the bottom in corruption indexes.
You are making the same old, silly argument that has been debunked over and over and over. Nobody wouldn’t even bother substantiating Indian space industry to ignorants like you. Enough of your holier-than-thou attitude.
Don’t be discouraged by the rantings of American leftists who don’t understand the Indian economy. They don’t understand the U.S. economy any better. The argument is essentially “how dare you spend money on scientific and technological progress while people are suffering!” Of course without scientific and technological progress, future generations will continue to suffer ad infinitum, but actual forethought isn’t part of the leftist mindset.
To be frank, the worst thing the British ever did to you during the colonial period was to convince virtually the entirety of your intellectual and cultural elite that socialism was the wave of the future. The London School of Economics has been responsible for so many Indian deaths that even the butcher’s bill for the Sepoy Revolt looks like a rounding error by comparison. Even two-thirds of a century after independence your nation is still fighting to shake off the socialist hangover that kept you mired in poverty and statism for so long after achieving nominal liberation from your former British masters.
Fortunately, you began to come to your senses as the old independence-era socialists died off and were replaced by people who weren’t quasi-religiously wedded to economic nonsense. Hence, the rapid growth of the Indian economy and the massive increase in national wealth over the last two decades. The new administration your electorate has just installed seems – thankfully – ready to go ever further and faster in this same healthy direction.
The Indian space program is simply one more item among many pieces of evidence that the new India is a rising and optimistic place that, by mid-century will be taking its rightful seat as one of the four or five most important nations on Earth. Good on ya, as the Australians like to say. You need make no apologies to anyone, especially the Gloomy Gus types on the American Left.
Wow, hey, it would be great if you didn’t generalize American leftists so badly.
Do you mean “badly” in the sense of inaccuracy – i.e., that I’m wrong about the American Left? Or do you mean “badly” in the sense that it merely makes the Left look bad to point out one of its nearly universal characteristics? If it’s the former, you are risibly and comprehensively wrong. If it’s the latter, I’m in complete agreement with you.
With respect to the other value-invoking word in your comment, it would be even greater if American Leftists weren’t such lockstep stereotypes. But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the Leftists you have, not the ones you wish you had.
Only an infinitesimal fraction of the American Left is sympathetic in any way, to human space exploration. I can probably name nearly every one of them, starting with Ferris Valyn. I look in occasionally on their hopelessly overmatched efforts to make any headway converting their political brethren. It ain’t pretty.
The vast majority of the American Left look upon NASA the way they look upon the Department of Defense, as one of the few parts of big government they don’t like and would gut for resources to support more welfare statism in a New York minute. They are even less sympathetic to any plans by private, commercial parties to do things in Space than they are to NASA.
You can call on me to shut up – which I won’t – but you cannot make any credible case that I’m wrong.
I meant badly, in the sense that it’s not good to generalize such a huge diverse group with the narrow statements you made. Just replace “so badly” with “so much” if you want. Judging from your comments, I’m not sure if I’ll get anywhere, but you probably don’t want people generalizing you with whatever odd thing some conservative leaning people are doing lately, so at least try to imagine what other people’s viewpoint might be.
Sure some people think that way. I don’t. I guess count me in your tiny “infinitesimal fraction” minority within the leftists. I really consider myself independent (party affiliation seems limiting to me) but probably left leaning mostly. The point is, you shouldn’t declare this the belief of all leftists. I say all because your original comment wasn’t qualified with the “infinitesimal fraction” bit. Even with the qualifier, I still disagree. Overall the Left is viewed as more friendly to science or less anti-science*, and yes NASA supports quite a bit of science, so I think you’re a bit off there. *Yes a generalization, but I think this one is plenty well supported.
Also, I see you brought human space exploration into it, not just space exploration. So you’re shrinking your argument from what it was before to make it more defensible. As far as I could tell, this NASAWatch post wasn’t about human spaceflight specifically so you can’t just throw these backtracks in there now after being challenged and use them defend your original comment.
These seem to be generalized soft insults. That’s fine I guess, but annoying.
“they look upon the Department of Defense, as one of the few parts of big government they don’t like and would gut for resources to support more welfare statism”
There you go again.
“but you cannot make any credible case that I’m wrong”
And where is your credible case that only an infinitesimally small fraction of the American Left is supportive of space exploration and commercial space efforts?
you probably don’t want people generalizing you with whatever odd thing some conservative leaning people are doing lately
That would be nice, but not rationally expectable. The American Left has something of a cottage industry devoted to finding fringe goofballs with whom they then proceed to tar all conservatives through alleged guilt by association.
Overall the Left is viewed as more friendly to science or less anti-science*
Well the Left certainly views itself that way. But then the Left is much given to egregious displays of baseless self-regard. This just-cited excerpt of your comment is a classic example in support of this thesis.
In point of fact, the Left is not friendly to science at all unless it’s science that supports, or can be interpreted to support, some Leftist orthodoxy. With the notable exception of American blacks, Leftists are irreligious and anti-Christian. They seem to feel that, in rejecting the dominant religion of America, that they are thereby rendered perfect rationalists. This allows Leftists a self-awarded free pass to believe pretty much whatever other nonsense may be au courant, firm in the conviction of their fealty to reason because they don’t believe in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection or even Old Testament stuff like the Burning Bush.
To cite a few examples of idiotic things in which many more Leftists than conservatives believe:
1. Astrology
2. So-called “New Age” spirituality/religion
3. Foreign religions, notably Buddhism, but also including any number of Hindu-based cults like Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna) and Transcendental Meditation
4. Cults in general such as the People’s Temple, Synanon, Scientology and Heaven’s Gate
5. Silly magic-ish fads like Pyramid Power or The Secret
6. Feng Shui
7. I-Ching
8. The allegedly good effects of “cleanses” of various kinds, each sillier than the last
The list is virtually endless. The prevalence of nonsense beliefs of foreign origin is due to the normative Leftist being both an oikophobe – someone who is disdainful of nearly everything about his home country and culture – and a xenophile – someone prone to being uncritically approving of anything of foreign origin just because it is foreign.
Of course one of the things the “pro-science” Left isn’t happy to acknowledge – and often doesn’t even seem to know – is that American-born blacks constitute one of the largest single U.S. sub-populations that subscribe to fundamentalist Christianity – complete with a heaping helping of Young Earth Creationism and all the other baggage. Non-black Leftists usually assume this to be the default religion of political opponents whom the Left also generally believe to be Republican, white, elderly and dumb, not necessarily, but often, in that order.
In terms of things with considerable empirical evidence to back them up, but in which the Left not only doesn’t believe, but furiously and vituperatively rejects are:
1. There are significant mental differences between men and women. Gender is not a social construct.
2. Areas with the highest percentages of concealed carry permit holders have the lowest firearm crime and murder rates.
3. There are notable differences in average levels of general intelligence across different racial and ethnic groups. This is an instance of Leftists who claim to believe in evolution denying that evolution has had any notable effect on humans beyond superficial features and skin color.
4. Increasing the minimum wage decreases employment.
5. Genetically modified foods are not harmful to humans or animals.
6. So-called organic food is not superior in any way to food which is not “organic” according to whatever vetting criteria are currently in vogue.
7. Homeopathic remedies are useless.
8. So-called “alternative” medical therapies and treatments are nearly all worthless.
9. Vegetarianism and veganism are not healthier lifestyles than meat consumption.
10. Dietary cholesterol has no significant effect on serum cholesterol.
11. A diet heavy in protein and fat – even saturated fat – is better for humans than a diet heavy in carbohydrates and sugars.
12. Eating a lot of fat doesn’t make you obese.
13. There is no significant evidence to support the idea that runaway global warming is an imminent threat. Even less evidence that whatever warming has fitfully occurred is due largely to human activity or is related in any straightforward way to CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
And where is your credible case that only an infinitesimally small
fraction of the American Left is supportive of space exploration and
commercial space efforts?
Well, this link to an article on Elon Musk’s recent pronouncements about Mars colonization is certainly evidence. it’s hardly conclusive, but it’s certainly indicative, I think.
The posted comments are strongly against Mr. Musk. Even the generally positive comments are mostly because of Mr. Musk’s well-known association with two business enterprises Leftists generally do approve of – Tesla Motors and Solar City – though even here there are dissenters.
I’m sure there’s plenty more to be found, but plowing through Daily Kos is not exactly my idea of a good time. Feel free to pursue such researches on your own should you feel any further need.
I believe my point stands.
It wouldn’t be as easy for them if they didn’t run for office. The Republican party really needs a way to prevent that kind of thing. They can’t seem to be able to prevent them from running even after they’ve made a huge goof and the whole party establishment wants them to not run.
Come on, that sound ridiculous to me.
I don’t think that’s true either.
Well give me a break. Yeah you’re probably right, more leftists than conservatives are involved with these things. But we could come up with a fun list for conservatives too, so this proves nothing. Those things must really get to you. I try not to let odd stuff like that bother me, and (I guess living in the Midwest) I have not run into any one I know of that has fully bought into something like that outside of maybe the Psychic Fair I went to once, and a lot of those people were selling stuff so it’s hard to really know. Sure I know people that have taken some ideas from these, or had fun with it. I personally don’t have a need for any of that stuff, including formal religions, but I don’t mind anyone having whatever religion (or odd beliefs) they want, as long as it doesn’t directly affect me negatively. I don’t think negatively of a religious person, and I don’t think the left in general does either.
I have experienced this a little, but I highly doubt it’s a general leftist trait. I get the feeling that you’re picking out all the traits some leftists have, and combining them for your overall view of leftists, when maybe really only some leftists are one thing and others are another, and still others are none of these things you don’t like. I guess we’d need some survey to figure this out and the percentages.
I think that most of the people on the Left are aware of this, especially if they’ve paid attention to elections at all.
I am pretty sure the Left does know this and doesn’t reject it. They just want to treat everyone as equally and fairly as possible.
Hmm is that true? I guess I’d be interested to see some study or something on that. Around where I live, it seems like the people who do concealed carry do it because of the seemingly high crime rate. It’s definitely possible, even though that doesn’t show causality. Cities have a lot more murders and gun crime. Rural areas have a lot more guns per capita.
Wow, well this is a slippery topic. Maybe leftists choose to believe, or perhaps choose to proceed with the assumption that there are not innate differences in level of intelligence across racial and ethnic groups. Because if you didn’t, then you’d open things up for racism and supremacists. It seems like an easy choice there. There are likely socio-economic and educational reasons that can explain most of whatever you’re arguing. Beyond that, if you’re arguing some kind of innate difference due to ethnic/genetic reasons, sure it may be possible but you’re treading very very slippery territory. Also there is very very little genetic difference between ethnic groups, and actually more variation within the groups from what I understand. So there isn’t much reason to consider this concept at all. I guess I have to ask, why do you consider this a thing?
I guess I don’t know what people’s opinions are on this.
Yeah I could see this one. The people who do understand the subject and still don’t like genetically modified foods likely have other reasons to oppose them.
This one is possible too, but I think there are ways organic food can be considered superior so I don’t think this one should be in the list.
I confess to not knowing much about this subject.
I don’t think the Left overall rejects this.
Hmm, well I disagree the Left rejects this, but vegetarianism might actually be a good way to go for the 1/3rd of people that are overweight in the US 🙂
I have to claim ignorance here. And I have to imagine that most of the public doesn’t know how cholesterol intake does or doesn’t affect serum cholesterol (which I’m guessing means in the blood). I know it’s not something that’s obviously labeled/advertised on foods, though it is on the USDA Nutrition Facts.
Ignorance again. I know that bread/grains are the largest part of the food pyramid… I don’t think the average person knows this so claiming the left rejects it is stretching it.
I don’t know, but I think most people believe it is unhealthy to eat a lot of fat. Beyond that, it would be difficult to say what people believe. You’re getting pretty specific.
Things are difficult or impossible to prove when you’re talking about something as complex as climate on our huge planet and when changes generally happen on pretty long timescales. Does that mean we shouldn’t bother considering it then, no. I’m curious what you would consider significant evidence, not just that runaway global warming is an imminent threat, but that global warming is an imminent threat. And what would you need to believe that warming is largely due to human activity? I just have to believe reports that I read, probably like most people. And you’re saying CO2 level does not relate to global warming? I thought greenhouse effect was quite established.
And about Elon Musk and Daily Kos stuff – showing that some people on the Left (commenters on a website) aren’t supportive of commercial space efforts doesn’t at all back up any case that an infinitesimally small fraction of the Left is supportive. You really didn’t back anything up so you probably shouldn’t be as certain of everything as you sound. I guess that’s why I’m compelled to reply – because it bugs me when people act like they’re certain of everything.
Your responses can be summarized as:
“I don’t think so.”
and
“It would be bad if that were true.”
Neither of which constitutes much of an argument. Especially the second. A great many things are true that are indeed either bad or at least unfortunate. When a Leftist encounters one of these things that contradicts his belief system, it is realty that must give way.
The same is even more true if the only way in which a given thing is “bad” is that it contradicts some politically correct bit of Leftist dogma. Reality is what it is. If your juvenile and Manichean political philosophy cannot accommodate reality, then it deserves no respect.
If you find the picture I have drawn of normative Leftist beliefs to be unattractive, I agree with you. But simply because you find certain facts uncongenial does not render them false.
What facts? You are pretty good at making broad and bold statements (your comments are full of them) that some may take at face value if they already believe the same thing. I just don’t believe a lot of what you said! I like to think I have a pretty open mind, and when I learn something is different from what I thought, I adjust my beliefs. If you notice, I said you could be right on some things. I didn’t know about the concealed carry to firearm crime/murder possible connection for instance. That’s something I would need to learn more about to know what the relationship is. For you, it seems like you believe one thing and latch onto anything that supports it and the rest be damned. And then you make up a lot of odd tangential claims that not only aren’t supported from anything I’ve seen, but actually don’t serve your case anyway. They just serve to try and get a negative reaction against whatever you’re arguing against, a fallacy through distraction. I looked up “Manichean” too, thanks, though the definition doesn’t seem to apply as you’re the one oversimplifying things into absolutes, not me. Over time I have come to be wary of people that think they are certain of everything in complex subjects. You act like you are certain of so much, that was obvious from your first comment above, and everything else is nonsense, but in reality you don’t know. My first comment still provides a good summary.
All true–sounds like you’ve been to India as I have, many times. And while your calculation is specious at best, the idea that India can somehow rationalize these expenditures is laughable. They can buy land use data and weather data far cheaper, as an example.
There is a sensibility in India that technology and economic development will somehow move the country out of the awful poverty and stunning pollution now obvious. And don’t forget that like the US in the cold War, India is locked in a perpetual Stare of Death with Pakistan that offers another rationalization.
The Indians that I know are smart, thoughtful, and forward looking. Recent elections show they are not afraid to throw the bums out–a degree of political courage entirely lacking in my own USA. They have lived with slums and poverty for so long that honestly I think they acknowledge on some level it but they really do not SEE it. It’s like trying to run in wet concrete.
India’s relationship with China is quite pointed as well. On the one hand they see that China has whipped some truly gargantuan problems, including population control; but the very idea of limiting families in India is abhorrent–I’ve had that conversation with several successful Indians. For example, I’m married >30 years and have no children, a decision we made early in our marriage. I’ve discussed this with many Indians who just stare at me. Childlessness to any Indian is sheer madness, at least in part because there is no form of social safety net; you take care of your parents. Period. Without children, your old age is one of poverty and homelessness.
In the end, India is a truly marvelous country full of generous people. One can get no better flavor than reading a recent book called “Shantaram”.
I would describe my calculation not as “specious at best”, but rather, “specious at worst”. Of course my calc was meant to be only illustrative of what “only” $75m means in a nation where 3000 children die each and every day from starvation-related illnesses. That $75,000,000 stunt would provide maybe 200-300 million children’s meals or train many, many doctors in infectious diseases. What was specious was the comparison of the cost of a movie made in a country with dozens of times the per capita GDP and which made many times the expense in profits to a pointless stunt tying up vast amounts of limited resources and talent in a land where the middle class steps over and around corpses lying in the street while headed to the expresso bar.
Not corpses exactly, but for sure homeless, and in that you are correct. But do not make the mistake of viewing other societies thru American eyes. We have our own problems, many as endemic.
I do mean corpses. For example, see:
http://www.thehindu.com/opi…
And yes, the US has severe problems, including poverty and some malnutrition. But these are essentially “political” problems, the result of misallocation of vast resources that we refuse to take action on.
We are a fabulously wealthy country capable of supporting an interplanetary space industry, yet containing nasty pockets of suffering people (by choice), while India is an impoverished land, totally ill-suited for space and military adventures, and irresponsible in directing resources from disease prevention to aircraft carriers and recreating 40 year old space missions.
There is a sensibility in India that technology and economic development
will somehow move the country out of the awful poverty and stunning
pollution now obvious.
That sensibility exists now in India because it is true, and also because the old independence-era socialists who thought otherwise and sidetracked India into four decades of statism, protectionism, stagnation and penury are all finally dead. Economic growth based on free markets is the only thing that has ever reduced poverty to nuisance levels anywhere.
On the one hand they see that China has whipped some truly gargantuan problems, including population control;
China has not “whipped” any problems related to population. The “One Child Policy” much admired by Malthusian Leftists in the West, has been a disaster. There is a huge oversupply of young men and a corresponding shortage of marriageable young women as a result of this multi-decadal idiocy by the ruling Communists. By mid-century, the Chinese population, which is now aging faster than that of any other major nation except perhaps Japan, will be facing a demographic implosion that will reduce their population below that of India and leave millions of elderly unlooked-after in poverty.
Birthrates in industrialized, or even industrializing, countries fall below that needed in countries dominated by peasant agriculturalism as the dominant lifestyle without any required government coercion. The same has happened in India and will continue. India’s population will stabilize on its own.
NASA doesn’t have a clear vision because it’s handlers in Washington DC don’t want it to have a clear vision. Nothing more, nothing less.
There are plenty of visionaries inside NASA, people and groups who really believe in a robust space program. Too bad it won’t happen unless there was a major national security priority.
It speaks volumes that 3 years after STS-135 ended the shuttle era, NASA HSF is nowhere near launching Americans into earth orbit. Commercial crew is no longer the panacea it once seemed thanks to certain politicians. And God help us if a commercial ISS cargo run or Soyuz crew rotation mission fails badly.
No where near? really? Are you actually knowledgeable about this stuff? The pace is maddening but it is not zero.
Even a layperson knows the situation. No astronaut crews announced, none in training much less a preliminary launch date… commercial vehicle or Orion!
Dragon 2 is aiming for unmanned testing this year through mid 2015 and a manned launch in late 2015 or early 2016.
both DreamChaser and CST-100 are planning on unmanned testing in 2016 and manned flights in 2017
Orion’s first manned flight is expected to take place in 2021.
these dates have been out there for a long time, you know. it’s not like nobody knows what’s going on, lol.
I wouldn’t put too much hope into those dates as it depends upon which commercial provider is selected. And as for Orion, a destination would be the driver.
For both Orion and Commercial Crew, the driver is money. The difference is that for Orion it’s more money than Congress is ever going to appropriate. So the program will be kept in limbo forever, to provide jobs for civil servants and contractors in key districts. SpaceX and Boeing are perfectly capable of launching people via commercial crew, even Sierra Nevada could be added in without spending more than a fraction of what is going into SLS/Orion. The program has been delayed, as a result of the inability of Congress to fund it even at the modest levels requested by the administration, but it will succeed.
Yes. NASA has offered its DSN for tracking ISRO MOM. As an Indian and space tech enthusiast, I am really thankful to NASA and the US. If I remember correctly, ISRO Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission had carried few NASA instruments for free. Everyone benefits from such gestures. Hoping all major space agencies collaborate for greater good of humankind.