It's spectacular, if I read correct they used a technology Which Israel has failed to use to land successfully on moon. I might be wrong, feel free to chime in.
The article says it will take about 5 weeks for touchdown. and "Making a soft landing will be the hardest part — an Israeli lander trying to do the same thing crashed on the moon in April."
Apart from using almost 95% of homegrown technologies, One high feat is that the entire mission cost around $141 million which is half the cost of Latest Avengers Movie..
Not again with this. This is comparing peanuts to oranges. Two completely separate domains, with their own requirements and goals.
If you need to compare then compare it with costs of other missions. And even then it would be unfair, as almost no two space missions have the exact same requirements, goals and parameters.
I agree. But that said, it's good to give people estimate of what the costs for a moon mission are compared to other things we do on earth. In that sense, this comparison is useful, because "half the cost of avengers movie" is less abstract than "$ XYZ,000,000" for most people.
Do people really have a better grasp on how much a movie costs to be made ? I wouldn't know what the difference is between a 1 million, a 10 million and a 100 million movie, or to even give a single example for each of those categories
It's really not... it's comparing dollars to dollars. If anything, the only thing you should modify is maybe to consider how much the Avengers would have cost to produce in India. But in any case, it's certainly relevant to consider how much cash was invested and what was the return on that investment. Both ventures produce some common returns, such as cultural heritage, jobs/economic stimulus, pollution, etc. On the other hand, some of the returns are quite dissimilar; the space mission produces a considerable amount of scientific and technological benefits, while the movie put some cash back in investor's pockets.
Lots of the know how, resources, and people are gone forever. Just because we have lots of computers now doesn’t solve all problems. Apollo was an incredible feat of humanity. There’s a reason no other country has ever sent humans to the moon, it’s really hard.
> Does it actually? This isn't 1960 anymore... we know how to launch a rocket and get it the moon now.
I expect you to behave in similar manner.
Don't learn anything, it isn't going to provide any technological benefits to your company, since other people already know it.
There were already many people who knows, how to do things.
Does it mean, it isn't going to provide any value?
Well, if your thought is as narrow as such, then you shouldn't have learned any language and know how to speak. Because, it's something every human learns from one another.
It does provide scientific and technological benefits maybe not to you, but to India and it's neighboring countries.
Think about what you're saying here. Doesn't this fact just make the Avengers movie seem COMPLETELY ridiculous in terms of cost? I think it's a perfectly valid comparison.
You know when people spend 300 grand plus on a car, and people say, "Think what else could be done with that money". It's like that
Given how "Hollywood accounting" became a popular thing, I'm not even sure if the published cost of new movies is close to reality. And how much was the movie production vs paying the popular actors.
There are just too may weird data points for popular film costs. For example each of Friends got ~$1M per episode in the last season, so that's $108M ($146M with inflation adjustment) just for main cast in season 10, vs $220M for "the Avengers". So the mission cost less than main characters in later seasons is Friends.
It’s fair to compare the prices of anything. This mission cost way more than a bottle of water, and way less than the market cap of BP. Both entirely fair comparisons. Where it gets tricky is what conclusions you draw from those comparisons.
While that might be true, I still find it hard to source equipments and material from companies in India who often want "big orders" which an individual might not be able to afford.
I've been trying to source Silica Gel 1kg (orange colour changing beads in India) tried IndiaMart but either suppliers don't respond or respond with big order requirement or ask for too much information about your operation.
Back in time I was in US, and companies shipped small quantities or samples sometimes for free and same experience I had with Chinese sellers.
So lemme ask, why Indian manufacturers are so hard to deal with?
Just don't work with them then. Put an angry review, and move on.
There are thousands of suppliers.
I tell the same to American companies wanting 10 page NDAs/contracts for commercial samples "We do not sign NDAs just to get samples" or "we do not spend time of engineers to fill survey forms" — and it works!
Very often after such a reply, we get a call from their managers in a week or so, pleading to not to drop a ball on them.
The latest Avengers movie made box office record. I'm starting to think all these moon/mars missions by various countries a waste of money and resources. Why don't they cooperate and avoid making their own wheels?
Yes thank god for the Avengers movie, that will really help further society.
Why do people keep producing loads of different movies when they could collaborate and just make one massive movie and then we wouldn't have to bother any more?
Everyone that is anyone knows that the movie industry is highly corrupt. That is why someone that is guaranteed a percentage of profits often gets nothing. The books are so cooked, that many famous movies are chalked up as a loss.
This means that it is possible that Grand Theft Rover, the new Rockstar game (one can dream) will be more expensive to make than actually going to Mars and steal a Mars rover.
I suppose that if you want as much realism as possible, then simulation is more expensive than doing an actual real thing. I guess that makes sense. We didn't create an AI yet that creates games for us at GTA-scale and quality.
Well, of course. No AI would tolerate all the workplace abuse, rampant "bro culture" and endless hours of "mandatory voluntary" crunch time that happens in game development companies, including Rockstar Games Inc.
I want to know how did they acquire this technology. I've heard china simply steals technology (or atleast accused of stealing by western media), but what about india, does India too steals technology or what exactly is their process to get the technology they need?
Are these scientists working for Isro previously worked for other organizations like NASA where they acquired know how from?
And if it's really homegrown technology, then why we haven't seen better phones or drones or 3d printer or whatever new, coming out of India?
Or does it mean, in India innovation which is not supported by government, doesn't take off?
Not sure why I am being downvoted , I asked this question in good faith.
Chinese scientists and engineers can also develop things themselves, then why are they accused of stealing technology often? If something is possible doesn't mean it's the best option they've on hand.
Intellectual property rights lasting more than a short time are theft from humanity. Their ostensible reason to exist is to contribute to our shared cultural inheritance, and yet.
Is there no other way to do things other than stealing?
India's space program goes back to the late 60s. When faced with technology sanctions from the United States, they studied up the fundamentals, researched by trial and error and learnt from the mistakes and sucesses of other bigger space organizations. They know their limits, in terms of budget and governmental support. But they've persisted and continuously pushed their own limits, come up with the most efficient ways of achieving missions. Ex, Mangalyaan, Chandrayaan 1 and now the Chandrayaan 2. India has even launched a constellation of its own Positioning System of Satellites, the IRNSS, which is yet to be comissioned into public use.
In short, ISRO has simply learnt to be efficient and adaptive. Relied extensively on first principles and fundamentals. It is an really inspiring story of ingenuity and innovation. More "discovered and developed" than "acquired".
Are you even a scientist that you are talking about dynamics of exchange of technology? I mean are you qualified enough to talk like this? Just asking in good faith
To answer your question specifically, certain design elements were licensed from other countries, before being largely indigenized. For example, the Vikas engines were initially developed in the 70s, from Ariane's Vulcan engines. This family of engines powers the second stage of the current mission.
Cryogenic engines were initially bought from Russia, but economic sanctions in the late 90s-mid 2000s forced India to develop its own indigenous cryogenic engines. These were based on the Russian models the Indian engineers were already familiar with, though it delayed the development of India's space program by at least a decade.
It took 11 and a half years from when this deal was signed to launch. How long did it take the Avengers movie to be made? For comparison, America decided to send humans to the moon in September 1962, and successfully did it in July 1969, after creating the technology and process to do this. Also using humans, not machines.
America's Surveyor program, which successfully soft landed 5 probes on the moon from 1966-1968, had a total cost of $469 million, again inventing the technology and processes to do this. That comes out to 93.8 million per successful launch or 67 million per launch.
If you made modern, even vaguely similar comparisons to how much landing a probe on the moon would cost the United States space program today and how long it would take to get it through the pipeline, the parent poster's point would stand even more clearly.
Maybe consider that you are speaking about 67 millon per launch in 1969 dollar, which, according to quick google search is equivalent of 470 million in today's USD.
If you consider PPP conversion ratio 1$ spent in in India is equivalent to about 17$ spent in the US. So 141M$ in India today is equivalent to 2.5B$ in the US. This also gives a better estimate of what else could be bought for the money on this kind of project
I see your point, but this would make more sense for comparison of highway construction or other projects that require lot of people with average salary and common resources. High tech is, I believe, very competitive and you do not manh need 'common' people working on it. Also technologies used are not common and cannot easily take advantage of scale of indian economy.
Half the cost of the most expensive movie ever made (or close to it) tells you nothing at all. If you compared it instead with the median of Hollywood production budgets that would be more interesting but you could not make a witty comment anymore.
According to http://parlaystudios.com/blog/feature-film-budget-breakdown/, "The Hollywood Reporter notes that the average cost of a feature film is even lower, spanning between $70 and $90 million.". So even the fact that it's only twice the cost of the average Hollywood movie is pretty impressive.
And Avengers Endgame has brought in $1.5 billion in revenue. If India focused on commercial satellite launches it would generate much more revenue and employ far more engineers than moon or Mars missions.
Great news on the launch. But it ain't over till the land rover starts transmitting, so to speak. This will orbit earth for a bit till the moon snags it into its own orbit, and then it lands on the moon in September.
Yes, Chandrayaan-1 already crash landed on moon once. The new part of this mission is soft landing for a rover, which will only happen in early September.
Chandrayaan-1 operated for 312 days and seven years later it was found still circling the moon [1]. The Moon Impact Probe (MIP) crash-landed on the moon, possibly by design.
Geez, when they said it wasn't a direct transfer, they weren't kidding. They must be milking the the Oberth effect for everything it's worth if it will take a month+ to get the payload there.
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There was a technical snag last week which was identified one hour before launch. So it was rescheduled today after correcting the problem. Hence the second try.
This is the problem with the headline. Launches get delayed, rescheduled, aborted, cancelled for many reasons. This mission has had launch dates moved around several times over the last couple years. This headline is referring to having the launch aborted about a week ago.
Nytimes does that fairly often. Theres always an undertone of negativity about Indias space program. But they're just responding to market needs cant really blame them.
The market need to undermine progress made by other countries to feel good about themselves. Its a type of thinking that says we can only be great when others don't make any progress.
I doubt Journalists hold present-day journalism in high opinion.
NewYrokTimes is perhaps the biggest offender who gets away with this. All I can say is after reading Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, I can never trust NYT.
100 agree. Although rather unclear, my comment was hinting at the fact that even if we all think that journalism is not what it used to be, cynicism shouldn't win over idealism...
I have incentives high up in my opinion. There's a huge segment of population that loves to undermine progress or those taking bold decisions. There's an incentive to feed pessimism and of course NYT as a business will tap into that. There aren't many people who will be excited when somebody else makes progress and NYT is just cashing in on it. I don't judge them, its just what it is. I would rather be mindful of their bads and take their goods than impose unreasonably high standards on NYT.
I do not know if it would be different had it been a US launch, but know for sure NYT has a history of trying to undermine any/all progress made by India, especially during the last term and the existing term of Narendra Modi Government.
It appears the NYT journos know more about India than Indians, who elected Narendra Modi by landslide majority (last and this term). NYT regularly tries to highlight isolated incidents as communal rift (standard playbook on India).
Launches are aborted or delayed for many reasons. The headline mentioning Second Attempt is not relevant and only serves as a negative connotation which most readers would equate with failure.
The first attempt was aborted so it shouldn't count. This time we don't know if it will be aborted again, so we cannot say if it's an attempt at all. The title should just say "India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission", period
The countdown timer was stopped 1hr before the launch when an anomaly was detected. I suppose by some measure it could be considered as "first attempt failure".
The more remarkable thing though is they un-fueled the launch vehicle, fixed the issue, made it launch worthy, and launched it in just under one week.
I can't recall a similar recovery in such a short period of time for a project of such magnitude.
It's very impressive. The Russians also fixed the insulation on their Proton rocket carrying Spektr-RG with some glue and launched a day later! They had to wait a month after the previous problem, however, which required a battery replacement: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/spektr-rg-launch.html
I don't really read it as inaccurate. They did launch the Chandrayaan-2 mission on the 2nd attempt after the first attempt was aborted. If the first try had failed completely, it wouldn't necessarily still be the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission.
Not sure why some folks are upset about the tone of the article. I read the entire article and didn't find anything snarky or condescending towards India and their ambitious space program.
Headline is misleading. A fair number of launches are pushed back due to a number of reasons and this is definitely worthwhile mentioning in the article itself. But mentioning "on second try" in the title itself is misleading as you can see in the comments where multiple people were led to believe that the first attempt was a failure instead of an abort (which isn't a failure).
"India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission" is a more unbiased title in my opinion.
Irrespective of what nationality you belong to, the phrase "second try" means same to all. Second try is confusing and misleading, it means you failed on the first try, although the word failure is different to all. If you think a technical snag in a space program which involves a lot of complexity means a project failure then I don't blame you for liking the article but for the majority of the people who understand the level of complexity in such program are less critical on the delays and snags.
Second try at launching... that is literally what happened. I feel like you are just projecting with your interpretation. Second try means literally that... a second attempt. Which is exactly what happened because technical issues forced them to abort on the first attempt...
This is great! Success here would show how much is possible with $146MM and encourage others to invest in space exploration as well. India's space program, ISRO, put a satellite into Mars orbit in 2014 for $73MM.
> Success here would show how much is possible with $146MM
… when you're paying Indian salaries. I'm pretty sure that paying NASA, ESA or JAXA engineers less than 12k USD/year [1] would result in exactly 0 of them staying on the job.
According to Table 4 in [1], a GSLV launch was $47 million in 2017, so a bit lower than e.g. a Falcon 9 launch ($61.2 million in the same table).
Taking the $146 million quoted above at face value, that means 2/3 of Chandrayaan-2's cost was independent of launch cost. Let's say about $100 million.
Another comment here is implying that those $100 million do not include labor. I find that hard to believe; it is (or should be) common knowledge that the bulk or aerospace project costs is labor [2], so it would make no sense to forgo standard accounting practice and only report what amounts to a bill of materials. But if we nevertheless assume that comment is correct, it would mean that you should at least double the estimated cost for developing something equivalent to Chandrayaan-2 at developed-country aerospace salaries. So you would be (optimistically) spending something like $200 million on the probe, and saving maybe $15 million out of a total cost ~ $250 million by launching it from India rather than e.g. the US.
Once the added administration and logistics costs are taken into account, I wonder if you would be saving anything at all.
bbc headline was better because there was a feminine angle.
30% of isro people are women. and two women were commanding this isro. so they can't speak negative even if they has to.
since american media don't do research they followed good old negative path. altho to be fair some of american media is honest but you gotta follow them otherwise google won't tell you about their positive stuff.
117 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadBy technology, if you mean rockets, then yes every country uses rocket technology to escape earth's gravity.
If you need to compare then compare it with costs of other missions. And even then it would be unfair, as almost no two space missions have the exact same requirements, goals and parameters.
Does it actually? This isn't 1960 anymore... we know how to launch a rocket and get it the moon now.
It seems this is mostly a national pride kind of thing which has some value too but it's a very different kind of value.
https://www.space.com/7015-40-years-moon-landing-hard.html
Lots of the know how, resources, and people are gone forever. Just because we have lots of computers now doesn’t solve all problems. Apollo was an incredible feat of humanity. There’s a reason no other country has ever sent humans to the moon, it’s really hard.
I expect you to behave in similar manner.
Don't learn anything, it isn't going to provide any technological benefits to your company, since other people already know it.
There were already many people who knows, how to do things. Does it mean, it isn't going to provide any value?
Well, if your thought is as narrow as such, then you shouldn't have learned any language and know how to speak. Because, it's something every human learns from one another.
It does provide scientific and technological benefits maybe not to you, but to India and it's neighboring countries.
You know when people spend 300 grand plus on a car, and people say, "Think what else could be done with that money". It's like that
Anyways the reason these movies cost so much is because all the intermediary production and marketing pieces want a share of the pie.
There are just too may weird data points for popular film costs. For example each of Friends got ~$1M per episode in the last season, so that's $108M ($146M with inflation adjustment) just for main cast in season 10, vs $220M for "the Avengers". So the mission cost less than main characters in later seasons is Friends.
Brilliantly put, I need to commit that to memory.
It reminds of the saying: "All models are wrong, some models are useful".
I've been trying to source Silica Gel 1kg (orange colour changing beads in India) tried IndiaMart but either suppliers don't respond or respond with big order requirement or ask for too much information about your operation.
Back in time I was in US, and companies shipped small quantities or samples sometimes for free and same experience I had with Chinese sellers.
So lemme ask, why Indian manufacturers are so hard to deal with?
There are thousands of suppliers.
I tell the same to American companies wanting 10 page NDAs/contracts for commercial samples "We do not sign NDAs just to get samples" or "we do not spend time of engineers to fill survey forms" — and it works!
Very often after such a reply, we get a call from their managers in a week or so, pleading to not to drop a ball on them.
Why do people keep producing loads of different movies when they could collaborate and just make one massive movie and then we wouldn't have to bother any more?
This means that it is possible that Grand Theft Rover, the new Rockstar game (one can dream) will be more expensive to make than actually going to Mars and steal a Mars rover.
I suppose that if you want as much realism as possible, then simulation is more expensive than doing an actual real thing. I guess that makes sense. We didn't create an AI yet that creates games for us at GTA-scale and quality.
https://www.gameshedge.com/rockstar-games-employees-face-sex...
https://kotaku.com/inside-rockstar-games-culture-of-crunch-1...
Are these scientists working for Isro previously worked for other organizations like NASA where they acquired know how from?
And if it's really homegrown technology, then why we haven't seen better phones or drones or 3d printer or whatever new, coming out of India?
Or does it mean, in India innovation which is not supported by government, doesn't take off?
Not sure why I am being downvoted , I asked this question in good faith.
In short, ISRO has simply learnt to be efficient and adaptive. Relied extensively on first principles and fundamentals. It is an really inspiring story of ingenuity and innovation. More "discovered and developed" than "acquired".
Cryogenic engines were initially bought from Russia, but economic sanctions in the late 90s-mid 2000s forced India to develop its own indigenous cryogenic engines. These were based on the Russian models the Indian engineers were already familiar with, though it delayed the development of India's space program by at least a decade.
America's Surveyor program, which successfully soft landed 5 probes on the moon from 1966-1968, had a total cost of $469 million, again inventing the technology and processes to do this. That comes out to 93.8 million per successful launch or 67 million per launch.
What point are you making exactly?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_program
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/india/ppp-conversion-factor
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/10/health/nasa-chandrayaan-s...
It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
https://mobile.twitter.com/CrazyinRussia/status/115217497268...
you don't seem to have journalism high in you r opinion
NewYrokTimes is perhaps the biggest offender who gets away with this. All I can say is after reading Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, I can never trust NYT.
https://observer.com/2015/04/judith-miller-carried-water-for...
It appears the NYT journos know more about India than Indians, who elected Narendra Modi by landslide majority (last and this term). NYT regularly tries to highlight isolated incidents as communal rift (standard playbook on India).
The more remarkable thing though is they un-fueled the launch vehicle, fixed the issue, made it launch worthy, and launched it in just under one week.
I can't recall a similar recovery in such a short period of time for a project of such magnitude.
Not sure why some folks are upset about the tone of the article. I read the entire article and didn't find anything snarky or condescending towards India and their ambitious space program.
For what it's worth, I'm Indian.
"India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission" is a more unbiased title in my opinion.
https://www.opindia.com/2019/03/the-new-york-times-peddles-a...
Reuters article: https://in.reuters.com/article/space-exploration-india-moon-...
… when you're paying Indian salaries. I'm pretty sure that paying NASA, ESA or JAXA engineers less than 12k USD/year [1] would result in exactly 0 of them staying on the job.
[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/india-aerospace-engineeri...
When ISRO says it took $146 mn to send Chandrayaan 2, it refers only to engineering costs and not personnel costs.
http://www.economicsdiscussion.net/theory-of-cost/engineerin...
Taking the $146 million quoted above at face value, that means 2/3 of Chandrayaan-2's cost was independent of launch cost. Let's say about $100 million.
Another comment here is implying that those $100 million do not include labor. I find that hard to believe; it is (or should be) common knowledge that the bulk or aerospace project costs is labor [2], so it would make no sense to forgo standard accounting practice and only report what amounts to a bill of materials. But if we nevertheless assume that comment is correct, it would mean that you should at least double the estimated cost for developing something equivalent to Chandrayaan-2 at developed-country aerospace salaries. So you would be (optimistically) spending something like $200 million on the probe, and saving maybe $15 million out of a total cost ~ $250 million by launching it from India rather than e.g. the US.
Once the added administration and logistics costs are taken into account, I wonder if you would be saving anything at all.
[1] https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-17-609
[2] Aerospace project management handbook (2017)
local Australian folks recorded 3rd stage footage.
since american media don't do research they followed good old negative path. altho to be fair some of american media is honest but you gotta follow them otherwise google won't tell you about their positive stuff.
India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission after brief delay.
India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission after a week's delay.
India Launches Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission.
they will always say 'india did this good but naah there was something' lol
i feel bad for these type of depressed people who always push salty stuff