What is even more commendable is that it was done pretty cheaply [1]. Granted the capabilities of some of the other craft are different - but not THAT different.
Add to this the fact that this was a success in the first shot - getting a craft from the Earth to to Mars Orbit correctly in one shot on a meager budget is indeed a stunning success for ISRO.
It cost them $74 million. I'm going to predict it now - in about 10-20 years, wealthy hobbyists will be sending probes to other planets, eventually creating a worldwide community of amateur planet probers.
With my limited understanding of orbital mechanics, it seems pretty hard to get something into a stable orbit around earth, especially if you're aiming for Mars. I wouldn't worry too much about it.
I think interplanetary missions usually start by reaching low earth orbit, and only then burning at the right time to start the interplanetary transfer. So getting stuck in LEO is not that unlikely.
For example, the Russian Fobos-Grunt[1] mars mission got stranded in LEO. Though indeed not in a stable orbit; it did re-enter and burn up two months later.
It's not big satellites in controlled orbits that are a major problem from a space junk standpoint. Mostly it's the smaller fragments that are the problem, which outnumber satellites by a huge margin. Besides which, the easier it would be to launch satellites into orbit the easier, and cheaper, it would be to launch programs for cleaning up debris and abandoned satellites.
It's not big satellites in controlled orbits that are a major problem from a space junk standpoint. Mostly it's the smaller fragments that are the problem, which outnumber satellites by a huge margin. Besides which, the easier it would be to launch satellites into orbit the easier, and cheaper, it would be to launch programs for cleaning up debris and abandoned satellites.
In fact, if launch were significantly cheaper then Earth orbiting satellites could be equipped with special sub-systems designed to deorbit them if the main satellite became inoperable.
I read an article forever ago that a de-orbiting system could be as simple as a bunch of wires being shot from the satellite to the earth; gravity would tug on the wires and slowly pull the satellite out of orbit.
Hey, don't knock Kessler syndrome - it may be the one thing that can save the planet. Sure, it's a Scylla and Charybdis type choice between boosting albedo or having viable space travel, but it may come to that.
Either way, there are practical applications for Kessler syndrome, although in the context discussed here, of course you're right - last thing anyone wants is junk all over the shop while trying to carry out space travel.
What's even more fascinating is that ISRO survived at all, through the cold war. The fact that India has a fledgling space program, despite its problems, strikes me as rather inspiring.
The fact that it was done cheaply stems partly from the fact that there is a factor of ~5-10 between the purchasing-power and corresponding USD value (which is why engineers in India seem to be paid lower in dollar terms).
I've done a lot of work with the Indian government, and yes it can be very corrupted. But from what my friends at ISRO have told me -- and I believe them -- it is a meritocracy of the highest order. Its consistently excellent performance over the years is further testimony to this. ISRO should be an inspiration to the rest of India.
Well, kind of. Remember that these are some really smart kids. The salary mentioned in the salary is equivalent to $10,000 p.a (@exchange rate of 1$ = 60 rupess). Not a lot of money at all.
That's a pretty stupid way to look at it. Compare it with salaries in India, not with USD. It's a lot of money (vs a young Software Engineer in India) if you live in a government sponsored apartment, and get other government benefits too.
That's the equivalent of $50000 in Purchasing Power; so it's not as bad. Although to be fair, a lot of commodities appear to cost a lot more in India, because they are tied (legally or otherwise) to the outside world (blame Indira and her kin!).
It does have less than 1/4 of the payload (by mass) of NASA's MAVEN. So it's not like NASA's much higher budget didn't buy them anything. Still, it is a wonderful thing to show that you don't need NASA sized budgets to do interesting things in space.
It reminds me a bit of Rutherford's famous quip about experiment design, "We don't have any money... we shall have to be clever!"
Indian's ability to come together, organize and execute this mission is a huge credit to them. I hope other space agencies will take a careful look at what they've done and how they've done it, so they can learn from them.
It is so incredibly inspiring to listen to a PM speak about space, science, research and exploration for more than an hour. Does anyone know if this is broadcast on Indian national TV?
I felt mixed about his speech (I listened to it fully). I think it lacked bit of finesse considering it was addressed to country's eminent scientists. But then, perhaps therein lies his genuineness.
MOM spacecraft was launched last year (5th Nov 2013) and today it entered into Martian orbit. Here's the twitter handle of spacecraft: https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter
Given that HN is a more intellectual and educated group and there are no one here who is criticizing about the money spent . But the were skeptics who did criticize initially . It basically represents the sample of the population who probably never understood the meaning of space exploration. Most of them are partially educated or educated with a faulty system. It does not just apply to India, there are people sitting in US congress who thinks NASA is waste of money. Same people would have blamed ISRO for INSAT , GSLV & PSLV back in the days where there were bunch of satellite already doing the similar work. Its only because of those ISRO efforts today we have own geo-censing and satellite communication without having to buy from external agencies or compromise our security .
I think many of the criticisms were around the issue of aid. Pretty much as a result of this mission the UK announced in 2012 it was going to phase out foreign aid to India by 2015 (and replace it with technical assistance).
Great news for India's space program especially considering INR4.54 billion (US$74 million) cost for an interplanetary mission like this, it should be a crash course in frugal space engineering. I really believe ISRO can form a close partnership with NASA in future to launch supply to ISS and much more.
Yes. Chandrayaan-2 (second Moon mission) consisting of a lander and rover is already in the works. Also, with the qualification of GSLV Mk3 medium-heavy lift vehicle and re-entry capsules[1], ISRO would be able to contribute more to "space transportation" missions.
True. I do believe that by doing close collaboration with NASA, ESA etc. India can help accelerate space missions all over the world. It will certainly be a win-win partnership because these Space agencies will save lots of money and India will gain expertise in executing complex missions.
I remember when in 2012, the then PM of India had declared this project. The entire internet community came together to deride this, saying it's not possible in a couple of years and that India had better feed its hungry etc.
I am a very proud Indian today. This achievement, like other by humanity (LHC in particular), will encourage me to push myself towards greatness.
Not a persecution complex. I did not argue then, I don't wish to deride anyone now. It's just that I feel good about this. Developing countries taking to space. Humanity is progressing.
Yes, but the people who do a lot of the criticizing seem to just shrug their shoulders then start criticizing the next thing. As humans, we often don't learn from our mistakes. And in democratic societies, we expend a lot of energy dealing with the noise.
On the other hand, people should have listened to critics before the Titanic, the Hindenburg, the last Columbia launch, the last Challenger launch, the Big Dig, the Iraq War, the launch of the Obamacare websites, and a bunch of other large undertakings.
The critics were wrong in this case, but writing them off as noise can lead to other mistakes.
With exception of the Iraq War and Universal Healthcare websites, pretty much everything was an accident.
Sending an orbiter to Mars is advancing science and knowledge. Aside from the fact that this was an unmanned mission, ambitious projects mostly have an extra element of risk by definition. Inactivity due to that would be stopping advancement.
Besides, India spent USD 75 million on it. It's GDP is 1.877 trillion USD approx. Its peanuts[1].
> With exception of the Iraq War and Universal Healthcare websites, pretty much everything was an accident.
Off the top of my head: Titanic's water bulkheads didn't go all the way to the tops of compartments, Hindenburg didn't use non-flammable helium, and Challenger had known issues with O-rings at low temperatures.
Proud: "feeling deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of one's [b]own[/b] achievements"
By definition neither you or sidcool are proud (unless you actually/literally helped the project), you must be looking for a different word, perhaps pleased
proud:feeling deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of one's own achievements, qualities, or possessions or those of someone with whom one is closely associated.
you conveniently left the second part
"or those of someone with whom one is closely associated."
well then the question is what "closely associated" means, if by being Indian, Chinese, black, white, orange, etc "closely associates" you with them (that group?) then anything does, the fact that we all wear clothes for example, we belong in a group that shares this idea, which then closely associates us, making the word meaningless
It doesn't make the word meaningless at all. There are many orders of granularity in "close association" and the diversity of the usage of the word reflects this. For example a google search for "proud to be human" turns up nearly a million hits. The phrase "proud to be alive" returns yields almost two million. Even "proud to be from the milky way" returns six results.
Your comment has significantly less content than his.
Not that I particularly wanted to mention it until reading your comment, but I also don't particularly understand associating yourself with the activities of strangers who happen to live close to you. It's really not that unusual a viewpoint.
Socialising success. "I'll take some of that, thanks." I've been meaning to give it some proper thought for ages. People celebrating when a sports team wins, as if their own accomplishment. That aside, congrats to ISRO, great stuff.
I believe he /literally/ helped the project by paying his taxes on time.
The government plays ads on local TV channels urging citizens to pay their taxes on time and that the money helps government execute projects like this.
I chuckled reading some of the comments from armchair scientists. This gives me immense hope. For a big part of my life my decisions have been based on other peoples' judgement. Oddly, I feel personally vindicated.
I'd say almost a third of HN comments are intentionally misleading or flat-out wrong. I've seen people include fake link citations to try and prove their point.
Sadly, there are a huge number of phonies on HN. I'll bet many of them have enough karma to downvote too.
> “When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, [Freedom From the Known, Chapter 6][freedom]
Please, stop with the philosophical garbage. I'm not Indian, but I'm proud of them and very happy for them.
We at Hacker News tend to call ourselves hackers, programmers, techies, entrepreneurs, geeks, etc. Are we also being violent?
You can choose to become a programmer, but you can't choose to be born Indian. I imagine you would take offence if I said I am proud to be white? If people keep saying they are proud because of things they didn't choose, then that breeds social differences.
I agree with segmondy. Instead of classifying this news as Indian achievement, we should look forward to it as world's achievement.Surely those guys had it commendable work in such constrained resource! For me, it's new frontier in science...and boy it's cheap! More the affordability, more the chances of discoveries. Remember when a useful pricey thing becomes affordable without loosing usefulness then it's innovation!
I agree with segmondy. Instead of classifying this news as Indian achievement, we should look forward to it as world's achievement.Surely those guys had it commendable work in such constrained resource! For me, it's new frontier in science...and boy it's cheap! More the affordability, more the chances of discoveries. Remember when a useful pricey thing becomes affordable without loosing usefulness then it's an innovation!
Not very deep.Separation is not always violent,sometimes separation is an act of care and sometimes it's an act of prevention.Separation is neccessary.The 'rest of mankind' is sometimes not the space where you want to spend your life in.
Is this really an achievement when someone else could do it in 1965? Is it an achievement when other countries can land rovers on mars? India should be a leader, not follow others' footsteps.
Of course it's an accomplishment, even if others did it long ago. If I successfully run my first marathon (unlikely), it'll still be an accomplishment even though someone else first did it 2500 years ago. Getting a spacecraft into Mars orbit takes skill and careful work. I think it clearly warrants congratulations.
Also, by the way, the first Mars orbiter wasn't in 1965—that was the first successful flyby. The first successful orbiter was Mariner 9 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_9) in 1971.
Maybe I should rephrase. Is this mission a scientific achievement? It could be a economics/accounting/marketing/HR/logistics achievement, but what is new scientifically?
do you understand enough "science" to fathom "scientific achievement"? If the people behind the mission explained to you "science" in it and what are the "scientific achievement", would you understand them?
In the age of NSA sponsored spying, having an independent and largely self-taught space program is indeed a scientific achievement. Especially for a country that's 67 years old.
Let's put aside the science, because they haven't taken the data they wanted yet, so it's impossible to debate, and indeed somewhat beside the point for this 15kg instrument.
The thing about spacecraft is that there is a huge engineering component. The s/c is in a novel environment (vacuum, radiation, cold) and many systems have to work together. You have to figure it all out in advance, using first-principles physics and modeling, and design and build a system that works without further manual intervention. Just getting it there intact is a significant achievement in systems engineering.
Technology demonstration is what this mission was about.
I wouldn't call some bored internet-addicted teens and college cynics "the entire internet community." Just because some opinion is upvoted on sites like reddit, doesn't mean its some sample of the general population or the general internet population. College identity politics and extreme political correctness rules the internet, because that's the politics of those who spend the most time on the internet posting opinions. Its not a mainstream view, in my experience. I think you'll find a lot of ISRO fandom and well-wishers out here. The idea that the developing world shouldn't be performing "great works" is asinine and anti-progress.
Unfortunately, acting cynical and world-weary is going to be popular with young people because it imitates wisdom, but imo, its probably the worst attitude a young person can have. If you're not enthused and motivated you're just not going to be accomplishing anything. I often need to aggressively park my inner critic and gen-x "who cares" or "that's stupid" attitudes. These attitudes been a huge disservice to me my whole life. When I see others engaging in this type of cynicism, I really do pity them because life has so much to offer if you look at it the right way.
>I am a very proud Indian today.
You guys should be proud. This is an incredible achievement, especially when you consider the cost and difficulty of the mission.
Whether intended as a derogatory remark or otherwise, the economical mission cost is a direct consequence of very creative and clever engineering solutions. I remember following the launch, the series of orbit raising manoeuvres to slingshot the craft into a heliocentric orbit to begin the journey towards Mars, there by limiting the costs and enabling to work around mission constraints, was extremely impressive. I wonder if the success of this mission would spark a priority to optimize costs in missions across space agencies around the world.
NASA actually had a rather successful program called "better, faster, cheaper" where we cut back on testing rigour in exchange for 1/2 - 1/3 mission cost
Note for non-Indian readers: "Auto" here is "autorickshaw", the ubiquitous (and cheap!) rickety three-wheelers that zoom about in all of India's cities. And the current official starting fare in Delhi is indeed Rs 25 for 2 km!
165 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 192 ms ] thread[1] https://twitter.com/WSJIndia/status/514591179363864578/photo...
For example, the Russian Fobos-Grunt[1] mars mission got stranded in LEO. Though indeed not in a stable orbit; it did re-enter and burn up two months later.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt
In fact, if launch were significantly cheaper then Earth orbiting satellites could be equipped with special sub-systems designed to deorbit them if the main satellite became inoperable.
Actually, that's rather like an anchor.
Either way, there are practical applications for Kessler syndrome, although in the context discussed here, of course you're right - last thing anyone wants is junk all over the shop while trying to carry out space travel.
The fact that it was done cheaply stems partly from the fact that there is a factor of ~5-10 between the purchasing-power and corresponding USD value (which is why engineers in India seem to be paid lower in dollar terms).
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Another-spectrum-sc...
The salary they mention is IMO very competitive with software jobs, at least at the entry level (http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1ujcmo/we_are_three_i...)
Following books provide an excellent insight on ISRO's beginnings and growth. They are a superb read:
"A Brief History of Rocketry in ISRO" by P V Manoranjan Rao, P Radhakrishnan
"India's Rise as Space Power" by UR Rao
"Wings of Fire" by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, with Dr. Arun Tiwari
While searching for these, I found what appears to be a pretty comprehensive list of books on Indian space program here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33814.0
ISRO is a totally non-commercial, purely research-oriented organization.
[1]: www.drdo.gov.in/
Indian's ability to come together, organize and execute this mission is a huge credit to them. I hope other space agencies will take a careful look at what they've done and how they've done it, so they can learn from them.
As a Canadian, this makes me realize that Canada could just as well have done this. $75 million is less than our government spends on subsidizing our local film industry: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/ems-sgd/me-bpd/20142015/me-bpd02-en...
She's vacationing so I just called and gave her the good news. :-D
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-creates-histo...
First tweet: "What is red, is a planet and is the focus of my orbit?"
Mars Orbit Insertion was covered live on ISRO webcast (http://webcast.isro.gov.in/), Doordarshan National TV and other channels. Here's the complete coverage of MOI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZL_Vwy0JqI
MOI sequence of events: http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mom/status.html
MOM carries five scientific payloads: http://www.isro.org/mars/payload.aspx
Expecting first set of colour pictures from MOM by today evening (IST) :)
https://twitter.com/MarsOrbiter/status/514618412417302528
By the way, here's the picture taken by MCC when MOM was orbiting Earth:
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/earth/mom-f...
[1] http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29440.msg12...
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-youngwor...
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/journey-to-the-red-...
In other news, http://isro.gov.in/ has a <blink> tag :) Some parts of ISRO aren't catching up with technology :))
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation...
[1] http://www.isro.org/rep2014/STS.html
I am a very proud Indian today. This achievement, like other by humanity (LHC in particular), will encourage me to push myself towards greatness.
why the persecution complex ? Yes there was criticism, but there is always criticism of everything on the internet.
Another proud Indian.
The critics were wrong in this case, but writing them off as noise can lead to other mistakes.
Sending an orbiter to Mars is advancing science and knowledge. Aside from the fact that this was an unmanned mission, ambitious projects mostly have an extra element of risk by definition. Inactivity due to that would be stopping advancement.
Besides, India spent USD 75 million on it. It's GDP is 1.877 trillion USD approx. Its peanuts[1].
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361505
Off the top of my head: Titanic's water bulkheads didn't go all the way to the tops of compartments, Hindenburg didn't use non-flammable helium, and Challenger had known issues with O-rings at low temperatures.
By definition neither you or sidcool are proud (unless you actually/literally helped the project), you must be looking for a different word, perhaps pleased
you conveniently left the second part "or those of someone with whom one is closely associated."
Not that I particularly wanted to mention it until reading your comment, but I also don't particularly understand associating yourself with the activities of strangers who happen to live close to you. It's really not that unusual a viewpoint.
The government plays ads on local TV channels urging citizens to pay their taxes on time and that the money helps government execute projects like this.
Government plays ads on local TV channels because a lot of people hide their real income and skip paying taxes, but I digress.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4385241
Sadly, there are a huge number of phonies on HN. I'll bet many of them have enough karma to downvote too.
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, [Freedom From the Known, Chapter 6][freedom]
[freedom]: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-tex...
EDIT: 1971, not 1965
Also, by the way, the first Mars orbiter wasn't in 1965—that was the first successful flyby. The first successful orbiter was Mariner 9 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariner_9) in 1971.
The thing about spacecraft is that there is a huge engineering component. The s/c is in a novel environment (vacuum, radiation, cold) and many systems have to work together. You have to figure it all out in advance, using first-principles physics and modeling, and design and build a system that works without further manual intervention. Just getting it there intact is a significant achievement in systems engineering.
Technology demonstration is what this mission was about.
I wouldn't call some bored internet-addicted teens and college cynics "the entire internet community." Just because some opinion is upvoted on sites like reddit, doesn't mean its some sample of the general population or the general internet population. College identity politics and extreme political correctness rules the internet, because that's the politics of those who spend the most time on the internet posting opinions. Its not a mainstream view, in my experience. I think you'll find a lot of ISRO fandom and well-wishers out here. The idea that the developing world shouldn't be performing "great works" is asinine and anti-progress.
Unfortunately, acting cynical and world-weary is going to be popular with young people because it imitates wisdom, but imo, its probably the worst attitude a young person can have. If you're not enthused and motivated you're just not going to be accomplishing anything. I often need to aggressively park my inner critic and gen-x "who cares" or "that's stupid" attitudes. These attitudes been a huge disservice to me my whole life. When I see others engaging in this type of cynicism, I really do pity them because life has so much to offer if you look at it the right way.
>I am a very proud Indian today.
You guys should be proud. This is an incredible achievement, especially when you consider the cost and difficulty of the mission.
Saying it cheap is derogatory remark. ISRO was thrifty while spending funds on this mission.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2012/April/Pa...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw
India's current IRBMs can target all of China. The goal is to be able to target all of the mainland United States.