India sends probe to Mars

[Camacha]

USA in 1950's and 1960's and India during the last decades are a totally different thing.

To conclude, I'd be totally against shutting down all advanced programs in India "just to focus on the basics". That would be stupid. But sending a probe to Mars? That's aiming too high.

There is no such thing as aiming too high. A country needs a vision to develop. You also seem to miss the point that the space program is running itself, as commercial launches pay for the development. How can you disagree if, in the end, it does not even cost any money?

[Abhishek]

I'm not stereotyping. Stereotyping would be "all of them are", "they are that and that". I've been careful when picking words.

I do think that some of you here have no idea about the state of lives lots of people have in India. You're fixating on metro areas and ignoring the facts about slums, together with the fact that there's more than one billion of people in India, with majority of them living outside large cities, where conditions are even worse.

People in Indian metropolitan slums can call themselves happy when comparing their lives with the lives of people in rural areas.

You're taking some stuff for granted and you don't have a great sense of reality. Modern sewers (I've yet got to hear about a slum having it), clean water, electricity, it looks quite simple. I've experienced electricity and water shortage in the past. It lasted for days. Trust me, it's not fun. Your whole daily routine crumbles to dust. Not many people will think about space stuff if they have to think how to survive without getting a cholera.

What about healthcare? Vaccinations, free ER, sexual education + contraceptives + free abortion clinics, if you have all that, you halt the expansion of the lowest bars on this population pyramid graph

and that's how you start pulling your country out of the mud. Not by launching space probes to Mars.

Ensure that people have their basic needs covered and you'll make orders of magnitude more progress than talking about space to poor little kids in schools. Instead of creating few successful "slumdog millionaires" per decade, you'll lift whole generations on a new level.

Someone said people in slums are happy and that I lack understanding of a different culture. Yeah, right.

Well ok, if they're so happy, it's because they have no dreams. If you tease them with dreams, and give them no realistic opportunity, you're making things worse.

Sir,

With due respect i would like to state that you have no understanding of India.

To feed poor you need money,the money comes from industrialization,trade and commerce.India's space program is a part of India's industrialization process whereby a lot of people get employment directly as well as indirectly.Not to mention the end products of the space program like broadcasting,communication,weather monitoring etc etc benefits the entire society and to inform you india's space program generates revenue for the country by launching foreign satellites.

You probably forgot that India has more people than the combined population of Europe and North America.So the challenges India faces are immense and you cannot solve them with just money.India needs all round development to become prosperous.

You are talking as if India spends nothing on it's social issues and every of it's resources is siphoned off to mars mission.The reality is very different.India spends just so much on it's social issues that it has resulted in a massive current account deficit.

Because of India's gigantic population and it's governance structure of a loosely based federation having weak central and strong state government, it will take India quite some time to solve is myriad issues

[czokletmuss]

I'm not stereotyping. Stereotyping would be "all of them are", "they are that and that". I've been careful when picking words.

Okay, let me play your game and use some cherry-picking to "prove" something. I'll use USA as an example because it has a space program too and, well, it's a good example. First a couple of facts:

1. Do you know that almost 50 million of Americans live on food stamps? Not only this, but do you know that goverment is so desperate that they cut the spending on it recently?

2. Do you know that current USA debt has surpassed 17 trillion dollars?

3. Do you know that there are influential groups in USA who are against teaching evolution in school or against vaccines or against other manifestations of science?

4. Do you know that USA have worse education system than Lithuania, Slovenia, Barbados, Canada or Spain? And that it keeps getting worse?

5. Do you know that unemployment in USA is around 8-14% and amongst the unemployed are recent college graduates who are in debt (college) and struggle to find a job? And that a lot of them are moving back to their parents?

The list can go on and on. So what are the conclusions after this biased cherry-picking? USA is the bankrupting state which barely holds together, there is no future for the young generation, educational system is a mess, fundamentalists are gaining support and economical diversity (beetween the richest and the poorest) are growing, which causes the middle class to die. Who's to blame? Why of course, the space program!

Just think about it - only 99,5% of the budget goes to non-space spendings. It's an outrage. I say we kill NASA and give billions from its budget to the poor and hungry and desperate (did I mention that there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in USA?). What? It's only 0,5% of the budget? Welfare and military spending are much bigger? Nonsense! It's all because of the space exploration!

You see what I'm doing here? I'm doing the same thing you did with India - biased cherry-picking and false conclusions. ISRO budget is $860 million in this fiscal year, India budget is $267 billion. Even if they cancel the space program, where would the money go - to the poor? Or would it be spent on more jet fighters?

Space exploration inspire people. Young people especially - some of them in India will think "Holy crap! We'll sending a mission to Mars and we're still a developing country - think what could we achieve if we truly improve our economy and standard of living". And some of them will become enterpreneurs giving jobs, some politicians fighting with poverty, some engineers and some maybe even the first Indian astronauts. Because that's the power of space exploration - inspiration and courage to dream big:

I think that India is choosing wisely what to do with this $860 million (and that's whole ISOR budget, this mission's budget is much smaller). I think they know what they are doing and it's not up to us to judge them. Personally I can only say - good luck, India, and kodspeed

[peter1981]

He's not wrong ^^

[Javster]

He's not wrong ^^

Avoid posting on such an old thread cos people go mad about it

I wonder when the probe is set to arrive. Will it arrive around the same time as MAVEN?

[_Augustus_]

Am I the only one who thinks they should not be spending money on sending stuff into space when foreign aid is paying to feed their people?

YEAH! THE PROBE IS PROBABLY GONNA CRASH ON IMPACT! Why don't they spend their millions of dollars stopping hunger in THEIR nation instead of sending broken impact probes!

[Kryten]

YEAH! THE PROBE IS PROBABLY GONNA CRASH ON IMPACT! Why don't they spend their millions of dollars stopping hunger in THEIR nation instead of sending broken impact probes!

Have you considered that that's part of what they're doing? ISRO has launched plenty of earth observation and communications sats that directly aid the Indian economy, and they're outright selling launches for profit. They've started running into a problem where other expanding areas of the economy (mostly computing) are starting to eat into their supply of potential workers; hence, stuff like MOM. MOM is a tiny sideshow within even the ISRO budget, never mind the overall Indian government one.

[PakledHostage]

YEAH! THE PROBE IS PROBABLY GONNA CRASH ON IMPACT! Why don't they spend their millions of dollars stopping hunger in THEIR nation instead of sending broken impact probes!

So you bumped a 9 month old thread to make an ignorant and arguably racist post? Classy...

The irony is that India does feed billions of people. It probably even feeds you. It is the second largest agricultural producer overall in the world and the second largest producer of rice and wheat (Ref: Agriculture in India). Your location tag says you live in Connecticut. The United States has slums and poverty too, yet it also spends billions on a space program (not to mention its military). If you are going to publicly cast judgement on India for its space program, maybe you should check the facts and consider them in context first.

[Bloodlance]

Hehe respect and love for all

But , a sidenote, perhaps Kerbal forums is not the best place to throw comments like Augustus did with caps Majority of the community here have a very good grasp on reality and what stuff is happening around the world. And on top of that i am pretty sure we have pretty bright people skimming the forums here.

And , the fact is that Humanity has to expand out of Earth if we are to survive as a species (a fact). So sending probes, and doing stuff to achieve this is a good thing, who ever sends em and what ever happends to them, as long as the outcome is reached.

Peace !

2c