India's moonshot, why?

Congrats to India!
Syzygys said:
A nice goal for the Indians first would be to whipe off cholera and typhoid fever...
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That strikes me as arrogant and condescending. How dare those upstart Indians launch a moon probe when they've not yet wiped out communicable diseases and poverty?! Did Spain wipe out cholera or typhoid fever before funding Columbus and his alternate route to India? Did England cure all disease before sending her ships all over the world?

Space is the future. If India wants to be a part of it, good for them.
 
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madanthonywayne said:
That strikes me as arrogant and condescending.
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So be it. We don't call them for nothing 3rd world...

Did Spain wipe out cholera or typhoid fever before funding Columbus and his alternate route to India? Did England cure all disease before sending her ships all over the world?
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Only problem with that analogy is that they were the first to do so and there were signifficant business advantages/profitmaking possibilities in doing so. It pays off to be the first. Not #6....

Space is the future.
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My ass. Unless they have spacebicycles...
 
Space is the future of what? Stellar banking? We're going to send all our money there, apparently.
 
madanthonywayne said:
Congrats to India!

That strikes me as arrogant and condescending. How dare those upstart Indians launch a moon probe when they've not yet wiped out communicable diseases and poverty?! Did Spain wipe out cholera or typhoid fever before funding Columbus and his alternate route to India? Did England cure all disease before sending her ships all over the world?

Space is the future. If India wants to be a part of it, good for them.
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I agree with you on this, but not because "Space is the future"

At least 50 million young Indians will be more interested in the hard sciences -That is India's pay off. Their increment of contribution to the Indian economy over their lifetimes will be at least 1000 times the cost of this shot for the moon and discounted to the present at least 50 times greater. There is little that India could do to reduce poverty etc. in the long term as effectively as this moon shot, IMHO.
 
John99 said:
So billions of kids are going to be astronauts? oooooK.
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No they will study the hard sciences including the most import in their life-times - biology at the cell and sub-cell level. India is already a leading center for clinical trials, generic drugs and more drug development efforts are moving there now. They will be a power house, needing the hard sciences manpower. Learning at a distance is making huge strides in China, and India is not far behind.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Just think, 50 years from now, India will be at almost the same point the US was with Skylab.
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lmao... thats a good one. Also, isntead of shooting money in space, they could have feed their 900 million poor souls. Pretty sad to see people commiting suicide in India every day due to poverty while Indian government shooting $$s in space.:eek:
 
luxuries are for the rich, space experiments are a luxury. I thought they had done away with the caste system, guess not.
 
Billy T said:
I agree with you on this, but not because "Space is the future"

At least 50 million young Indians will be more interested in the hard sciences -That is India's pay off. Their increment of contribution to the Indian economy over their lifetimes will be at least 1000 times the cost of this shot for the moon and discounted to the present at least 50 times greater. There is little that India could do to reduce poverty etc. in the long term as effectively as this moon shot, IMHO.
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Geez, always looking for a difference even when there really isn't one. Doing new and exciting things such as a "moon shot" is the way to achieve greatness. Sitting around bitching about how we should feed all the world's poor and make the earth a perfect place before venturing into space is the way to stagnation and death.

As you said, by doing this India will inspire its youth as well as take its place among a select group of nations with the ability and the will to do such a thing. I hope it also inspires some in the West to get off our asses and get back to pushing the boundaries of the possible.
 
What greatness? The greatness of starving your population? Madant, think about this: food for the poor vs firing off another rocket that will tell us SFA more than we already knew.

We've been to the moon. There's nothing there.
 
Syzygys said:
Why not if it is something bad? And going back to the project, the US was first with the Moonshot, not 6th....

The Indians simply could have googled the results. :)
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The point you miss, is that the US Moonshot was a race between the USA and the USSR. Now India are aiming for the Moon, and the it will demonstrate technological superiority over their rivals, Pakistan.
 
Syzygys said:
Meanwhile Pakistan has indoor pluming....
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Hardly;

India;

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 61%
male: 73.4%
female: 47.8% (2001 census)

Pakistan;

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 49.9%
male: 63%
female: 36% (2005 est.)

(Source, CIA World Factbook)

India surpasses Pakistan on many fronts, India is bigger. and better, and they want to demonstrate that.
 
All it says is that Indians are able to read in the outhouse....
 
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