An Indian On the Moon By 2020

turgid writes, "The Hindustan Times reports that the Indian Space Research Organization plans to land an Indian on the Moon by 2020. First, experiments will be conducted to launch, orbit, and recover a capsule. Plans are to launch an Indian into space in 2014. Manned orbital missions will be launched, initially for a day, but eventually lasting a week or more. Expeditions to the Moon are expected to last 15 days to a month." The article doesn't estimate the cost of such a program. The US Apollo program cost about $135 billion (in 2006 dollars), according to Wikipedia.

Re:Outsourcing space???

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing, altho i must say from experience that a number of chinese *are* obsessed with domination, and looking forward to the day..

Infrastructure Please?

[Nabusman]

I've been in India for about a year now. These guys have horrible infrastructure: bad roads, horrible mass transport, not to mention spotty internet. Their education system is pathetic. Any task that involves the government (ie starting a business, importing something for use in a business) takes forever (despite all the bribes given). Yet these idiots are trying to put a man on the moon. Fix the basics first WTF are they doing? The people here are obsessed with copying America and Americans. The problem is that in 1969 America was pretty much set, there were not people killing each other in the country (Naxalites vs the Government), there was no "communist" part in power anywhere (the government right now is actually a colation government in which there is the moderate Congress Party and the leftist Communist party sharing power). In addition to all that why are they sending a person to the moon? Set up a new Hubble telescope or something. Sending someone to the moon is rather pointless, it won't achieve anything whereas a new hubble would maybe expand our knowledge of the universe.

Not even a remote chance that this could happen

[0Seeker0]

Being an American of Indian descent who has spent time in India, I can assure you that this will never happen. India's infrastructure (electricity, roads, communications, etc.) is horrible, and the country refuses to adopt modern methods to improve its vast problems. For example, if a road needs to be build here in the US, the Dept. of Transportation (at whatever appropriate level of government) will assemble a crew of professionals that use modern road-making machinery and techniques. In India, because they wish to appease peasant laborers, only manual labor can be used. The same road that would take two weeks to build here would take over a year in India. Only the simplest of machinery would be allowed, with all the other work coming from unskilled day laborers using shovels and hand tools. The end result is a road that will only last 5 years at best, is not level and doesn't drain water, and took almost a year to build. This is the sad reality, and with the exception of the newest high-tech areas like Bangalore, this is the way projects are tackled in all of India, and it isn't going to change anytime soon. An Indian on the moon? Forget about feasability, I can't even imagine all the people that would need to be bribed to get the project off paper. EVERYTHING in India requires bribes, especially police and bureacrats.

Re:You've got two satellites...

[meringuoid]

If I remember aright, when Kennedy declared the intention to go to the Moon, the USA had fifteen minutes of manned spaceflight experience, from a SpaceShipOne-style suborbital hop. That was in 1961. Eight years later, Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquillity.

The Indians have till 2020? That's fourteen years. It can be done. I doubt it will be done, unless the Indian government is really serious about this, but it's definitely not out of the question.

Advantage would accrue to India, as well. Global prestige, and the perception of their country as technologically sophisticated. People would take homegrown Indian technology more seriously. That could boost the economy a hell of a lot.

chandrayaan

[stilladummy]

The manned mission seems to be an extension (though a gaint leap) from the unmanned mission [wikipedia.org], which has been in the works [hinduonnet.com].

NASA seems to be interested [hinduonnet.com] in sending their payload on the mission. Also http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.p l?file=2006051307181100.htm&date=2006/05/13/&prd=t h& [hinduonnet.com] Read current science article [ias.ac.in] for scientific need and international collaboration (there seem to be countries other than US, Russia, and iRaq) on unmanned mission.

Most points on the debate (poverty, public (though not scientific) infrastructure) have all been beaten to death for the unmanned mission itself. Stop being cynical and think of something interesting.

Yours truly,
a fellow snake charmer.

Re:Let's reinvent the wheel, not help the poor.

[Handpaper]

Is it true that NASA spent millions developing a zero-g pen, and when they got up to Sky Lab they found that the Russians were using pencils?

No. [snopes.com]

Re:Why not go to Mars?

[Iron Condor]

You can copy all technology you want, like other countries have done, and get your jump ahead a lot cheaper and faster.

You can't do that any more. A couple years ago you wanted to shoot something into space, you paid the Americans to do it. They had the rockets, the navigation, guidance, control, communications technology, orbital models, environmental know-how, you name it. But ITAR has made it just about illegal for an American to do anything tech-related that benefits a non-American just over the last couple years. There will never be something like Cassini again. Because of this closing of the tech-door, everybody in the world is now developing their own capabilities. They have to.

The Americans chose to give up what amounted to almost a monopoly. That's their choice. What we're seeing here is merely one of the many, many, many pieces of fallout from that decision.