India lands moon probe -- for your consideration

[antimatter98]

Source: BBC

India lands unmanned probe on the Moon.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7730157.stm

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[drm604]

1. Good for them!

:applause:

[OnyxCollie]

2. Next thing, they'll be opening a call center there. nt

[OhioChick]

21. .....

:rofl:

[hootinholler]

24. Either that or a 7-11 n/t

[ChromeFoundry]

27. Would you like a ....

[dipsydoodle]

3. Maybe something got lost in translation

I think the picture of the CHANDRAYAAN 1 is actually a food dispenser.

Press :
1 for chicken tikka marsala
2 for lamb rogan josh
3 for chicken korma
4 for eggfried rice
5 for onion bhajees
6 for sag alloo
7 for nan bread

[TheCoxwain]

30. Jeez they have taken over the Space Highway Rest Area market

Serving CTM and other goodies for the Inter Galactic hitch hikers ...

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

4. Nice.

The only way more space exploration will get done is if more countries join in. There's no way America can do it alone, especially considering we're retiring the shuttles and not replacing them.

[Gullvann]

7. BTW: Has Obama ever talked about

his vision for the space program?

I guess in these economic times it is not quite the thing that is first on the agenda...

[starroute]

35. Yes, he has

http://www.space.com/news/081110-sn-obama-nasa-decision.html

As U.S. President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office in January, he does so having offered more specifics about his plans for NASA than any U.S. presidential candidate in history.

First and foremost, Obama pledged during the closing months of the campaign to add $2 billion to the U.S. space agency's budget to narrow the gap between the space shuttle's retirement and the first flight of its successor.

The pledge, which he made for the first time in August and repeated in recent weeks as he and his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain of Arizona, courted Space Coast voters in the swing state of Florida, was a far cry from Obama's first public position on the U.S. space program.

Obama gave NASA's Orion and Ares contractors plenty of cause for concern in November 2007 when he proposed paying for an $18 billion education plan in part by "delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years." By January, however, Obama's space policy had evolved. The campaign released a position paper pledging Obama's support for completing the International Space Station, retiring the space shuttle and replacing it with Orion and Ares sooner than later. The move put Obama's space policy in synch with the exploration blueprint unveiled four years earlier by President George Bush and subsequently endorsed by Congress.

[Gullvann]

39. Thank you.

My two first memories of the United States was the Space Shuttle, and sitting up with my dad all night watching the elections in 1979.

[sledgehammer]

8. Time to refocus

The recent lack of attention paid by the US to space, science, etc. is really sad. We need to get back in the lead. Whether on our own or with others. I have been impressed with the Mars missions though, so I guess it's not been all bad (but I think those initiatives were established well before this administration).

Thankfully Obama will work to fund stem cell research, which will give a boost to biotech innovation. Not sure what his view on space exploration is. I hope he's in favor of expanding it. The war on science needs to end. The religious right's efforts to take us back to Biblical days better stop asap.

But well done India - this is a major accomplishment and a sign of things to come. Maybe the competition from India, China, etc. will spur us on.

[Ian David]

11. NASA has traditionally been The Vice President's sanbox to play in.

I expect MBNA to open a branch on Lunae Planum in a couple years.

India's just setting-up the Call Center today.

[Phred42]

5. Pakistan will go nuts now

[clspector]

6. In all fairness,

that's not a far trip these days.

[sledgehammer]

10. Not really...

I think Pakistan has finally accepted that it doesn't compete with India technologically anymore. And this is certainly not a security threat. India doesn't need space exploration to challenge Pakistan - conventional and nuclear weaponry is enough. Pakistanis are probably quite impressed with India on this.

Pakistan's relations with India have actually improved a lot. Even the Kashmir issue is on the backburner. India's biggest concern with Pakistan is the religious extremism from Pakistan spreading over into India, which even India truly realizes is not funded by the govt of Pakistan (though they do believe the Army is somewhat involved). Pakistan's biggest concern is India's growing relationship with Iran and Afghanistan, which threatens to isolate Pakistan.

[JI7]

13. Pakistan doesn't care about this stuff

their rivalry with India is all about religion . on other stuff they tend to view themselves as being part of india. the movie industry is one example.

[cosmicone]

17. Pakistan is already nuts, has always been ... n/t

[ellie]

9. I wonder if the aliens

are still there, mining the moon.

[zehnkatzen]

12. We Should Have Had a Moonbase up there by now, though.

Not to take away from India or anyone else, but back in the 70s it looked like we'd be building a city up there Any Day Now.

We can make a coffee that can put you to sleep, but we can't send a man to the moon. *sigh*.

[pokerfan]

20. We should never have scrapped Apollo

Or we should have followed it up with http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nova.htm">Nova or something equivalent.

Sure, the shuttle was "reusable" but actually not very efficient. Launching all that mass into LEO only to have to return 80% to Earth ten days later, netting a 20% payload. How many launches (US and Russian) has it taken to assemble the ISS? Fifty, sixty? That's insanity. The Saturn V could have tossed up that much mass in three launches for far less cost.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nova.htm">

[Terran]

14. I just heard a report on NPR about this...the probe will analyze

the moon's atmosphere? Um, what? The moon has an atmosphere?

[Gullvann]

15. The atmosphere of the Moon is very tenuous

and insignificant in comparison with that of the Earth. One source of the lunar atmosphere is outgassing: the release of gases such as radon that originate from radioactive decay within the crust and mantle. Another important source is the bombardment of the lunar surface by micrometeorites, the solar wind, and sunlight, in a process known as sputtering.

Thanks to wikipedia :-)

[Terran]

25. Ah, thanks

Who knew? :shrug:

[TheCoxwain]

18. it has a very tenous atmosphere according the bbc website. Just like my bank balance ..

:rofl:

[Terran]

26. Heh...mine too.

:fistbump:

[treestar]

16. OH, NOES!!! Now they're taking the moon too!

Those damn H-1Bs!!!! Next we'll be outsourcing astronauts!

:sarcasm:

[OhioChick]

23. And hopefully lawyers!!!

:rofl:

[Azlady]

36. don't forget the bill collections!

[formercia]

19. I guess the Indians know the difference between

Metric and Imperial units.


Why are we still using the Imperial units and not Metric? I think it's a plot to keep America stupid and uncompetitive.

[GinaMaria]

29. I remember being taught metrics in school because

metrics was the way of the future. We were all going to be using metrics in the future, so they were preparing us. What happened. It's like metrics never existed :shrug:

[Gullvann]

31. I went to school in Colorado.

We all used metrics.

Off course, we actually did calculate satellite orbits so it helped :-P

[sledgehammer]

37. Interesting...

I wonder if any one state will take the lead and set a date to require the exclusive use of the metric system throughout education, business, and living. Maybe other states would follow.

[Gullvann]

38. This was in an Space Engineering course at CU though

At that level, it pretty much is all metric :-)

[Cobalt-60]

41. We were metric system in 84

I was 1n Aerospace Engineering.
Of course we learned the old units and had to sweat through problems with them.
They also appeared in older text and reference books.
Most of the time I would convert to MKS do my calculations and then convert back to old units.

[TrogL]

34. You're pretty much the last holdouts

We're metric in Canada and everybody functions fine. For some wierd reason, the Safeway store marks the fruit in metric and Imperial.

The only other thing that's still in Imperial is aircraft navigation.

[soothsayer]

22. Good thing they went when it was full! Imagine trying to land it if the moon

were just a crescent...or less! Phew!

[Gullvann]

32. Funny :-)

Never heard that moon joke before.

[GinaMaria]

28. Good for them!

That's exciting news

[DU GrovelBot]

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[TankLV]

40. talk about out-sourcing!

and you all thought it was tough getting thru to customer service before...

[Cobalt-60]

42. Well done

Both the orbiter and the hard lander.
Id rather we had kept our momentum in space.
I'm relieved someone is picking up the slack.