India launches Asia's first mission to Mars

Asia Times ^ | 11/08/2013 | Raja Murthy

[TexGrill]

For 99.9% of our tenure on Earth we've been wanderers. ... And the next place to wander to is Mars. - Carl Sagan (1943-1996), cosmologist, New York, 1976.

Asia's first Mars mission took off on November 5 from India's south-east coast, in a blaze of fire, vapor and humanity's happily soaring aspirations in outer space.

The Mars craft-loaded rocket, blasting off like a US$72 million version of Diwali festival fireworks, made India the third country to attempt a Mars visit - after the United States and Russia. The European Space Agency has also targeted the red planet.

The 1,340-kilogram Mars Orbiter Spacecraft aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25) was unofficially dubbed

"Mangalyaan" in the media. If all goes well, it will reach Mars next September 2014. That's when Mars orbits 365 million kilometers from Earth, circling the other side of the Sun.

History gives Asia's first attempt to reach Mars a bare 30% chance of success. Only 21 of 51 Mars-heading efforts have reached their destination. India would be hoping not to join the US, Russia and the European Space Agency - all failed to reach Mars in their first try.

[TexGrill]

Global business tip

[Berlin_Freeper]

- all failed to reach Mars in their first try.

[SeminoleCounty]

India prolly should first make sure their citizens are not peeing and pooping in their drinking water before going to Mars

[James C. Bennett]

This Mars mission cost India $72 million - mere pennies for a nation its size.

The payoff from a successful mission is tremendous, both in terms of the increase in the country’s scientific and engineering skillsets, and in marketing its relatively highly successful space program to future foreign clients.

Those who talk of halting scientific pursuits in the name of spending the money on wealth redistribution are typically Communists, but often fools. And sometimes, both.

[TexasRepublic]

I read on the BBC website that there had been a “snag” firing a booster to lift the spacecraft to higher earth orbit. They have enough fuel to try again, but a second failure will probably doom the mission before it leaves earth. A country with such poverty yet as India has no business pooping off their money with space missions — few countries can really afford it, much less succeed.