Posted on 09/25/2014 8:30:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
India's space programme has succeeded at the first attempt where others have failed - by sending an operational mission to Mars.
The Mangalyaan satellite was confirmed to be in orbit shortly after 0800, Indian time. It is, without doubt, a considerable achievement.
This is a mission that has been budgeted at 4.5bn rupees ($74m), which, by Western standards, is staggeringly cheap.
The American Maven orbiter that arrived at the Red Planet on Monday is costing almost 10 times as much.
Back in June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi even quipped that India's real-life Martian adventure was costing less than the make-believe Hollywood film Gravity.
Even Bollywood sci-fi movies like Ra.One cost a good chunk of what it has taken to get Mangalyaan to Mars.
So how has India done it? For sure, people costs are less in this populous nation, and the scientists and engineers working on any space mission are always the largest part of the ticket price.
Home-grown components and technologies have also been prioritised over expensive foreign imports.
But, in addition, India has been careful to do things simply.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Actually, NASA also paid their engineers (particularly young ones) squat, at least in the 80’s. I worked with a guy who too a job with NASA in Huntsville - for a significant pay cut! But he was young, and darned near nothing looked better on your resume’. I was joking with him that his mother was on the phone for days telling everyone that her son got a job with NASA - even people she didn’t know! I’m not so sure that it carries that kind of weight these days...
Another “company” whose prestige is worth salary money is UL. Their pay wasn’t very good (at least in the 80’s, I believe they are not-for-profit, but if you wanted to be a successful/respected product safety engineer, putting some time in there was instant cred for the rest of your career.
“Our first mission taught the engineering world an expensive lesson.”
One of my bosses made a statement that has haunted me throughout my career: “The pioneers take the arrows - then, the settlers come waltzing in”.
“For some very weird reason trying to reach Mars has seen a disproportionate amount of failures compared to satellites sent to other planets in our solar system.”
To make things worse, Mars has enough of an atmosphere and gravity to make landings tricky, but not enough atmosphere to make them easy (small parachutes deployed at lower altitudes) - which is why they have used so many creative ways to soft-land spacecraft.
Well, India’s space program has no budget line for “outreach to the Muslim World”. . .
Else some are running afoul of the still partially active old Martian orbital defenses.
Because anything run by govt. bureaucrats is more expensive.
I’ve been in aerospace since ‘71 and started working “Blue Shuttle” in ‘78.
While they made a bit less than we contractors, it was a good salary.
The Indian workers in the U.S. telecom industry have their salary “managed” from the home office in India. Their net pay is a step above slave wages.
Me too.
They didn't have the easy option of ever faster processors and abundant cheap memory. This forced a culture of slimmed down elegant software.
[ For some very weird reason trying to reach Mars has seen a disproportionate amount of failures compared to satellites sent to other planets in our solar system.
Some suspect sabotage. Others say there is a curse.
The Mars Curse
http://www.universetoday.com/13267/the-mars-curse-why-have-so-many-missions-failed/
]
Cue ancient “Aliens” Guy...
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