India lands space craft on Moon's south pole

[odysseus2000]

Do wonder why the billionaire class and nation states, India, Russia, US, get a free pass in polluting the environment with space tourism. The co2 emissions of one space flight, factoring in take off, and co2 emitted directly into the upper atmosphere, must be massive compared to the average person on the planet's co2 emissions. Not expecting helicopter Rishi to do anything on this, but be nice if there was consistency, whilst we're about to have EVs and heat pumps imposed on the general public.

A complicated subject with lots of wild stories & wild false statements: Do a Google & you will find all kinds of answers such as:

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astrop ... s-space-x/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... -polluting

& many others:

In principal rockets can be carbon neutral:

https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2021/ ... cket-fuel/

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Fabulous job of presenting stuff without context laced with massive inaccuracies. At the one moment he is arguing that Russian technology is no good, full of bad workmanship, badly installed, then at the next saying he would not want to fly an f16 there because the Russian air defense would shoot it down. He then goes on to describe how much better the f35 is, doing his best to garnish more sales for US defense industries, arguing that Ukraine should be given these. But given is not what is happening. The US is supplying military hardware via lend lease, as they did to the uk in the second war, creating huge amounts of debt for Ukraine. It took the uk 70 years to pay off US lend lease & who ever controls Ukraine after the war will have many billions of $ of debt to repay. Fascinating how the whole podcast treated the Ukrainian conflict as some kind of good v evil, cartoon like in its simplicity story. This remarkable weaponization of science & technology as like it is some video game & that the only threat to the world is global warming, forgetting that a nuclear war would both be extremely devastating & likely set off a nuclear winter that would counter global warming but not in any good way. The western condemnation of the Ukraine war is not being supported by the emerging powers of China & India & this polarization of the world is not being covered by the weaponisation of science to create an Orwell like vision that ignores all the complexities & dangers of the real situation.

Regards,

I think it's fair comment that the Russian space industry has performed poorly in the last decade, mainly quality control issues.

In the past six years, the Russian space program has seen an abysmal 15 rocket failures. Some of these have been for high-profile customers such as Mexico and Intelsat. Some have carried expensive space probes such as the Fobos-Grunt, an ambitious probe meant to land on Phobos, the Martian moon, but that never even left Earth orbit.

https://slate.com/technology/2017/03/russias-space-program-is-in-trouble.html

Virts does say that the F16 is 'the best plane ever made', and praises it's utility. He does, probably correctly, point out that it isn't the latest technology and is vulnerable to Russian air defences. A well-balanced comment IMO. I doubt if he's under the impression that he will 'garnish more sales for US defense industries' by contributing to a Telegraph podcast. In the longer term, it would make sense for Ukraine to be supplied by more modern aircraft to replace the F16s as is happening in other countries.

I do not know the terms under which the US provides military support to Ukraine and would be interested in finding out more, if you could provide a link that would be helpful. Perhaps the US public does not know this either since I've read that there is much criticism in some quarters about the billions of aid being provided to Ukraine by the US taxpayers. In any case, the Ukrainian economy has been devastated.

As to the podcast describing the 'Ukrainian conflict as some kind of good v evil, cartoon like in its simplicity story', there's some truth in your comment, but it is only a podcast and IMO the actions of the Russian state are accurately described as evil, not a term I use lightly.

I agree that China and India has not condemned the Russian invasion as has the West has done, but that's self-interest or realpolitik and entirely predictable. We seem to have gone off topic for this thread, my apologies.

RC

Here is a link to the Ukraine lend lease act:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine ... ct_of_2022

The science of of space flight is best kept clear of the politics, but near impossible to do. Space rockets & associated hard ware often attract high margins & the seeding of fear & doubt about competing business is some thing many are well paid to do as well as those who are motivated by what they see as their patriotic duty to defend good over evil with good & evil open to interpretation. This weaponisation of science is a bad thing, but it is now impossible to study either science or technology assuming that what are presented as facts are true.

Regards,

[scotia]

The US is supplying military hardware via lend lease, as they did to the uk in the second war, creating huge amounts of debt for Ukraine. It took the uk 70 years to pay off US lend lease
Regards,

On lease-lend (from the US to the UK), from Wiki:-
Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice, most equipment was destroyed, although some hardware (such as ships) was returned after the war.
(although not really relevant to the Indian Moon shot)

[odysseus2000]

The US is supplying military hardware via lend lease, as they did to the uk in the second war, creating huge amounts of debt for Ukraine. It took the uk 70 years to pay off US lend lease
Regards,

On lease-lend (from the US to the UK), from Wiki:-
Materiel delivered under the act was supplied at no cost, to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice, most equipment was destroyed, although some hardware (such as ships) was returned after the war.
(although not really relevant to the Indian Moon shot)

How super interesting. Clearly I had this wrong and the ex CIA on the Lex Fridman podcast (28 mins 50) to 30 mins also has this wrong:

https://youtu.be/T3FC7qIAGZk?si=lBRO5UEikYUy8myO

He also says the UK did not repay lend lease till 2020 whereas the last payment seems to have been 2006 and was not for lend lease, but for debt taken on after the war. However, it is, as so often, complicated as although the UK does not appear to have repaid lend lease for the war, the UK did give technical information such as Radar, Jet engines, Tube-Alloy (UK nuclear bomb research), some rights to Caribbean islands and various other odds and sods of potentially great value to the US. Russia only repaid a fraction of its lend lease debt, the rest was cancelled, but again Russia did send minerals and gold. So assuming that wiki and other sources can be relied upon, Ukraine will likely be forgiven its lend lease debt, but may feel obliged to use US contractors etc for re-building.

Another take on the Ukraine lend/lease is here, that is more like what the ex-CIA said:

https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/ukr ... ase-myths/

If this can be believed the US has spent $115b on Ukraine:

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much- ... -invasion/

By comparison Nasa in 2023 will receive $23b

The Indian landing on the moon cost $75 million:

https://www.zawya.com/en/world/indian-s ... -q3sxwaun#

Regards,

[chas49]

Moderator Message:
Please note that this is the Science board - the politics of the Ukraine/Russia war and other geopolitical matters unrelated to the Indian spacecraft landing are off-topic. Please desist from continuing the off-topic discussion here (chas49)

[odysseus2000]

More video & information from the science experiments including finding insitu sulphur, possibly from now extinct volcano:

https://youtu.be/7DT_aPxqRgU?si=aZaXirANQ1OB_sL1

Regards,

[Tedx]

India has launched its first observation mission to the Sun, j

I think they're looking for somewhere cooler to live.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-66643805

[kiloran]

India has launched its first observation mission to the Sun, j

I think they're looking for somewhere cooler to live.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-66643805

Ah, but it's not exactly a mission to the sun. It's just going a million miles from earth to observe the sun, so a long, long way from the sun.

--kiloran (waiting for someone to moan about BBC reporting.)

[Tedx]

Ah, the @rse is smart in this one

[stevensfo]

India has launched its first observation mission to the Sun, j

I think they're looking for somewhere cooler to live.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-66643805

Ah, but it's not exactly a mission to the sun. It's just going a million miles from earth to observe the sun, so a long, long way from the sun.

--kiloran (waiting for someone to moan about BBC reporting.)

I believe they're going at night to avoid the heat.



Steve

[odysseus2000]

The distance is chosen so that the space craft feels balancing gravitational attraction from the Earth and the Sun, a so called Lagrange point. At this position the space craft remain fixed without using fuel.

This is common practice for many solar probes that among other things warn about large solar flares before they arrive giving a little time for sensitive space & terrestrial equipment to be put into the most secure defence mode possible to increase the change of riding out the flare without damage.

Regards,

[scotia]

The distance is chosen so that the space craft feels balancing gravitational attraction from the Earth and the Sun, a so called Lagrange point. At this position the space craft remain fixed without using fuel.

Regards,

Not quite - it will be at the Lagrange 1 point, which is an unstable point, and will require periodic minor corrections to stay around that point

[odysseus2000]

interesting 14 minute video on what the Indian moon lander learned & how it makes potential settlements easier to build:

https://youtu.be/E9UA0duyTtk?si=agjzn2GOr2JfUmCg

Regards,