HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYBODY........

India has successfully crash landed moon probe on moon's surface. Further details will be posted soon..

some pics sent by chandrayaan

Orbital Outposts....Idea gaining ground

A lot of activity is brewing on the lunar race and space tourism. All the countries having requisite technology are in the plans(either short term or long term) to setup a base either in moon or mars. The lunar race comes after a lull of almost 35 years when US first launched its mission to moon. That was the peak of the cold war. The recent developments however are not the cold war race, rather a show of technological prowess and space tourism is encouraged on its commercial viability.

The race to set up a colony on moon has over shadowed the fact that humans still have to perfect the technology to safe long space journeys. Rather we need to focus our energies which can give us some short term successes, which would boost our efforts for long term plans.
Already the ISS (International Space Station) has proved that its is very costly to even host a facility in LEO (low Earth Orbits). we are still unable to even service ISS efficiently. The space shuttles even after flying for so many years cannot be completely reliable for transportation services. The lunar race will rather put financial strain on all the participant nations. When we are still not able to service ISS, is it worthwhile to use those energies for lunar race, just for the reason that it holds water. The rational given for such a race is that it will augment the resources of the humans. are the costs involved in such expeditions justified when we still need not even know about our own planet completely.

If we really feel that the space crunch on our planet can be solved by further expeditions in space, we need to look out alternative low cost options rather than facing uncertain issues in lunar race.

My Recommendations :
The outward expansion of humans will be possible only if we master the art of space travel, conquer the fears of space difficulties, remove the limitations of physics in development of inter-stellar travel. This all will be possible not by launching a mission to moon or mars but rather perfecting the tech to reach low orbits effectively and efficiently.
We should have more low earth posts like ISS where more developmental work can be done and technologies for further travel could be developed. we could have many benefits by having an orbital outposts like :

• Able to more efficiently observe the incoming dangerous asteroids or meteorites.
  
• The development of physics in an completely new environment, which will help us understand space more better and improve our instruments for further travel.
  
• Mining of incoming meteorites for resources.
  
• Space tourism can help to develop more efficient technologies to launch hman in low eartn orbits by involving private sector. (which is already happening). what further can be done is part the profits of such space tourism companies needs to be shared incommon pool so as develop further technologies.
  
• Space crunch will be solved with less resources as compared to costs involved for setting up bases on moon or mars.
  
• Space travel from space to moon or other planets will be very cheap as most energy is required to escape from earth's gravity which will almost missing while travelling from one space-point to other.
  
• Solar energy can be more efficiently converted into energy as no atmosphere is present.
  
• Development of fuels and rockets in space will help earth get rid of GHG(green house gases) generated from launching of these rockets on earth.
  
• Such colonies will also help to deflect some (though miniuscle) of the suns ultraviolet rays and help to cool the warming earth.
  

I see a ring of orbital space colony which will look like saturn's ring from far off. If anybody has seen movie called "Starship Troopers" can understand what kind of space colony am I envisaging.

Well all the above stated developments will take some time but if the resources now used for moon and mars are diverted towards these causes, then the amount of time required can scaled down dramatically. The foremost requirement is to involve private sector in this so as help reduce costs.

If the world does not rise to these facts let it be so, India should instead focus on the above said achievements so that it can reap the benefits and also make profits from it. If we have a orbital posts, they can be good stopover for flights to further travels. So instead using our energies for long travel, lets harness it towards more relevant objectives.....

Countdown to PSLV C7

On Janurary 10 morning, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) will be launching PSLV C7 from sriharikota launch range, which, if successful, will catapult India into the league of select nations who have the capability to launch reusable launch vehicle. it would be controlled through Satish Dhawan Space Centre located at Sriharikota.

PSLV launch will include Cartosat-2, used for mapping of earth & environment, two foreign satellites- Indonesia's Lupan & Argentina's Pehuensat. It will also carry experimental reusable launch vehicle. This experimental RLV is to demonstrate the RLV technology and further refine it. This RLV would orbit earth for about 10-15 days then would brought down. Initially, it would land using parachutes and splash into ocean, later the tech would be further refined to make it land like an aircraft.
Successful completion of this mission would mean India can now lower costs of launching satellites and also look forward to manned missions which require such critical technology. Further missions of ISRO include Chandrayaan, manned mission to space and also unmanned mission to Mars.

Russian Lunar dreams

RUSSIA wants to join Lunar Race started by USA. The article here almost says that Russia is unable to fund its space dreams although it possesses requisite technology to attain its goals.

In a gradual shift of tactics it has now associated itself with several others to complete its ambitions. It has tied up European Space Agency wherein it will supply the technology for launches in form of rockets and boosters while the European Space Agency will give financial aid and help Russia with upgrading Launch facilities. It also wants to enter into similar kind of agreement with USA. Russia's Energia has the requisite technology and complete rpadmap as how to reach for the stars. Earlier in this same column, an article had expounded how Russia is close to attaining Nuclear Propulsion Rocket with speeds almost to 1/10th of the speed of light (albeit these are theoretical findings, actual tests may show a great variance in performance)

The current article also reveals a fact that China's space plans are based on the technology provided by the Russia and it was not an indigenious program as claimed by them at the time of the manned space launch in 2003.

The bottomline is that we too need to acquire tecnology at great speed irrespective of mode of acquiring the same. The end result has become more important than the means used to attain the same. Better India wakes up to these facts or remains always a laggards in the race.....

Indian Mission to Moon

This week 80 scientists from the whole country gathered to discuss whether India should take up manned mission to moon?

The verdict was very predictable. They voted for a manned mission to moon by 2020. It was agreed that India does have requisite technological capability tp undertake such mission. And we should not overlook other countries ambitious aspirations in these matters. The countries and their activities in focus were Chinese moon plans, Malaysian plan to send their astronaut in space & even pakistan's plans to send their astronaut in space.

We need not look at other countries and decide what we should be doing, rather we should have our own reasons to send a manned mission to moon. The Times of india recently in its editorial have taken critical view of the mission and have raised concerns over the proposed budget of 10 to 15 thousand crores. They feel that this money could be used for other fruitful purposes. The exploration of moon and other heavenly bodies can be done through unmanned or robotic missions. They feel that there is no need to send manned mission and the requisite purpose could be served through unmanned missioons.

We should never overlook the fact that all the major breakthoughs in technology have been the result of the research & development in defence industry and then it has spilled over to the civilian sectors. Then there was report last week detailing that if all the people maintain the lifestyle of the developed nations then even resources of three such worlds would not be enough. In such conditions and compelling reasons, we really do need to upgrade ourselves technologically to confront such situations. We should be ready to satisfy the demands of all the individuals.

India does require a manned mission to moon. Though we assert that we have requisite technology to achieve that but the fact remains that this mission will have lot of other benefits also. Already many of the companies in the developed nations are talking about the space tourism. We need to look at that sector also. The development of our PSLV (polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) also helped the development of our long range missiles. America in its outlook on space technology has offically said that they will restrict the access of space to thse countries which pose security threat to them.

Gievn the above reasons and the conditions of the world, we do need such technologically ambitious missions to equip ourselves. We need to look 15, 20 years in the furture to make decisions and we shoudl not be shortsighted whilst taking such decision. Such mission will give us edge over others and benefits of these will accrue to other also.

already there is huge market for components used in space and related technologies. We also need to tap those markets. This is going to be potentially the gold mine and new fastest growing industry.

Hope we are not left behind in atleast this race......