I've been on HN for many years and my recollection is that the community here has been very supportive and encouraging of India's efforts in space technology.
Unless your memory is selective - you may recall that the support was far from unanimous. I recall a number of HNers stating that the ISRO budget would be better spent on other 'more pressing' challenges India is facing (poverty, sanitation). In fairness, there was a lot of push-back against the naysayers, stating why the space program is money well spent (the most prominent benefits I recall were improved weather predictions benefit farming and cheaper/better telecoms)
--edit: added stuff below this line--
The naysayers have made an appearance in this very thread. They are currently being downvoted (I expect nothing less from HN).
If we really want to colonize space we need self sustaining habitats and highly compact and automated manufacturing from raw materials. Both can be done while staying on earth, and sending people up or yet another probe is mostly pointless.
Good thing they are lifting telecom & weather sats too! It's reasonable to say those are not pointless.
It's unreasonable to put space programs on hold while we try to solve the human condition. There is no political will or even widespread support. People are horrible - they worry about themselves, their families, their neighbourhoods, towns and countries in that order. "Self-sustaining habitats, pffft, not with my hard-earned tax dollars. Build my kid's school a bigger stadium than last years'"
https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-...
Especially considering the general negative narrative of misplaced priorities of a thirdworld country from the likes of bbc/guardian/nytimes, HN is a breath of fresh air - probably because HN community is more optimistic about the positive impact of tech, and bbc/guardian/nytimes are not, and sees feeding the hungry and investing in R&D as mutually exclusive.
I remember a large number of users who were enthusiastically supportive.
Mostly what I remember is how quickly the conversation dove into people wondering why the American program was expensive, then discussions on Musk.
The mission was just straight up cool and everyone was kicked to see it succeed.
(I think many people here are still kicked that we as a species could get a satellite that far, and at that cost)
Make a statement about how it's disappointing about the lack of support for X, even though the opposite is true.
Plebs then rush to upvote this statement because they (like the majority) do support X.
Disappointing, but it often works.
I had a look at the top voted story on the Mars mission "Why India's Mars mission is so cheap - and thrilling", 392 points https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8361558
and I'm not sure anyone was laughing at it. About the closest anyone got was saying the payload was not very heavy.
The one thing I sometimes complain about is the nationalism. India's no worse than the others on tis front. I'd like (personally) for space exploration to be a human endeavor rather than a national one.
At the end of the day, ISRO will be an Indian space agency and so the nationalism display, sometimes though excessive.
I completely agree that nationalism is horrible for something as important as space colonization. But make no mistake, unless we manage to form an international government before space colonization commences, there will be a scramble for space colonies, much like there was a scramble for colonies on earth.
Due to the complex history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition of the Third World.[1] Some countries in the Communist Bloc, such as Cuba, were often regarded as "Third World". Because many Third World countries were extremely poor, and non-industrialized, it became a stereotype to refer to poor countries as "third world countries", yet the "Third World" term is also often taken to include newly industrialized countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China (see also: BRIC).
Questions comes to my mind are;
- How well(deserved) the engineers were paid during the development?
- How much of the budget were invested in research?
- What are the positive outcomes of the mission?
I think they have some direct effects on the budget as well.
It has nothing to do with third world achievements. It is more about Nehruvian style elites claiming glory in scientific achievements while day-to-day problems that vast underclass is facing goes unanswered because it is tough.
So Indian achievements are in categories where they punish or reward a small group because that is easier than tackling major issues e.g. banning smoking in public places because it is easy but not banning polluting vehicles as it has political repercussions.
Yes India has problems, but doesn't mean that it has to stop progress in all other places until all these problems (poverty, polluting vehicles, etc) are solved. Because guess what, if one problem is solved, the next one comes up.
Progress has to happen on all fronts. Banning cigarettes is good and doesn't have to wait until vehicle pollution is banned. Each will take its own time.
Just because India's Mars mission and satellite launches are taking top spot in the news, doesn't mean that India has now started rewarding only the elite. Its a tiny tiny fraction of India's GDP. We lag behind in so many areas, but we are also progressing in Healthcare, IP laws, Right to food, etc. I don't think anyone even knows that India as a "Right to Information" act. Citizens can direct queries to government offices (offline or online) and beaurocrats get penalized if they respond late. So yes, progress doesn't need to stop.
ISRO saves lives. Their satellites, gave us early warning during the Cyclones 2-3 years ago, allowing for rapid evacuation and relief.
They put food on our plates and help poor farmers plan crops because those satellites are the ones giving us excellent, world class meteorological data.
It's done on a budget so tiny, that the ROI for this division is possibly better than any other government department in India. AND - ISRO launches make money for the organization.
It's an example of excellence in challenging conditions, and everything that Nehruvian style engineering stood for.
They do India proud, and naysayers can be safely ignored.
Heck most of American Fortune 500's are leveraging Indian brains to increase profits. Google is run by an Indian and so is Microsoft. There are Vikram Musks that are already captains of industry in America. Born and raised in India.
India is a country of disparity. Both intellectual and economic. That problem is not going to be solved any time soon. But if Indians want to create companies to compete on the global stage there is not much stopping them other than their own government and financial systems.
That statement is suggestive of an Indian race that's generally not intelligent. Just curious on your country of origin and race, and source of this bias!
Um.
These types of achievements are great though, in the sense that they foster competition and help everyone improve.
But yes, I would agree that they are overrated here on HN. They are by no means the first to try mass-market EV (see: Leaf, ZOE, i3) but somehow seem to get all the credit.
This helps India and also helps neighbouring countries instead of relying on archiac GPS system which US doesn't share with defense systems to countries other than Pakistan