As a proponent of increased space exploration, it's awesome to see the emerging space race between China and India. NASA (a creature of Congress) has stagnated US efforts by hanging on far too long to the failed and obsolete Shuttle platform as the centerpiece of our activities. A diversity of inexpensive US robotic programs are the way forward-- that plus lowering the regulatory and litigation barriers to increased private space launches in the US. It's tragic that we will waste $700 billion on a Wall Street bailout when that amount could send a man to Mars and create a permanent lunar base.

I don't understand the "creature of Congress" slight. China and India both have government-controlled space programs, and they use far less subcontracting than we do.

Let me get this straight... You want to spend $700bn exploring and trying to settle on some rocks in space when our own economy is bleeding itself to death?

I'm not sure how you manage your priorities, but flushing $700bn down the space toilet when your country has a major economic crisis on its hands isn't quite the best use of $700bn either.

One could argue that our economy is in the state its in because we lost sight of real innovation like space exploration and focused instead on trading little pieces of paper with each other that had imaginary money scribbled on them.

Dollar for dollar, space exploration is some of the best money humanity has ever spent. I won't bore you guys again with teflon and velcro and rivet-less fuselages and all of the other wonders that manned space flight has brought to us. Google does that just fine, but have a think about it every once in a while.

My post, and the one I responded to, have absolutely NOTHING to do with the past and all the innovation space exploration brought us. You completely missed my point.

Right now, given our current credit and debt crisis, space exploration (aka extraneous spending) should NOT be at the top of the list. Paying the bills needs to be the focus here, and while space exploration might be the "best money ever spent" as you claim, you might have forgotten that we don't have any money to spend right now.

That there is exactly the point. Its the "we don't have time to build a mill, we've got grain to grind" argument.

It could be that our current plan ends up "pissing 700bn into deep space" regardless.

"failed and obsolete Shuttle platform"

I wouldn't exactly say the Shuttle platform has failed. Nor would I argue that it's obsolete ... yet (although getting there fast).

The original idea that the Shuttle would be reusable and therefore cheap has not really succeeded.

entrepreneurs are always bailing the govt out. Elon musk is building all of NASA's rockets now.

For less than half the price of a new Boeing 787. I'm boggled.

If NASA were allowed to keep the profits from its patents, it would more than pay for itself. Space exploration is a good investment, and I hope we start turning our eyes upward again.

Do 787s pay for themselves over their lifetimes?

I don't think they've reached the end of their lifetimes yet (not even close), and I'm sure they will pay for themselves.

It's too bad they couldn't have taken about half the population of northern pakistan with.

Those types of comments aren't appropriate in this forum. Save that crap for reddit.

Then again, if you look at the Mars rover missions, they have vastly exceeded expections - so over-engineering can be a two-way street.

(Beagle2 might be a counterpoint to that).

>> More than 30% of the sub-systems that went into Chandrayaan-1 were used by us in other operations.

A strategy followed by Indian IT services companies :) See what resources they have got in other projects, pull them over quickly, finish their part and let them go. This way the project's cost won't sky rocket because they are re-using a lot of stuff which on their own would've cost a lot more to build.

I was way impressed with Indians' inventiveness with common material when I was there last.

Could you elaborate?

The scarcity of their everyday lives means they have to hack together innovative uses of what we would consider junk, or do without many of our strictures.

For instance, I bet you've probably seen the youtube video of rush hour traffic merging and crossing on an Indian street without stoplights, signs, or road markings. Maybe even witnessed it first hand if you happen to be Indian. I saw a lot of this kind of driving.

You'll also see interesting combinations of car, bicycle, and motorcycle parts. Someone created a bicycle version of the ubiquitous rickshaw, v. useful for the crowded inner city such as around mosques and temples.

The street food vendors often have constructed their stoves out of random assemblages of metal.

That's about what I can remember right now. Sorry I don't have more instances. I mainly took away the overall impression that the Indian populace, at least in New Delhi, are pretty innovative. This impression of the general Indian psyche is reinforced by people like Ramanujan.

Thanks for elaborating. Yes, I'm Indian. I was just wondering b'cos what you said is different from what I've heard more often (which is some variation of "can't think for themselves/need lots of guidance/need to be told what to do" which I don't buy. But then, I'm biased :) )

I think that's more a function of their academic training than their natural aptitude.

I had a year of similar schooling when I was growing up, and it was pretty stifling.

I will like to say that this is because of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai's Vision!

And APJ Abdul Kalam...

Ofcourse nobody forgets Mr.Missile Man :)

And Mr.Madhavan Nair as well.

And here in India people are impressed when Obama expresses concern US is losing its dominance in space tech. Wish we had a politician like that.