@synlogic Cost of living is lower, but how many middle-class American families employ live-in servants? And the cost of housing in the big Indian cities is sky-high because they're world cities.
@cstross Chandrayaan-3 was a repeat after Chandrayaan-2 crash landed on the moon. Assuming the cost was the same for 2 and 3, then the Indian government spent $180M to the US's $100M to put something on the moon
Also the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover weighed about 1,400kg to Odysseus' 1,900kg and Odysseus is just one of the Intuitive Machines Nova-C landers which are designed to be able to carry 100kg general purpose payloads to the moon's surface
@cstross Hardly an apt comparison. The mission from India (which is a huge accomplishment in itself) proves that well known technological feats can be re-created at lower cost. The Odysseus lander is cutting edge experimental technology in a proof of concept package. I frankly think the NASA program being so close in cost to it is amazing.
@FirefighterGeek Disagree. Prior to Chandrayaan-3, the USA had not successfully soft-landed an uncrewed probe on the Moon since Surveyor 7 in 1968. The Odysseus lander was as much "re-creating a well known technological feat at lower cost" as Chandrayaan-3, SLIM, or the Chang'e program.
@cstross If you look at what they did overall sure, but not if you look at how each was done, the technologies used, and so on. NASA's goal here wasn't just getting to the moon again.
@FirefighterGeek I know what NASA's ostensible goal here was: I think on this scale it's a stunt, or at best, proof-of-concept. We're nowhere near ready for commercial earth-to-luna transport to be a viable market without subsidies so huge they essentially render it a fabrication.
@cstross It's definitely a proof of concept, but how would you suggest we get to viability then?
They're not looking for moon based commerce with private industry on the moon supplying itself at first. No plan to go from nothing to "The Expanse" on a NASA budget.
They're looking to show that outsourcing everything but the "pure science" part to industry is a workable solution that saves huge amounts of time and money.
@FirefighterGeek Why do you assume outsourcing/privatizing stuff saves money?
This is neoliberal capitalist dogma, an article of faith, contradicted by experience in most sectors.
The public sector doesn't need to make a profit on behalf of shareholders. But profit-taking is inherently parasitic—it drains resources from public services.
@carcosa@cstross For all it's accomplishment is important for India's space program, what they did was repeat very old and proven methods. It's not remotely the same thing.
@FirefighterGeek@carcosa Did you follow the Chandrayaan-3 landing? Same autonomous software-controlled touchdown, same on-board algorithms to hunt for a safe spot with no boulders. Very much not the same old stuff the Ranger program used 50+ years ago: very similar to Odyssey.
@FirefighterGeek@carcosa India's first human spaceflight is due later this year; they're planning a space station too. The real race is India v. China. Russia's fallen out of the front rank of successful space programs surprisingly rapidly: the USA still looks healthy, but external political nonsense (Trump and the Dominionists) could potentially scupper that in less than a decade. (I don't think Christian fundamentalists can successfully operate a high tech economy in the long term.)
@weekend_editor They already did: when the news about ULA being up for sale surfaced one of the two leading contenders for a buy-out was a PE firm. (It now looks likely that Blue Origin will buy them.)
@Ash_Crow@CSDNews Apollo is irrelevant here. What's relevant is that India managed to run a lunar landing mission significantly cheaper than a US shoestring-budget private spaceflight mission.
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