Drlee wrote:What in the world makes you think that money government does not spend on space will be spent on curing cancer or building a better cell phone? It won't. Tax money in every country on the planet is nothing more than a political game piece. The politicians will put it wherever the political pressure tells them to put it.
The claim that ALL government spending is wasted is obviously absurd. A good part is wasted because of wrong policy decisions. The decision to develop a space industry is strategic in order to develop a competitive aerospace (and defense) industry (national prestige, technological advancement and other reasons are nothing but window dressing):
For example, despite the American lead in post-war aerospace, Europe managed to catch up with the US in heavy lift launch vehicles and wide-bodied commercial aircraft. In both fields Europe has now well over 50% of the global commercial market. Europe also has satellite manufacturers every bit as good as US manufacturers, even if they cannot succeed on the World market because US military spending allows an economy of scale Europeans cannot match. Thus, in Europe, the investment in space paid off by an internationally competitive space industry employing hundreds of thousands of highly qualified professionals in state of the art technology. This high tech industry is needed in high-cost economies because low-cost jobs migrate to the global South.
In this very restricted market, there is only business for two competitors (it would be impossible for 10 companies making Boeing Jumbo aircraft to survive in the US, for example), all others will make losses and have to go out off business. There is no hope on Earth that Japan (5th place) or India (6th place) can catch up.
OllytheBrit wrote:mention has been made of two recipient countries of UK overseas aid, namely China and India ...
Actually, a tie-up between Indian and British space development would make a lot of sense. Together they could become a major player in the space business, which neither can achieve on its own. The UK still has a lot of technology (even though the Tories butchered UK space development in the name of a free-market ideology) and the Indians can provide a near equatorial launch base.
However, while international cooperation is common in space, a long-term tie-up usually doesn’t work for political reasons (with the notable exception of European joint space development). US/EU cooperation, for example, has always been plagued by budgetary decision on either side of the Atlantic, which sometimes abort joint programs. There have also been numerous projects for launching from space ports abroad, which mostly run into trouble. They are tricky because it puts a multi-billion dollar national program under foreign jurisdiction.
fuser wrote:And all the three times, it has been dealt with but rather than trying to deal with the counterarguments, …
What I said is self-evident. It is beyond me why you don’t understand it. You are just repeating your invalid arguments. Here, the last and final time (in short phrases for dummies):
A)
- development cost = big, manufacturing costs = small
> if you don't have to pay for the development, you save big time
- e.g., heavy lift launcher development 3 to 5 billion, cost of one launch < 100 millions.
> impossible to recoup development cost even with 100 launches, certainly not with half a dozen Isro launches
- If you buy GE or Hughes satellite, the development has already been paid by NASA
- GE makes 50 satellites when Isro makes 2
> GE satellite much cheaper for you: no development cost + economy of scale.
- Isro cannot sell satellites to international customers because GE and Hughes satellite much better.
>> GE satellite much better and far cheaper
>>>
Services provided by said satellites much better and far cheaper.Consequently, there are no economic benefits and space will always be a cost factor (increasingly) without ever generating any economic benefit for India. In the end, all of that glorious national dream will only be a heap of rusty old metal, just like the untold billions worth of Soviet space development.
Instead of understanding this simple fact, you go on a polemic tirade, mechanically denying every word with a cascade of unfounded assertions to add one false assumption upon the other.
Seriously, if anyone is spinning this number, its you trying to put that number in an entirely different context rather than in which it was supposed to be.
You quote a false figure without context. This is the usual spin every space agency in the world uses to fool the public and get a bigger share of the national budget. I have put the figure into context by comparing it to other countries and by using the national budget, which is a direct reference, since the space budget is paid out of the national budget. But even for GDP, India pays more for space than most countries including Japan and China; in relation to the national budget, India pays more than all other countries except Russia and Ukraine.
And if you have 1.3 billion (or more like 2 billion if you add space related funds from other ministries including Earth Sciences and Defense) a year, you have an awful lot of money spent without any economic benefit whatsoever. The cost will increase, but there will never be any economic benefit.
Thus, it is not true that space development is cheap or economically beneficial for India.
Yes, India needs to spend 1.3 billion USD to fund thousands of R&D programs, I agree. But why are you so admant on getting that funding only by scrapping ISRO, that's the thing I can't understand.
I didn't say you have to scrap Isro (even though it’s a bureaucratic monster, but that's your business). I said space development has no economic benefit for India (see A) above). If you want to pursue it anyways, that's fine, but don't pretend there is any economic benefit. By spending the money on economically promising projects you would have a great economic benefit to your country.
And India will not be poor once her space program is scrapped, right? Are you even going to address tons of this and similar questions that has been asked in this thread before making similar idiotic remarks?
You continue with your insults, even though you are incapable of understanding the most basic of facts. I never said that India will be rich by scrapping space. I said that India can benefit from industry R&D in a number of fields to close the technology gap. Even Japan, which is far more advanced, has hardly any economic benefits from space.
its either some sort of Sinophilia (which thinks that India and China are locked in some sort of eternal conflict) or some sort of Indophobia.
Another unfounded personal insinuation. You quote an arbitrary assertion about me from an internet persona you don’t know and who very obviously doesn’t know me. Why am I Sinophile? What has that got to do with anything? Why am I Indophobe by pointing out the fact that it would be more advantageous for India to use very limited resources to develop economically beneficial programs instead of wasting that money? I said space development has no economic benefit to Japan. Does that make me Japanophobe? No, everybody in the industry knows this perfectly well. The same applies to India.
Your habit of denying every single phrase with unfounded arbitrary assertions spiced with polemics is not conductive to a constructive discussion. If you want to elicit a reply from me, I suggest you keep it factual and skip your derisory and insulting language and stop making unfounded personal insinuations, because I don't even read such posts. Your polemics are a momentous waste of time.