Kishore032
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Why the Indian Mars mission is more exciting than anyone seems to realize "¦
[Hi all – Greetings. I am a new member to this forum and I am glad to be here. This is my first post].
As a space buff, I've been closely following India's Mars mission Mangalyaan. The media coverage of Mangalyaan – whether it's Indian media, international media, or science and space media – has been largely formulaic. Almost everything I've read seems to fit into one of three formulas: (a) should a poor country like India be "wasting" money on space exploration, (b) is India positioning itself to become a budget player in the $300B space market, or (c) is this the beginning of an Asian space race between India, China and Japan ...
At the expense of sounding snooty, I find the reporting – including those of reputable outlets like the Economist, CNN, Times of India, New York Times, space.com – to be shallow at best, downright incorrect at worst. ISRO's poor communication – which is sciencese translated into bureaucratese – has not particularly helped (more on that later).
I am quite surprised that no one seems to have picked up the REAL technological significance of Mangalyaan "¦
Perhaps I can explain?
Before I get to why the Mangalyaan mission is significant, let me first debunk some of the statements and claims that have been made by media reports and have been quoted in this forum: "At $75M, Mangalyaan is incredibly cheap, compared to say, NASA's MAVEN mission that costs $675M." (Maven launched on Nov 18).
Fallacy: Maven is 10 times more expensive than Mangalyaan.
MAVEN spacecraft's launch weight is nearly twice that of Mangalyaan [2500 Kg 1300Kg]. When it comes to space, the cost-to-weight ratio is not linear; it's exponential. It does not cost twice as much to put a 2Kg craft as a 1Kg craft; but it costs an order of magnitude more than twice to put a 2500Kg craft than a 1250Kg craft. So the blackbox comparison of the cost of one mission against another mission is naïve and silly.
Mangalyaan costs $75M.
Fallacy: Mangalyaan is a bargain at $75M.
I don't know where $75M number came from but it's a completely meaningless number. Here is why:
(a) Launching a spacecraft (much like delivering a baby) is the least of the cost of a space mission. Mangalyaan – which will take 9 ½ months to reach Mars (baby analogy again) – needs a sophisticated infrastructure of for tracking, communication and guidance. The cost of this infrastructure includes people, instruments and strategic geographic locations. So, looking at just the launch cost of $75M is like saying that the cost of a baby is the fee paid to the obstetrician for the delivery. The $75M does not include any of the operational cost after the launch.
(b) But that's minor. Even more egregious omission is the fact that space exploration has a huge fixed cost; Mangalyaan's $75M – wherever that number comes from – does not include any of the fixed costs of building launching pads, command centers, tracking centers, propulsion labs, training centers, creating a supply chain for rare and toxic chemicals, building a deep space communication network, not to mention R&D. So if Mangalyaan's price is fully accounted for (or "costed"), by amortizing and apportioning this fixed cost across missions, MAVEN may even be cheaper than Mangalyaan since NASA flies 10x more missions than ISRO.
In other words, when the media or ISRO says Mangalyaan costs $75M, this is not the same as, say, Apple saying that an iPad costs $399. ISRO did not – and cannot – go and buy a Mangalyaan for $75M like you would go and buy an iPad. Continuing this analogy – With no market for this kind of "iPad", ISRO had to build its own factory to design and manufacture this "iPad". Since NASA has made an order of magnitude more "iPads" from its factory than ISRO, its unit cost is very different than ISRO's and may even be cheaper.
In other words, the variable cost of a single mission is a tiny fraction of the fixed cost. So, talking about the cost of a single space mission is meaningless, bordering on stupidity.
Don't get me wrong. I think Mangalyaan is super-significant; it's likely to change how we think about space, not because this particular mission is cheap, but because Mangalyaan could redefine how we - humanity - think of space exploration in the future.
An uninformed comparison between India and China that almost all media seem to be guilty of: "India will be ahead of China as China failed in their Mars mission." China never launched a Mars mission; China tried to hitch a ride on Russia's super-ambitious Phobos-Grunt that wanted to land on a tiny moon of Mars Phobos and bring back Phobos rock; the Russian launch failed because its Phobos-Grunt failed in one of its ignitions; true, China has not gotten to Mars, but China did not "fail" – the Russian rocket giving China a ride failed].
Stay tuned for Part 2 (hopefully before Mangalyaan enters the transfer orbit tomorrow).
[Hi all – Greetings. I am a new member to this forum and I am glad to be here. This is my first post].
As a space buff, I've been closely following India's Mars mission Mangalyaan. The media coverage of Mangalyaan – whether it's Indian media, international media, or science and space media – has been largely formulaic. Almost everything I've read seems to fit into one of three formulas: (a) should a poor country like India be "wasting" money on space exploration, (b) is India positioning itself to become a budget player in the $300B space market, or (c) is this the beginning of an Asian space race between India, China and Japan ...
At the expense of sounding snooty, I find the reporting – including those of reputable outlets like the Economist, CNN, Times of India, New York Times, space.com – to be shallow at best, downright incorrect at worst. ISRO's poor communication – which is sciencese translated into bureaucratese – has not particularly helped (more on that later).
I am quite surprised that no one seems to have picked up the REAL technological significance of Mangalyaan "¦
Perhaps I can explain?
Before I get to why the Mangalyaan mission is significant, let me first debunk some of the statements and claims that have been made by media reports and have been quoted in this forum: "At $75M, Mangalyaan is incredibly cheap, compared to say, NASA's MAVEN mission that costs $675M." (Maven launched on Nov 18).
Fallacy: Maven is 10 times more expensive than Mangalyaan.
MAVEN spacecraft's launch weight is nearly twice that of Mangalyaan [2500 Kg 1300Kg]. When it comes to space, the cost-to-weight ratio is not linear; it's exponential. It does not cost twice as much to put a 2Kg craft as a 1Kg craft; but it costs an order of magnitude more than twice to put a 2500Kg craft than a 1250Kg craft. So the blackbox comparison of the cost of one mission against another mission is naïve and silly.
Mangalyaan costs $75M.
Fallacy: Mangalyaan is a bargain at $75M.
I don't know where $75M number came from but it's a completely meaningless number. Here is why:
(a) Launching a spacecraft (much like delivering a baby) is the least of the cost of a space mission. Mangalyaan – which will take 9 ½ months to reach Mars (baby analogy again) – needs a sophisticated infrastructure of for tracking, communication and guidance. The cost of this infrastructure includes people, instruments and strategic geographic locations. So, looking at just the launch cost of $75M is like saying that the cost of a baby is the fee paid to the obstetrician for the delivery. The $75M does not include any of the operational cost after the launch.
(b) But that's minor. Even more egregious omission is the fact that space exploration has a huge fixed cost; Mangalyaan's $75M – wherever that number comes from – does not include any of the fixed costs of building launching pads, command centers, tracking centers, propulsion labs, training centers, creating a supply chain for rare and toxic chemicals, building a deep space communication network, not to mention R&D. So if Mangalyaan's price is fully accounted for (or "costed"), by amortizing and apportioning this fixed cost across missions, MAVEN may even be cheaper than Mangalyaan since NASA flies 10x more missions than ISRO.
In other words, when the media or ISRO says Mangalyaan costs $75M, this is not the same as, say, Apple saying that an iPad costs $399. ISRO did not – and cannot – go and buy a Mangalyaan for $75M like you would go and buy an iPad. Continuing this analogy – With no market for this kind of "iPad", ISRO had to build its own factory to design and manufacture this "iPad". Since NASA has made an order of magnitude more "iPads" from its factory than ISRO, its unit cost is very different than ISRO's and may even be cheaper.
In other words, the variable cost of a single mission is a tiny fraction of the fixed cost. So, talking about the cost of a single space mission is meaningless, bordering on stupidity.
Don't get me wrong. I think Mangalyaan is super-significant; it's likely to change how we think about space, not because this particular mission is cheap, but because Mangalyaan could redefine how we - humanity - think of space exploration in the future.
An uninformed comparison between India and China that almost all media seem to be guilty of: "India will be ahead of China as China failed in their Mars mission." China never launched a Mars mission; China tried to hitch a ride on Russia's super-ambitious Phobos-Grunt that wanted to land on a tiny moon of Mars Phobos and bring back Phobos rock; the Russian launch failed because its Phobos-Grunt failed in one of its ignitions; true, China has not gotten to Mars, but China did not "fail" – the Russian rocket giving China a ride failed].
Stay tuned for Part 2 (hopefully before Mangalyaan enters the transfer orbit tomorrow).
::cool2:
