India to launch its first mission to Mars [video]

This is sheer awesomeness, not just with regards to what they are doing but how they are doing it. ISRO is operating at a near throw away budget, almost a near rounding error in India&#x27;s national budget. And these people have delivered at a whole new level.<p>I remember when chandrayaan-1 was launched, that morning I was traveling early morning to office. It was a big moment in the history of Indian space research, we were so excited we were hardly able to work the whole day. ISRO is just redefining how government run institutions must function.<p>On a side note, I went to ISRO as a part of our college&#x27;s industrial tour. Many of my classmates just dismissed the whole thing and never showed up for the tour as they wanted to go to IBM, Microsoft and Google etc. Of the few of us who went there, we had a humbling experience as to what we saw. There were no AC rooms, plush cubicles, carpets and other perks we have in our large Indian IT companies.<p>These people were working on ordinary steel tables, with a near dying fan over their had, windows open and sipping tea in a steel cup for 50 paise. And these guys were writing the control system software that would run on the moon mission. It was an humbling experience.

<p><pre><code> The MOM craft will cary thermal infrared imaging spectrometer to map Mars’ surface composition and mineralogy. These findings — coupled with the information gleaned from the NASA’s Curiosity Rover — will give us a better understanding of Mars’ surface, in preparation for the first human visitors to the Red Planet. </code></pre> So serious question: why do we keep only planning on missions to Mars? It seems like setting up a permanent moonbase would be a very prudent goal to work on at the same time that we are looking to head to mars.

A secondhand anecdote about ISRO: Was out drinking with friends a few years ago when we saw the news about (or was it Leno joking about?) the moon impact probe successfully crashing into the moon.<p>Turns out one of my friends had done his Bachelor&#x27;s engineering project (kind of like the BS Senior Design project in US colleges) at ISRO, and he was working on something that would be part of the probe project. He was there when the goverment pulled off Pokhran.<p>He tells me that because of the diplomatic fallout, all international technology transfer deals ISRO had with various Western organizations <i>instantly</i> were unilaterally canceled by the foreign parties. (Even in the commercial arena, I know of international collaboration projects that were abruptly canceled. I think Pokhran was a very stupid, shortsighted move by the government to score brownie points with the population just to confirm what the world already knew.)<p>My friend estimated the Pokhran fallout set them back at least 4 years, because suddenly a bunch of technology they were expecting to get ready-made, they had to start researching and developing themselves from scratch.<p>And yet when the Moon Impact Probe finally happened, it was <i>right</i> on schedule.

There will be people here who will chastise government for undertaking such an ambitious activity when there are many other problems the country is facing.<p>To all of them: your logic is flawed.

Ad Astra ISRO! Good luck and Godspeed.<p>Two men, once looked out of the bars. One saw the sand and the other saw the stars.<p>(Haters gonna hate and all that ...)

Single line i want to say &quot;Proud to be an Indian&quot;.

This comment has nothing to do with India, ISRO, politics or Mars, but I am curious if anyone with expertise can comment on the clean room practices seen applied in this video. Is it odd that the workers don&#x27;t have on full &#x27;bunny&#x27; suits and have (what seems to be) a relatively large amount of skin&#x2F;hair unprotected? I don&#x27;t know if it matters that much, it just seems a little lax given the cost of failure.

It seems like the article only talks about the MOM probe. What rocket are they going to fly on? Very cool though, especially on the budget constraints! Ad astra per aspera.<p>One day I look forward to seeing my American, Indian, Chinese, African, etc... brothers and sisters on Mars toasting humanity and it&#x27;s achievements. What a glorious day that will be!

The mission may be postponed to 2014 if the US government shutdown continues.

This must happen- India&#x27;s only hope is massive Govt Funded projects that accomplish something and hope the engineering debri to spawn an ecosystem of high tech companies.(hope they dont migrate to the US)

Nice. I hope they put all our politicians on it too.<p>I love science, and I am from India -- but then there are a lot of other economic machinery related things that we need to figure out first. I mean the usual things which are NOT rocket science. By the time ISRO of India matures up, rocketry elsewhere will move away from public institutions to the more competitive and cut-throat marketplace of private players. So I just don&#x27;t see the point, enlighten me if there is one.<p>Besides Indian Government should rather (and at least) be focusing on the more serious issues drowning &#x27;our country in our own poop&#x27; -- things like corruption, poverty, malnutrition, malaria, dengue, power outages etc. What not!<p>[Update: Wow. So many reactions, some name-calling too. All answers address the usual aspects of &#x27;why science should run in parallel and not in series&#x27; and other advantages. These are UNDERSTOOD, for if they&#x27;re not why even discuss?<p>Can someone explain how ISRO is gonna compete tomorrow, and do the same space exploration at a competitive cost, when the rest of the world would have moved to space industry being managed by private players and even start-ups? Someone indicated below that ISRO operates on a shoe-string budget. Can we fix that at least? No, kill the messenger instead.]

I guessed I missed the solution to millions of starving people hanging about with no job prospects.

Really? Resources would be far better spent providing uninterrupted electricity and clean drinking water to its citizens. Instead India spends it&#x27;s capital on trying to promote national pride and patriotism.