yet another step

sadhuji

The Discovery has made a safe landing and has taken us one more step ahead.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...touchdown.html

It has taken us nearly 50 years to arrive at this stage of our journey that we started with the Russian dog Lyka way back in the fifties (3rd November 1957 to be precise). http://www.russianspaceweb.com/chronology_XX.html. After the disaster of Columbia, in which we lost a number of experts, including our own Kalpana Chawla, this event is yet another milestone to get nearer to the planets and continue our desire to conquer space.

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was launched into space aboard the Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963, becoming the first woman to visit outer space. She spent three days aloft before returning safely to earth. The flight made Tereshkova a national hero and she was awarded the high honor of the Order of Lenin.
http://www.who2.com/valentinatereshkova.html

Then came the first man on the Moon, Neil Asrmstrong on 21st July 1969.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2635845.stm

The manned space program of the Indian Space Research Organisation has depended entirely upon Russia, and the first Indian cosmonaut became the 138th man into space, he spent eight days in space aboard Salyut 7. Launched along with two other Soviet cosmonauts aboard Soyuz-T11 on 02 April 1984, was then-Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, a 35 year old Indian Air Force pilot.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/SPACE/space-human.html

He immortalised himself in Indian History and made his way into many Indians hearts , by his answer to the then PM Indira Gandhi's Question on How India looked from Outer Space. He replied "Saare Jahan Se Achha" (The Best in the World).
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Awards/awaac.htm

Kalpana Chawla, born in Karnal, India. Died on February 1, 2003 over the southern United States when Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew perished during entry, 16 minutes prior to scheduled landing. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/chawla.html

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mooning over a moon journey

Paagla Dashu

A step, yes.

Significant, yes.

But towards what?

What is the use of scientific advancement if the whole civilised world cannot come up with a solution to reduce the number of child deaths from starvation every year?

Making progress is not enough - it has to be in the right direction as well. If the direction is not right then all the acceleration will result in us reaching the wrong place quicker.

andygoodyear

I agree Paagla Dashu - I see youve changed your avatar btw!

Whats the point in going into space further when we are still at war with eachother, children die, mass poverty etc...

crvlvr

With all due respect, if mankind just focused on feeding starving children and not on scientific advancements, We would not have the WWW, or IM a or the keyboard I am using to the type in this message. We should rememebr, a lot of useful/practical developments have come out of the most irrevelant inventions. for example, the internet spawned from a military network. Some times we just don't where the journey is going to take us.

sadhuji

yes, the caveman lit fires by rubbing twigs, the wheel came in the form of the log of a tree.till recently, postcards were used to convey the well being of families. scenerios have certainly changed - for the good of everybody.

Paagla Dashu

How much funding is needed for AIDS vaccine research and for producing cheaper drugs for treating HIV patients? And how much is the shortfall?

Compare that to the amount of money spent on space and defence research.

Technical progress in any field is good. At times its a question of prioritisation and choosing the ones that will benefit the largest section of the population.

ddevadatta

I find it intriguing that some agendas (noble as they are) ought to take priority just because we pose the issue in such a way. Society doesn't work that way at all, at least in the real world.

When a space agency is setting its budget (or any other entity) it is doing so because it has a mission, purpose, direction, goals and hopefully also results and accountability. Why should they be concerned about starving children and have their priorities chanaged? Multiply this with the innumerable agencies, institutions etc and the only appropriate evaluation is whether they doing what they are suppossed to be doing.

Now there are also governmental, NGO's, non-profits and individuals who do their share to assist children and hunger and many other tragedies. Can we be more effective? Surely we all can as I can be more effective in my own personal life.

But to confuse institutions etc. with a certain agenda is not part of real world economics or even effective strategy of addressing even a noble cause.

Poverty, hunger etc. has many regional causes and merely throwing money at it doesn't fully (please do not hear that money is unimportant; it is crucial) solve the problems though the sentiments seem very worthy to me...

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Ayurvedic cure for an Indian headache

Paagla Dashu

DD, you are absolutely right. The space agency has no reason to be concerned about anything but its own vision and programme.

The problem is - they are not self-funded. The money they spend to make their dreams reality come from the taxpayers (of countries with space programmes directly or indirectly from citizens of other countries as well). When different agencies compete for limited resources, thats when the debate on what is more important becomes a necessity and relevant. Its a fact that there isnot enough funding available for research on HIV/AIDS and certainly not enough to make the medicines more affordable.

That is when the ability of our leaders to choose the projects (for funding) that will bring maximum benefit to mankind becomes crucial.

ddevadatta

Pag:

It would seem to me that this is happenning already. You are right that there needs to be more vigorous debates. But the question is still what is the maximum benefit for all makind. You may answer that by saying more funds for HIV or feed starving children, I would say that really doesn't provide maximum benefit for all mankind. It might help those who suffer from it (and please hear me say that is important and necessary) but I would disagree that by doing that we provide maximum benefit for all.

Getting back to space, the notion of space exploration is in the same vein as any research or exploration. One never knows what benefits might come about it till years down the road. That is the very essence of human exploration in any field. All that takes time and nations/peoples that are willing to to take the risk, make the investmnents will not only be rewarded but also others who are unwilling/unable to take such risks will benefit from it as well. That is why I find it intriguing that those who are unable (not you as a person) to take such riks and make actual investments would criticize those who do.

Exploration, for example, is all about expanding the pie of resources(long term that is) not so much trying to divide up a perpetual limited pie. Perhaps a basic distinction between capitalist vs socialist views of society and economics. underlies our perspectives but then I may be wrong about that.

I think also one has to see this realistically. More money has been provided for AIDS research (to use your example) than for breast cancer even though breast cancer kills more people each year here in the USA. The political agenda underlying some of these causes cannot be ignored in this discussion.

Thanks for the healthy debate Pag...