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Not heat alone, radiation too crippled India's maiden moon mission, says Madhavan Nair
Bombay News.Net
Tuesday 8th September, 2009 (ANI)
Bangalore, Sep 8 : Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Madhavan Nair has said that heat alone was not the culprit as India's maiden moon mission was called off much before its scheduled lifecycle recently.
A combination of factors including radiation, caused calling off of the mission.
As experts from across the country and abroad began a review of the mission here on Monday, Nair said, "We have designed spacecraft in such a way that cooling sufficiently takes place and it was brought well within an acceptable range of about 40 degrees. But you know one aspect is that failure rate of devices increases when the temperature goes up. That component, with the particle radiation, it can make things worse. So the combination of these two factors only has made this, I can say, the premature termination of the mission."
"There is nothing like mistake, it is a process of learning. When we go to unknown territories we come across newer features; that feature has to be absorbed in our future plan," he added.
ISRO had on August 30 formally called off Chandrayaan-1, India's first moon mission, after it lost contact with the craft a day earlier.
The 79-million dollars mission was launched amid national euphoria last October, putting India in the Asian space race alongside rival China, reinforcing its claim to be considered a global power.
A probe vehicle landed on the moon a month later and sent back images of the lunar surface.
But a critical sensor in the main craft, orbiting the moon, malfunctioned in July, raising fears that the two-year mission might have to be curtailed.
The Chandrayaan-1 was launched on October 22, by PSLV-C11 and it has put India in an elite lunar club of which Russia, the USA, Japan, China and European Space Agency are the members.
One of the mission's main aims was to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but could be an energy source in the future in nuclear fusion.
ISRO has plans to send a manned mission to space in four years' time and eventually on to Mars.  Email this story to a friend
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Indian
09-09-09, 06:20 AM |
Not heat alone, radiation too crippled India's maiden moon mission, says Madhavan Nair
Some people say that the moon mission is a waste of money. USD 80 million translates into USD 0.08 (=Rs 3.90) per person in India (pop 1 billion). Therefore Chandrayaan is cheap to the tax payer. What India needs is to have a manned moon landing that would electrify and unite the nation. This will allow us to showcase our technological prowess and allow investments to come into other technology sectors. This would lead to jobs not only for the technology workers but other sectors as well. A technology company will need clerks, cleaners, food caterers etc who would enhance the supply chain not just the technology workers. I urge all of you please don’t listen to idiots who say that poverty needs to eliminated before launching rockets. Poverty will be eliminated BY launching rockets. The same people who oppose the space program today are the ones who opposed computers in the name of saving jobs for the masses. They will keep opposing technology enhancement in order to ensure that there are no job losses.
Looking at it at another perspective, the race to claim extraterrestrial land has begun just like how the European powers of 1400s raced to conquer the new world. The first Portuguese ships that came to India returned pretty much empty handed, but they followed up and held Goa till 1961. The UK were latecomers but see how much they conquered. Our Mughal empire could have taken over Australia with the military might they had but Britain sailed right past India and today Indians need to apply visa and are being beaten up there. One day China is going to conquer the moon and mars and they too will require Indian citizens to apply for visa. They may waive the requirements for Pakis and may even grant them some territory. Imagine the Paki flag on the moon and mars.
Let us know your thought on how we can conquer the moon and mars.
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