Way to go ISRO!!!
India blasted into the international space race Wednesday with the successful launch of an ambitious two-year mission to study the moon’s landscape.
The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1, or “moon craft” in ancient Sanskrit, launched at 6:20 a.m. (8:50 p.m. ET) from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.
The mission seeks high-resolution imaging of the moon’s surface, especially the permanently shadowed polar regions, according to the Indian Space Research Organization. It will also search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical breakdown of certain lunar rocks, the group said.
And the best part is…….
The Chandrayaan-1 is carrying payloads from the United States, European Union countries Germany, Britain, Sweden and Bulgaria, and India plans to share the data from the mission with other programs, including NASA.
And the most inane part is………..
Critics of the mission have questioned its $80 million price tag, saying the money should have been spent by the government to improve education and fight poverty.
Of course the critics do not account for the fact that the PR advantages of this launch for education and science. Nope, they want to spend millions of dollars on education like they always have….
The government’s education expenditure as a percentage of GDP (blue line in Figure 1) has never ever risen above 4.3% of GDP, despite the target of 6% having been set as far back as 1968 by the Kothari Commission.
And here is the picture of the moon impactor sure to make every one of Indian origin, proud….
Update : This has got to be the funniest take on the moon-mission by India, Indian style!!!
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Liberal Party officials prepared a memo in 2006 warning their incoming new leader to prepare an immediate ad campaign to counter an expected assault from the governing Tories aimed at destabilizing whoever won.
However, Stéphane Dion opted instead to hang onto the bulk of a $4-million war chest he inherited upon taking over the top job, responding to a Tory ad blitz with a limited run of upbeat commercials.
When he announced his decision to step down as Liberal Leader on Monday, Mr. Dion said a Tory onslaught supplemented with substantial amounts of cash helped define him with the public and he never recovered.
So let me get this straight. The “esteemed” Liberal party of Canada wanted to run sleazy campaign ads against conservatives, Dion says no and Dion loses. I don’t understand this. I mean what does it say about us. That we respond to a politician by how much he/she can beat up the opponent in sleaziness? Is that what politics has come down to in Canada?
To be honest, I do not think this is the only reason why Liberals lost. Liberals lost because of lack of direction from Dion and the poor support that the party members gave Dion. Also, the party is moving away from being the party of the people to the party of business just like the conservatives : Maybe it always was the party of the business community but under Dion I thought that this party is very much the party of the people.
I think the party members still have not recoganised the fact that the loss was as theirs as much as it was Dion’s lack of “leadership”. To throw hacks like Michael Ignatieff (a torture supporter) and Bob Rae (his one term in office in Ontario is not fondly remembered) in the ring amongst others is basically saying let’s change the wheels of the car even though the engine’s shot. I know the party needs money right away but to go and pander to the businesses for money instead of rebuilding the party from ground up is disingenuous and insulting to the motto of the Liberal party. I fear that that Liberal party will, after Dion leaves, be competing with conservatives for business political dollars while ignoring the common folk.
The only reason why I was all for the Liberal party was Stephen Dion who showed time and time again to be a classy guy and a moral politician (and there are not many of those these days). I will be following the Liberal party’s shanangins to see what happens next but so far it seems that my love affair with the Liberals is over.
