MAIN ARTICLE: India's First Manned Spaceship Revealed.
Is another Asian country throwing their hat into the human spaceflight arena? Is there going to be another space race only this time America won't be involved? SpaceTravel.Com brings more from India regarding it's human space flight plans.
Poll Results: Yesterday's poll was a close one. Scroll down for the latest news, click subscribe for more news on space.
Star Trek: In the News. "A "Leverage" episode on TNT with "Star Trek" alum is a Tuesday TV pick"
Yesterday's Comments: "I think my mother in law was driving" - Subo03
Today's Poll: Do you think there is another Space Race forming?
WHAT A HEADLINE:
Ramping up talk is one thing, to actually bend and cut metal is another. India was also in the news recently for suggesting they were on a track for a moon landing in 2020. That matches America's timeline as laid out by President Bush.
India Ramps Up Manned Spaceflight Talk
"India is developing plans to build it's own manned ship that would carry up to three astronauts during a seven-day manned mission to space in 2015. Indian Space Research Organization chairman G. Madhavan Nair said Monday that the concept is getting further evolved.
The ISRO is looking at developing a capsule (spacecraft) with service module which can accommodate three astronauts and take it to lower earth orbit using the indigenous GSLV (Geo-Synchronous Launch Vehicle) in the year 2015, he said, while addressing an international seminar.
Mission duration is seven days. There would also be emergency mission abort and crew rescue provisions in case of necessity. Crew module would be designed for re-entry and service module for mission management, Nair said."
--end quote--
It was last year when India started talking about not only manned space flight but also a moon landing where they plan to beat the Chinese.
The new rocket pictured is:
"The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle(usually known by its abbreviation, GSLV) is an expendable launch system operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to enable India to launch its INSAT-type satellites into geostationary orbit and to make India less dependent on foreign rockets." - (image - ISRO)
India's Space Agency Proposes Manned Spaceflight
"The Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) has proposed starting a human spaceflight program, with the first manned flight taking place by 2014 leading up to landing an Indian national on the Moon by 2020, ahead of China.
The controversial recommendation marks a huge shift in ISRO's oft repeated policy that it will use space technology for national development needs such as telecommunications, health care, education and environmental monitoring. In the past the agency has stayed away from manned flight because of the huge costs involved.
"That policy - pronounced four decades ago by Vikram Sarabai, father of India's space program -- had to change for two reasons," ISRO chairman Gopalan Madhavan Nair said in a Nov. 9 interview.
"We believe that pushing forward human presence in space may become essential for planetary exploration, a goal we have set for ISRO 20 years from now," he said. "Secondly, with India's booming economy, costs should not be a hurdle."
A human presence in space, Nair said, is important in the future if India wants a leadership role. The manned space mission "will be a national effort and mostly indigenous," he added."
--end quote--
So far this has only been on paper. India recently did send a orbital satellite, Chandrayaan-1, to the moon. The orbiter then dropped off a smaller impact probe.
Yesterday India backed it up a little more with a new release:
Designs for India's First Manned Spaceship Revealed
"BANGALORE, India -The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with help from Russia, hopes to join the ranks of nations capable of independently launching astronauts into space around 2015 and has revealed the designs for its first orbiting crew capsule.
In its maiden manned mission, ISRO's largely autonomous 3-ton capsule will orbit the Earth at 248 miles (400 km) in altitude for up to seven days with a two-person crew on board, ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair announced Jan. 3 at the Indian Science Congress held in Shillong. The capsule will be designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with a rendezvous and docking capability, he said.
ISRO spokesman S. Satish told Space News Jan. 10 that the program is estimated to cost about 100 billion rupees ($2 billion) over an eight-year period dating back to 2007. The manned mission was formally proposed to the government in 2006.
Although full-mission funding has yet to be approved, Satish said preliminary work has already begun using 950 million rupees ($19.4 million) allocated for the effort in ISRO's 40.7 billion rupee ($834 million) budget for 2007-2008.
The necessary mission infrastructure includes a new launch pad at ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Satish said. Another key facility is an astronaut training center to be located in Bangalore."
--end quote--
It does look like India is taking this more seriously and wants to join the club along with America, Russia, and China.
POLL RESULTS:
The poll yesterday: "How should NASA use the 500 million." was about NASA funding contained in the current stimulus bill. I saw a blurb today that it may only be 400 million for the shuttle replacement not the original 500. It was pretty close with 47% of DKOS members who took part in the poll wanting to see funding for COTS-D for Commercial Astronaut Launch Services. 39% wanted to see it added to Ares I to speed construction to help close the gap and insure a return to the moon. 13% expressed No Opinion.
STAR TREK: In the News.
A "Leverage" episode on TNT with "Star Trek" alum is a Tuesday TV pick
"Leverage"
"It's a "Star Trek" reunion tonight on this great caper drama. Jonathan Frakes directs Brent Spiner, Armin Shimerman and Kitty Swink in this..."
YESTERDAY'S COMMENTS:
"The Fear Argument is Very Effective If you believe in something that is monumentally important -- you don't put aside the effective tools.
If you don't use the big guns -- then it's probably not that biga deal. Right?" - Pluto
"sweepers? Four semiautonomous powered vehicles with a carbon nanotube net strung between them. This assemblage goes into an orbit and sweeps up whatever it encounters, into the net. Its path can be varied by control from Earth, as needed to capture more space trash or avoid something that should be left alone.
When the net is full, the vehicles converge and use some means to tie the ends of the net together, forming what amounts to a very large trash bag full of space debris. This can be a) dropped down to Earth where it will probably burn up in reentry, b) launched on a course to the Moon (raw materials that can be mined later), or c) carried back to the space station for subsequent retrieval by a delivery craft that can take it back to Earth rather than return to Earth empty.
Meanwhile, the converged assembly of four vehicles can be refitted with a new net and refueled, and sent off on another round to sweep up more stuff.
Feasible? Or is something better in the works?" - G2geek
"You got that much carbon nanotubes? There are definitely mitigation things that can be done, but how feasable your idea is, I don't know. The 2 big problems I see
- Small enough holes - the nets have to be able to catch objects the size of marbles or so. Which is not to say that you can't make that fine a mesh for a net, but its not insubstantial given the size.
- To quote my title, you got that much carbon nanotubes?" - FerrisValyn
TODAY'S POLL:
Read other NASA and Space diaries on DKOS.