India launches hypersonic space shuttle precursor India has successfully launched a scaled-down model of a planned “Reusable Launch Vehicle” (RLV). Today's launch was dubbed the “hypersonic flight experiment” (HEX) and saw a 6.5m, 1.75 tonne model of a winged spaceplane hoisted aloft atop a modified sounding rocket using the S9 engine India uses as an auxiliary for its PSV …
Foreign is a political statement either to win votes at home or to influence other countries' foreign or domestic policies, and much of the money disappears in bureaucracy; UK foreign aid at least targets poorer nations like Bangladesh, Ethiopia etc.
http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-five-biggest-recipients-of-foreign-aid-from-the-uk--lJhmZ1Ttig
US Foreign appears to be targeting mainly places they have bombed and Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
It is unlikely that any aid actually benefits the nation, but ostensibly British foreign aid is allocated to generally specific beneficial projects, I would say
There are many reasons why there is poverty in India, but by far the most important is almost 2 centuries of British rule during which time India's share of world GDP declined from around 24% to around 3% (since independence it has slowly risen to around 7%) as they were robbed to help finance British development. It is not a coincidence that the industrial revolution started in Britain when it did because it was financed to a large extent by loot from India.
You criticize Indian society for trying to develop their scientific, engineering and industrial base while there is still poverty in India. Well, when Britain ruled India a far higher percent of Indians lived in abject poverty and starvation was commonplace, with life expectancy of just 32 years. What do you think British society did then? Far from helping the poor, it stole their food to feed it's armies, and to stockpile food in Europe just in case it might be needed, while millions starved to death in India, even including the families of soldiers fighting for Britain. And it imposed a brutal salt tax so that laborers who toiled in the intense heat of Indian summers could barely afford the salt to avoid heatstroke. Indians got nothing for their taxes. There was almost no investment in education (90% of the population was illiterate, 95% for women), very little industrial infrastructure, non-existent medical facilities, and the transportation infrastructure, paid for by heavy taxation on Indians, was mainly to facilitate troop movements.
And you think there is something wrong with Indian society??
"And what did the Romans do for us?
I am sure the vaious King equivalents etc would have done better, or perhaps not
History what is good for, specious arguments thats what"
The British Empire was not the Roman empire, the 20th century was not the 1st century, and the Romans don't go around claiming to be morally superior, caring for the poor under their care like the British do.
And if you were to make a macabre dramatic reference in this situation, rather than Life of Brian, here is a more appropriate reference for British rule in India:
Viceroy Lord Linlithgow (dragging an emaciated corpse to Churchill's office): I wish to lodge a complaint. This coolie you've assigned to work for me is dead and so are three million more on the streets of Calcutta and the fields of Bengal.
Churchill: He's not dead, he's pining for the Ganges.
Linlithgow: He's dead, expired. He is an ex-Bengali coolie.
Churchill (fixing a bayonet on his rifle): He's just taking a nap, they do that these lazy coolies.
Linlithgow: He's not, he's dead, I tell you.
Churchill (jabbing the corpse forcefully, several times, with his bayonet): There! He moved!!
Linlithgow (looking squeamishly at the weak ooze of almost coagulated blood from the bayonet wounds): He didn't move. Look at him, he's just skin and bones, no flesh and hardly any blood in him at all.
Churchill: Beautifully efficient, these Bengali coolies. You get an awful lot of work out of them, growing rice for our troops and building the roads out of Burma so that our soldiers, who crapped their pants when the Japanese arrived, could get the hell out of there. And you only need to give them a handful of rice when you feel generous. No salt, that costs too much. Bloody taxes you know, old chap.
Linlithgow: There's no point feeding this one anything, he's dead.
Churchill: Perhaps you fed him too much. These Bengali coolies, they breed like rabbits if you feed them.
Of course the aid money is needed, how else will they pay for their space program?
Saying that India doesn't need aid money because it has a space program is disingenuous, India certainly needs aid money, not to help so many starving and unfortunate people would be to deny our own humanity, but the problem lies in corrupt officials throughout all levels of government who spend that cash on misguided projects and to make themselves richer.
The aid money should not be removed, the corrupt officials should be.
British or American!
They've been begging us to stop sending it. [1]
They themselves send a fair amount of aid to other countries. [2]
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9061844/India-tells-Britain-We-dont-want-your-aid.html
[2] http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/06/24/why-does-india-provide-development-aid-to-other-developing-countries/
No one 'needs' a space programme, but you can argue that developing countries should trade their way to prosperity, develop high tech industries etc, so why not fund an indigenous space capability?
Once you start down there 'because aid... not x' argument where do you stop? Space industry, OK, how about Nuclear power, aircraft, cars, mobile phones, digital watches? Is it moral to have a cinema industry when people are starving? Why should morality stop at a border, if it's immoral for India to fund a space industry, isn't immoral for us?
Well, if I was in it, it wouldn't make much odds to me if it hit the ground at hypersonic or at merely supersonic speed!
I guess it depends upon how good the view is out of the window, and whether my state of mind would allow me to spend my last minutes/seconds admiring it. Most likely I'd be "oh shit of shit oh shit oh shit" or even inventing a new swear word, but you never know!
We all do, mate. We all do.
Any commentards with a DeLorean feel like going back in time, infiltrating a certain hotel, and punching a certain famous television presenter right in the face, at just the right time, so as to prevent him from striking someone he shouldn't by giving him a perfect, ironclad excuse to strike someone else?
... Mine's the one with Mercedes-badged Flux Capacitor in the pocket.
IOW still likely to need a bloody big expendable rocket to get it anywhere.
Mind you it has tested TPS materials to M5
Handy if one were to (just for example) be planning to build a M5 cruise missile, would it not?
Likewise if you replaced that 6.5t test vehicle with say a 500Kg "physics package" that would probably have some other uses.
hypersonic reentry vehicle?
once they've got the guidance sorted it will become an interesting orbital bombardment weapon.
A 1700kg body accurately impacting a target at Mach 7 is a fearsome weapon, even without explosives. Is this aimed at China? Or the muslim nuclear states? Given enough rockets you could have a non-nuclear first strike against hardened silos
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