Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 18:31:48 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Shoestring theory: India's pioneering budget space probe is halfway to Mars
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
On the pitted rural roads running through millions of India's small towns
and villages, the jugaad vehicle is a source of peculiar pride.

Often it's a hand-cranked diesel engine crudely bolted on to a flatbed
wagon and is used to carry people, steel rods, livestock or sacks of food
in places where no public transport exists. It is loud, polluting and not
officially roadworthy.

Yet it stands for a quality valued by most Indians: an ability to find a
cheap solution to complex problems in a country where infrastructure is
poor and technology is still largely unreliable. Jugaad represents a
triumph of Indian ingenuity against incredible odds.

India's Mars orbiter, Mangalyaan, is perhaps the country's most audacious
and successful example of jugaad so far. A boxy probe built by scientists
in just 15 months for the paltry sum of \302£46m ($75m) \342\200\223 less than the cost
of the average Hollywood blockbuster film \342\200\223 Mangalyaan has completed more
than half of its perilous journey to the red planet.

It is only a few days behind Nasa's Maven probe, which is propelled by
powerful Atlas V and Centaur rockets.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/india-mars-probe-mangalyaan>

They built it. Horrors! Think of all the profits that could have been made
by having companies build it for them. It might only have cost ten times
that amount. And how is it possible for a government to successfully do
something right, without the firm guidance of corporations?!

        mark "pulling tongue back out of cheek"