India set to launch Mars mission in 2013

Competition is definitely strong in the Asian continent. Interesting how the Chinese and Indians announce them one right after the other. It would be interesting to see what each of them discover on their own. Healthy Competion is always a positive thing.

India plans to launch a mission to Mars next year, putting an orbital probe around the red planet to study its climate and geology, top space department officials said on Thursday....The mission would mark another step in India's ambitious space programme, which envisages the Asian giant's first manned mission in 2016.

LINK
Thoughts/Comments/Opinions/Viewpoints please.

Well it can't be USA and Russia forever, China and India are developing at a high rate, both countries went from suburban to sky scrapers in less than 40 yrs(approx 1970s).

Hopefully they will share more info about the discoveries than NASA ever did.

Healthy competition is always a good thing, but India and China have a very long way to go before they are in the same league as NASA...

Does it strike you as odd they are going to Mars to study the climate?

One Moon orbiter and then a Mars orbiter. It doesn't sounds like they have a solid direction to head.

I hope we'll be seeing some real hi-res pics without the anomalies airbrushed out. If we do get to see any, NASA could find itself faced with lots of embarrassing questions.

Originally posted by doobydoll
I hope we'll be seeing some real hi-res pics without the anomalies airbrushed out. If we do get to see any, NASA could find itself faced with lots of embarrassing questions.

Could you please show me the airbrushed portions of these images?
hirise.lpl.arizona.edu...

or the images found here:
marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov...

*yawns*

And once again when the Indians find evidence of something on the Mars, NASA is going to come out and slam their findings only to confirm them at a later date.

One can only imagine if all countries worked together in the exploration of space ? I'm sure we would have regular manned missions to mars , base on the moon and permanent satellites around all the other planets in our solar system !

Originally posted by cenpuppie
*yawns*

And once again when the Indians find evidence of something on the Mars, NASA is going to come out and slam their findings only to confirm them at a later date.

The last big discovery from an Indian spacecraft was the confirmation of water on the Moon (there was prior evidence of water on the moon, but no real confirmation).

HOWEVER, it was a joint Indian-NASA mission. The instrument on that Indian space probe that confirmed the water was a NASA instrument. The Indians provided the spacecraft that got the instrument into lunar orbit, but it was the NASA-built instrument that made the water confirmation.

Originally posted by rick004
One can only imagine if all countries worked together in the exploration of space ? I'm sure we would have regular manned missions to mars , base on the moon and permanent satellites around all the other planets in our solar system !

We would fight over the destination and the cost.
We are humans that's what we do.

Originally posted by samkent
Does it strike you as odd they are going to Mars to study the climate?
One Moon orbiter and then a Mars orbiter. It doesn't sounds like they have a solid direction to head.

Ofcourse it is odd. To me its nothing more than throwing a piece of news out there for others to wonder and be impressed with the 'future achievements'. I'm thinking its to let each other know (india and china) of their ambitions in the game to gain the supremacy in the region.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People
Thats a true statement. With the dwindling budgets and cost overruns in NASA, I would assume they sought the cheaper route? Basically 'outsourced' this particular project by providing the equipment/component?

Originally posted by Atzil321
Healthy competition is always a good thing, but India and China have a very long way to go before they are in the same league as NASA...

Agree. Its a race in the Asian continent between the two. Hopefully they will come out with something new that the other space explorering countries havn't invented.

Originally posted by samkent

Originally posted by rick004
One can only imagine if all countries worked together in the exploration of space ? I'm sure we would have regular manned missions to mars , base on the moon and permanent satellites around all the other planets in our solar system !

We are humans that's what we do.

Thats for sure No matter what happens or how far the world advances, the fact will remain. I can imagine the nature of fights on mars between different countries based on their biased viewpoints about each other and stereotypes