India just landed on the Moon for less than it cost to make Interstellar | The Independent::undefined

  • SGG@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    240
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why is this even a comparison? India only went to the moon, interstellar had to go to other freaking solar systems and a black hole to make their documentary!

  • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    112
    arrow-down
    23
    ·
    1 year ago

    Cool.

    The average income in India is 25x ish less than that of the US. If we scale the $75 million cost to land on the moon by 25 times, we get $1.8 billion. The Perseverance rover’s cost is estimated at $2.75 billion and that thing landed on Mars.

    It’s incredibly impressive that India has landed on the moon on their 2nd try. Nothing should take away from that, and India should be very proud of their achievement. But geez this is a braindead article. Yes, poorer countries can pay people less do the same amount of work as someone in another country.

    • dejf@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      58
      arrow-down
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      I respectfully disagree with you. It’s a bit misleading to compare average incomes like that. I would assume the income disparity is nowhere near as large for valuable scientists and engineers working for a national space program. In addition, you are only comparing labour costs. Some materials can be cheaper in India, but certainly not by a factor of 25 and certainly not all of them. Therefore, I wouldn’t say the article is braindead.

    • Pregnenolone@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      This comparison is predicated on every part of the manufacturing process occurring in each country. As soon as India are buying parts from other countries they’re not paying India prices anymore

    • MyDogLovesMe@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Some guy at NASA: “We estimate that the cost of this part should cost 1.8Million dollars. “

      Some guy in India: “You know, my cousin can make that part for 35 dollars”

  • wabafee@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Aside from different approaches I think the biggest factor is salary difference. Still impressive though a good example for other Asian nations.

  • wahming@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    arrow-down
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    Can we not have the hundred identical stupid jokes in the comment section like we did in reddit?

    • Ricaz@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      Let’s also get rid of complete transcription of short videos while we’re at it. Everyone else saw the video, no need to quote every part

      • Pipoca@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Transcription is usually something done for deaf people. Like people transcribing memes for the blind.

        • Ricaz@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s not what I’m talking about. On most of the video subreddits, the whole comment section is just quotes and laughing emojis.

    • afunkysongaday@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yes and it’s incredibly annoying to me. More. Some houses cost more than Indian space agency spent on getting to the moon.

      • Decoy321@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        I mean, it’s still a valid sentence. Some houses do cost less. We’re just defining the word some so loosely it’s almost insulting.

    • rambaroo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      28
      ·
      1 year ago

      Overrated movie. I’ll take real science and progress any day over imaginary nonsense that’ll never happen.

      • lud@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        1 year ago

        A world with only “real” science and progress but without any entertainment would be quite boring.

        • ours@lemmy.film
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          27
          ·
          1 year ago

          And fiction has been key to inspiring the next generation of scientists/engineers. So many NASA people have claimed to be inspired by Star Trek just to pick one.

          • gentooer@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Hey, but I managed to write software to calibrate µCT-scanners! That is clearly way more inspiring than all this fictional stuff. Right! Right. Right?

            • meyotch@slrpnk.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              You bet your bippy that’s inspiring! An un-calibrated scanner just doesn’t hit the same way.

              Based on the way specialized code is used, your calibration software will still be in use when they open the first scanning facility on the Moon.

              Hope you accounted for the Y10K problem!

              • gentooer@programming.dev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                Thing is that AI can help. My SO worked in a firm that does skill extraction from CVs and job ads. They do really cool stuff to match job ads with CVs using EU skill tags! It’s a really good tool to do specific things, so I really hate all the latest articles about LLMs.

                • meyotch@slrpnk.net
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  I do find myself ignoring this kind of article, too, usually. I really enjoy discovering a totally new domain where the technology is implemented in a totally new way, going well beyond language applications even.

                  I dream of a ‘language’ model that specializes in general machine to machine communication. It almost surely exists already, but in my line of work, machine interfacing is an endless nightmare. A ‘protocol droid’ would be such a help.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        The black hole simulation for interstellar resulted in 3 highly regarded scientific papers.

      • kenbw2@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I really liked the first two thirds of that film before they went into the black hole

  • vreraan@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    But Interstellar had a box office of $715 million.

    The astronautics is a very expensive sector and with completely uncertain returns on earnings.