I'm not disparaging the quality of India's space program. I'm more saying that once you bring NASA into the picture there's the potential of inheriting 70 years worth of engineering requirements and process which could be detrimental to a fledgling space program.
Edit: And you added the "NASA-level" which put words in my mouth that I did not say nor mean. I meant what I said: "NASA's standards"; standards that NASA has developed for their programs and contractors, which may or may not be beneficial for India's space program.
>>>> I'm more saying that once you bring NASA into the picture there's the potential of inheriting 70 years worth of engineering requirements and process which could be detrimental to a fledgling space program.
Indian space program was started in 1962[1][2]; and over a period of time ISRO has pretty much mastered technologies related to launch vehicles, satellites, science missions etc. This new joint working agreement pertains to following areas:
1) Mars exploration:
"The joint Mars Working Group will seek to identify and implement scientific, programmatic and technological goals that NASA and ISRO have in common regarding Mars exploration. The group will meet once a year to plan cooperative activities, including potential NASA-ISRO cooperation on future missions to Mars."
"One of the working group’s objectives will be to explore potential coordinated observations and science analysis between MAVEN and MOM, as well as other current and future Mars missions."
2) Earth observation:
"The joint NISAR Earth-observing mission will make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes."
"NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimeter across."
Moreover, ISRO and NASA have worked together earlier as well. Few examples: ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission carried NASA's scientific payloads[3]; NASA, NOAA and ISRO share ISRO's Oceansat2's oceanographic data[4]. So, I don't think this new agreement would be detrimental to ISRO's operations :)
Thanks for the clarification. I apologize for adding 'NASA-level'. I did parenthesize it, though. Also, since 'standards' are usually intended to ensure quality, I assumed that you were implying that the Indian space program may not be up to it.
Aren't NASA-level standards historically slow and inefficient? I was of the impression that private parties streamlining that process and coming up with a cheaper program is what led to NASA (or congress by proxy, whatever) abandoning manned spaceflight to the private sector.
In other words, maybe India is taking a leaf from SpaceX's book rather than NASA's
> Aren't NASA-level standards historically slow and inefficient?
I've seen nothing that tells me that this reputation is anything more than 1) the bureaucracy inherent to any large organization, 2) requirements of very complex, cutting edge engineering and science, 3) requirements of engineering systems that must work perfectly the first time (unlike Facebook, NASA can't 'move fast and break things'), and perhaps most of all 4) the public's habit of attributing characteristics to 'the old established thing' (NASA) and to the 'new shiny thing' (SpaceX, etc.)
Name every place in the solar system where NASA missions currently are located. Outside the solar system? Where they have gone historically? Their achievements are staggering; history-making events are routine; they are by far the greatest explorers in the history of humanity. Certainly they aren't perfect and every organization can improve, but they do pretty well.
> I was of the impression that private parties streamlining that process and coming up with a cheaper program is what led to NASA (or congress by proxy, whatever) abandoning manned spaceflight to the private sector.
Manned spaceflight hasn't been delegated to the private sector, only flying to Earth orbit (or only low-Earth orbit?). NASA has been doing it for 50 years; the technology is mature enough that private companies can do it and NASA can invest its resources in bigger challenges, including a manned mission to Mars (in the long term).
