[petermcd]

I've been to India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre for work. They do a lot with the resources they have been given.

The on-base museum exhibits show how their weather and communications satellites help India with its national development goals (agriculture, connecting the countryside, etc.).

Space is hard. India has very reliable rocket (PSLV) that gets satellites to orbit. They have also successfully sent a probe to Mars, which is a real accomplishment for any space program. I was living in China at the time, and the Chinese felt a bit shown up by what they consider to be a less developed economy.

[notyourwork]

> I was living in China at the time, and the Chinese felt a bit shown up by what they consider to be a less developed economy.

And they should. I and probably a lot others are rooting for India! It is great to see these types of accomplishments by other less resourced programs.

[MarkMc]

> The on-base museum exhibits show how their weather and communications satellites help India with its national development goals.

My question is: Can India achieve those goals with less money using a commercial satellite launching company like SpaceX? And if India does have a competitive advantage in launching satellites, should it be run by the government or as a private enterprise?

[swatkat]

India has been launching rockets and satellites since 1960s. SpaceX wasn't there, then ;)

ISRO launch vehicles (PSLV and GSLV MkII) do have competitive advantages in launching commercial payloads (up to 2.5 tonne). They already have a commercial/marketing arm called Antrix Corporation[1]. Also, there are a few private launch brokers like Earth2Orbit[2] who can procure ISRO launches. However, ISRO doesn't yet have heavy lift (4+ tonne to GTO, 8+ tonne to LEO) launch vehicle. They are working on it, and they have a new heavy lift launcher called LVM3 (aka GSLV MkIII)[3]. First developmental flight is scheduled in Dec 2016.

[1] http://www.antrix.gov.in/

[2] http://www.earth2orbit.com/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_Satellite_Launc...

[deepGem]

Less Money ? Already ISRO's budget is a tiny blip in the government's annual outlay. About $1.5 billion

http://www.isro.gov.in/budget-glance

Should ISRO be run as a private organisation to achieve better efficiency ?

I don't think so, because, despite being a government organisation, the bureaucracy in ISRO is next to nothing. The organisation hierarchy is relatively flat for that size. There are six or seven levels between the lowest grade scientist and the chairman. I think Scientist B to H. The chairman reports directly to the Prime Minister. Even the defence heads don't get this privilege. If you imagine any private organisation of that size, there are a lot more inefficiencies in their org structure and the general operations. I'm not able to draw specific comparisons at the moment.

ISRO has also not net produced a Falcon 9, yet. That I think is mostly because of their budget constraints and not because of organisational inefficiencies.

Now, can a new private company do better than ISRO? Specifically, can a private company build a Falcon 9 like rocket more efficiently than ISRO can? In theory, absolutely. In reality, probably no.

Per ISRO's budget estimate, you are looking at raising at least $3-4 billion for a 2 year runway. Even if you start small you are looking to raise in the $100 million range for your seed round. Unlikely that any domestic VC in India will foot this bill.

So you'll need foreign money. Given the security concerns around space programs, govt will not let foreign money fund such programs. Even if they did, it'll subject the foreign investors to so much red tape that the investors will get fed up and decide not to invest.

[pjc50]

Launch capability is also strategic: you don't want to hand your spy satellites over to a foreign government for launch.