TechNews | Tuesday, November 12, 2013

 

India to become 4th country to Mars in new mission

Swasti Khuntia
LAYOUT EDITOR

Indian space exploration hit a
milestone on Sunday, November 3 when the
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
successfully launched its first mission to the
Red Planet (Mars) in an attempt to become the
fourth nation after the United States, the former
Soviet Union, and Europe, and the first Asian
country, to reach the fourth planet from the sun.

The project is named “Mars
Orbiter Mission (MOM)”, informally called
Mangalyaan, which in Hindi means “Mars-
orbiter.” It has been built at a cost of $73 million
and in just fifteen months, and yet it is capable of
demonstrating advanced technologies for space
travel.

This considerably cheap Mars project
has drawn much attention and mixed reactions
from across the globe. Dr. Iames Clay Moltz, a
professor at the US. Naval Postgraduate School

 

was interviewed by
C N N , w h e r e h e
said, “I believe
India’s leadership
sees China’s recent
accomplishments
in space science as
a threat to its status
in Asia, and feels the
need to respond.” The
Wall Street Journal
reported, “India’s
Mars mission, with a
budget of $73 million,
is far cheaper than
comparable missions
including NASA’S $671
million Maven satellite
that is expected to set
off for Mars later in
November.”

Similarly, David Alexander, Director
of the Rice Space Institute, reported on National

 

Photo courtesy of washingtonpost.com

Public Radio (NPR), “I think labor is the
biggest factor, as well as the complexity of the
mission. It takes a whole team of engineers.

Those engineers cost much less in India than
they do in the US.” Comparing the pay scale of
Aeronautical and Electronic Engineers in the
US and India, he stated that an Indian engineer
is paid almost one—tenth of what an American
engineer is paid, thus supporting the fact that
India’s Mars mission is nearly one—tenth of
America’s.

It has been said that the first attempt
by the country to reach Mars has never been
a success, considering the cases of Japan
and China. On a positive note about India’s
emergence as one of the top Asian countries
in space programs, Reuters reported, “A
successful Indian mission will have the effect
of positioning the emerging Asian giant as a
budget player in the latest global space race.”

Talking about the mixed reactions
world-wide, ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan
said that they will know if they have the passed
the examination on September 24, 2014, when
the spacecraft is scheduled to reach the Red
Planet’s orbit.

World's oldest animated film, ‘Prince Achmed,’
astounds with stunning artwork, details

Matti Scannell
A&E EDITOR

A flickering yellow backdrop is set,
and the story begins with an evil magician
presenting a magic horse to the Caliph. After
a brief demonstration of the horse’s abilities,
the magician violently shakes his head as he
tells the Caliph he will not part with the horse
for any amount of gold, consequently tricking
the Caliph into giving away his only daughter.
After wrenching his sister away from the Caliph,
Prince Achmed, the Caliph’s son, is coaxed into
trying to ride the magic horse but he is not
shown how to bring the flying horse back down

 

to earth.

So begins the oldest surviving feature
animated film Prince Achmed, or Die Abenteuer
des Prinzen Achmed, which Lotte Reiniger and
Carl Koch created in 1926. This film, which took
three years to create, features several stories
from 1001 Arabian Nights. The characters are
all cutouts handmade by Lotte Reiniger; they are
silhouetted against a pane of lit glass, which was
tinted post-production.

Given the age of this film, a viewer
might expect to find it necessary to make large
allowances for antiquated gender roles, racism,
or a subject matter that has since become trite.
Certainly it is the case that many of this film’s
female characters have little agency in their own

lives, this is true to the myths that are the basis
of this movie.

But readers be warned: if you dismiss
this movie for showing women faint into the
arms of men when the going gets tough, you
are depriving yourself of a true work of art.

As the short historical video found
on the DVD will tell you, this movie was a labor
of love that required the filming crew to kneel
for hours on end on a stone floor. Every time a
character needed to move, Reiniger would have
to reposition the arm or head or eye that needed
to move and filming would begin again.

Reiniger and her husband Koch left
Germany in 1933, seven years after completing
Prince Achmed, due to their involvement

with left-wing politics and its consequential
antagonism with the Nazi party.

In spite of being forced to leave
Germany, Koch and Reiniger continued to
make movies from other countries. This work,
which is incredible not only because it is the first
animated film, but also because it was created
during a time in which women were able to
procure very few roles outside the home. All in
all I have such an intense love for this movie and
for Reiniger’s story that it needs to be accepted
that I am only on criticism lite for this piece.

Prince Achmed is available for free
on YouTube without subtitles and can be rented
from Netflix.