Conversation

Striking contrast between the sober, understated "bureaucratic heroism" vibe of the ISRO mission control livestream vs. the breathless cheesiness of the PR circus outside being covered by TV reporters asking young schoolkids tedious questions (and getting tedious answers)
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Reporter: "Are you excited to watch the lander descent!" Kid: "Yes I am excited!" Reporter: "How excited?" Kid: "Very excited!" (repeat with kid #2)
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The Hindi commentary is kinda hilarious. I kinda miss this overwrought purist Hindi that was the norm for official broadcasts in 80s TV before it got overwhelmed by the Hinglish of the 90s cable boom. There is an old-school charm to this.
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As an aside, they made a movie about Mangalyaan that I won't watch, that's apparently a super cheesy Hidden Figures+Right Stuff take on ISRO, Bollywood style. I hope somebody makes a better movie about the Chandrayan missions.
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Another interesting thing about the new space races is the expansion of mythological/cultural references. Growing up with names like "Apollo" and "Lunakhod", it feels weird to hear names like "Chang'e" and "Vikram" added to the grand narrative of space exploration.
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The english commentator seems to be a technie. He's throwing in random tech stuff like "the x-axis is blah" and "state vectors have been loaded" seemingly unaware that he'll lose most of the audience. Very charming. Hindi commentator sounds like more of a professional media guy.
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Without a doubt the most charismatic aspect of the modern Musk-era ISRO brand is the images of middle-aged women in saris at the heart of action, clearly in the thick of the tech action (as opposed to peripheral roles which is sadly what you expect to see in the US)
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All these women look like my mom did 30 years ago. The cognitive dissonance is really amusing. I can't shake the feeling of "my mom and her friends are running a space mission" 🤔
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Waiting for the telemetry to resume. Moment of truth. That's the one thing you can't script with a PR circus.
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Well, lander comms lost at 2.1km altitude, and they don't sound hopeful. Descent path seemed to deviate to be more vertical towards end, so I'm guessing crash not comms failure. Modi delivering a sort of encouraging eulogy. RIP Vikram I guess. It had an exciting 15 minute life.
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