Mangalyaan named among
best inventions of 2014
by Time magazine
by Time magazine
NEW YORK: Mangalyaan
has been named among the best inventions of 2014 by Time magazine which
described it as a technological feat that will allow India to flex its
"interplanetary muscles."
"Nobody gets Mars
right on the first try. The US didn't, Russia didn't, the Europeans didn't. But
on September 24, India did. That's when the Mangalyaan ...went into orbit
around the Red Planet, a technological feat no other Asian nation has yet
achieved," Time said about Mangalyaan, calling it "The Supersmart
Spacecraft."
Mangalyaan is among
the 25 'Best Inventions of 2014' listed by Time magazine that are "making
the world better, smarter and--in some cases--a little more fun."
Developed by the
Indian Space Research Organisation, the Mars spacecraft cost India just USD 74
million, less than the budget for the multi-Acacdemy Award winning science
fiction thriller film Gravity. Time said at that price, the Mangalyaan is
equipped with just five onboard instruments that allow it to do simple tasks
like measure Martian methane and surface composition.
"More important,
however, it allows India to flex its interplanetary muscles, which portends
great things for thecountry's space programme and for science in general,"
Time said.
The list also includes
inventions by two Indians for developing an exercise space for prisoners in
solitary confinement and a tablet toy for kids.
Nalini Nadkarni,
forest ecologist and college professor helped develop the 'Blue Room' with
Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon for inmates in solitary
confinement, who for 23 hours a day see nothing but a tiny, white-walled cell,
an experience some research suggests heightens mental illness and makes
prisoners prone to suicide attempts and violence.
Last year, officials
began letting some of them spend their free hour in a first-of-its-kind Blue
Room, an exercise space where a projector plays video of open deserts,
streaming waterfalls and other outdoor scenes. Nadkarni says the imagery is
designed to calm prisoners, "much in the way we walk through a park"
to relax.
Former Google engineer
Pramod Sharma developed 'Osmo', a tablet toy that gets physical. Sharma got the
inspiration when he saw his daughter playing with the iPad, but did not want
her to be glued to the tablet all day long.
The toy, which debuted
in October, has helped Osmo raise USD 14.5 million in capital and is now being
sold in the Apple Store.
The other inventions
are a reactor developed by aerospace company Lockheed Martin that could realize
nuclear fusion, Apple's smart watch that besides telling time, can send messages,
give directions, track fitness and make wireless payments and Microsoft's
Surface Pro 3, a "hybrid" that bundles laptop into a 12-inch tablet
and can run desktop apps.
Read more at:
