India launches unmanned moon mission

[CougarKing]

While most of our attention was focused elsewhere...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10...m?section=world

Moon mission launches India's modern-day power status

Posted October 22, 2008 16:00:00
Updated October 22, 2008 16:06:00


This particular mission is to find a new energy source, helium-3 isotopes. (AFP : Dibyangshu Sarkar)


India has joined the space race with the successful launch of its first rocket mission to the moon.

The unmanned satellite will orbit the moon for two years studying its mineral composition and searching for ice and a new energy source called helium-3.]

Professor Robin Jeffrey is an India analyst at the Australian National University and he says the launch is an important way for India to show that it is a modern-day power.

"I think it's really important for the way India, the Indian elite, views itself and the way it wants to be viewed by the rest of the world," he said.

"The message is India is a great modern power and has to be reckoned with in every sphere, including space travel and space exploration."

Professor Jeffrey says it is not just a big message that India is sending to the outside world, but it is also a way of strengthening national pride.

"It's also a message for Indians of all classes as India prepares for a whole lot of elections," he said.

"There's six state elections coming up in the next six or seven weeks and then there's a big national election that all Indian politicians are gearing up for next year.

"So it also can be construed as a statement by a Government seeking re-election nationally, that it's taking India to the forefront of global activities."

But the Indian Government is not the first government to use the space race alongside with an election campaign.

"Indian governments have done it in the past, nuclear tests have often been timed to be useful in domestic politics and that's part of the political process," he said.

"You like what appear to be good news stories going out when you most need them. Australians are not estranged to that."

But with poverty a major problem in the densely populated nation, the question arises as to whether the money spent on the space launch could have been put to better use.

Professor Jeffrey says both issues are important to India's Government.

"The Government of India puts a great deal of energy and money into trying to feed the poor," he said.

"There's a huge national rural income guarantee scheme which is being financed at the moment.

"The kind of funds here would probably have found it difficult to disperse in a way that would do the poor a great deal more good than the current expenditure.

"It's not so much money, it's a question of getting the money and the goods into the hands of the people who need them.

"So I think a government of India can defend this as something that goes with being a great modern state, just as trying to feed your people well goes with trying to be a great modern state."

This particular mission is to find a new energy source, helium-3 isotopes, the discovery of which could come as a major benefit not just to India, but also to the rest of the world.

Professor Jeffrey agrees that what it may come down to is India's need for energy - just like the rest of the world.

"India is energy hungry and energy poor at the moment and, to make that great modern India that the leaders are aspiring to, energy is going to be one of the key things," he said.

"So if they find something in space I'm sure it will be very welcome."



Based on a report by Karen Barlow for AM, October 22.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

While most of our attention was focused elsewhere...

You say this as though they are an enemy...

 

[GAP]

I didn't read it that way....sure I've heard and read the announcements, but my attention regarding that part of the world has been focused on China and North Korea....India, stable, silent India, never entered my radar....

 

[CougarKing]

You say this as though they are an enemy...

I suppose one can read it that way. However, it was not  intended as such. Still this is yet another sign that the space race is heating up again, especially with China's recent spacewalk?

 

[a_majoor]

India unveils ambitious plans:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5789385.ece

India approves £1.7bn plan to launch astronauts as Asian space race hots up
Jeremy Page in Delhi

India has approved a £1.7 billion (£1.1 billion) plan to launch its first astronauts into space by 2015.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will attempt to put two people into orbit 172 miles (275km) above the Earth for seven days.

The Cabinet must still agree to the plan, but that is expected to be a formality now that the Planning Commission has approved it, an organisation spokesman said. The decision comes after its launch in October of India’s first unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, which is now orbiting the Moon to compile a 3-D map of its surface. The mission catapulted India into the world’s most elite club, with the United States, Russia, Japan and China, as the only countries capable of independently reaching the Moon.

India’s second unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, is scheduled to be launched in 2011

Isro has been lobbying for years to secure government funding for its plans to send an astronaut into space by 2014, eleven years after China, and to the Moon by 2020, four years before China’s target date. Critics say that Isro’s plans are a waste of money in a country where 76 per cent of the population of 1.1 billion live on less than $2 a day and child malnutrition is on a par with sub-Saharan Africa.

Isro argues that India makes money from commercial satellite launches and that scientific research from the space programme has helped its IT industry.

Indian officials are concerned that India lags behind China, which shot down a satellite in 2007 and completed its first space walk last year.

Richard Fischer, a senior fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Centre, said last week that India needed to review its space programme to confront the military threat from China. “We have to look forward to China performing military activities from the Moon,” he told a conference in Delhi.

Isro’s plans were given a boost last week when the Government increased its budget for this year by 27 per cent to 44.6 billion rupees (£633 million). Of that, 1.75 billion rupees is to be spent on training science personnel – a 73 per cent increase on last year.

K Radhakrishnan, a member of India’s Space Commission and director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said that the budget approved on Friday would cover development of a new space vehicle.

The space agency unveiled a design for its manned space capsule last month. It would be able to accommodate three astronauts and mission-management systems.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

India is in a race with China on many fronts, expect economic warfare at some point. Personally I wish them success in this venture. As I stated elsewhere, by the time the US returns to the money to colonize, food will not be an issue as they will find a Rice house and a Curry hut waiting for them.

 

[GAP]

India is starting with a real handicap, unless the US helps them.....


China has all the space research that was done by the US, India does not.

China simply stole it......wait, maybe India did too, but just didn't get caught....

 

[a_majoor]

Rocket science isn't really that difficult (rockets were used as weapons by the Chinese and Koreans in the 1500s or thereabouts), the real difficulty is in manufacturing precision equipment that can reliably perform under extreme conditions. Even American rockets still fail (in an unintentional piece of irony, a rocket carrying a NASA satellite designed to measure CO2 levels crashed into the ocean near Antactica leaving a trail of carbon based rocket exhaust in it's wake...), while nations like North Korea and Iran demonstrate they can build ICBM's and satellite launchers.

The only way around this is to keep building and gain experience and develop quality control. With 300 million "middle class" taxpayers and voters in India (equal to the entire population of the United States), there is no question the resource base is there, do they have the interest and will?