How India flew to the moon, economy-class

The Times of India ^ | 26 Oct 2008, 0402 hrs IST | The Times of India

[MadJack]

But did they come up with a by-product as good as orange Tang?

[Cronos]

A bit of both -- the ISRO satellites are definitely NOT based on American designs, they are Russian inspired, but the Indians have been steadily improving and modifying the designs since the 80s when the technology partnership ended. India is doing original research on small things, but yes, not big splash things like a new space shuttle or solar wind sails or landing a man on the moon.

When going on about the cost, they seem to neglect the fact that NASA never would’ve done the mission because it was a worthless publicity stunt.

Not really a publicity stunt -- the Indians aren't doing that, quite unlike the Chinese (because India being a democracy, the government would be crucified if it did do that). India's space program has been invaluable in helping it launch better communications and geo-mapping satellites and as a commercial satellite launcher (earning $$s for India). This mission is ostensibly to search for He3 --> something that no other space agency is searchign for on the moon. NASA will look for the big things like life on Mars, etc., but someone has to look for the smaller stuff and that's what India is doing