Manned mission to moon in 8 yrs: Govt

IBN ^ | 05/09/07

[KevinDavis]

New Delhi: : Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Prithviraj Chavan on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that India will send the first man to space in the next eight years, if all goes well.

Though the Government has not yet sanctioned the prestigious project, as quoted by PTI, Chavan during Question Hour said, "An Indian manned mission (to space) is under preparation. Government has not yet sanctioned the mission. But, plans are being made to send a man to space. That does not necessarily mean sending a man to moon".

[KevinDavis]

Bravo......

[KevinDavis]

[Mr. Mojo]

Eight years seems a bit optimistic. .....considering they don’t even have an ICBM yet.

[ustanker]

Baboo on the Moon......Who would have thought it?

[anymouse]

Who would have thought that the hardware and software of the computer you are using would be designed and built in India a decade ago, either.

Europeans laughed at the thought of America coming to any consequence beyond raw resources and cheap labor too. Unfortunately we are becoming the new Europeans - if not worse in our retrograde civilization.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

India probably isn’t going to have a manned mission to the Moon (at least a successful one with a successful return to Earth for the astronauts) in the next eight years. They are considerably behind the Chinese, and even the Chinese are estimating a decade before their first manned mission.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Agree that other peoples should not be discounted, but eight years is stretching it. Does India have the potential to be a spacefaring nation? It seems that India can be. But as of this moment, they aren't at the level that a successful round trip to and from the Moon is very plausible in less than a decade.

[Yo-Yo]

The Indians, the Chinese, even the Russians want to get to the moon. Why? I saw on (I think) Discovery last week a program about fusion power using Helium₃ that said it was extremely rare and hard to obtain here on Earth, but there is lots of it on the Moon.

Will the Sea of Tranquility become the next Saudi Arabia?

[BigCinBigD]

I think they are just trying to “curry” favor with the Martians.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Well said, happymouse.

But if India pursues the Moon through govt. bureaucracy means like the USA does, it may take them 80 (not 8) years to succeed. When’s the last time the world’s 2nd(?) most populous nation won more than a couple medals at the Olympics? They’re rather laid back over there...

But if India offers competitive prizes to achieve the lunar goal though, then 8 years hardly seems all that unrealistic as long as the prize is adequate. Those folks are studying calculus before they’re even teenagers.

Speaking of lunar prizes, a neat one’s underway this weekend:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070511_regolith_challenge.html

[CarrotAndStick]

The Indians, the Chinese, even the Russians want to get to the moon. Why? I saw on (I think) Discovery last week a program about fusion power using Helium3 that said it was extremely rare and hard to obtain here on Earth, but there is lots of it on the Moon.

Click.

[Arjun]

“When’s the last time the world’s 2nd(?) most populous nation won more than a couple medals at the Olympics? They’re rather laid back over there...”
Its not a function of being laid back. Its a function of not having sports infrastructure. Most schools dont have a play ground. Land is scarce. But as far as space is concerned they have made rapid strides in building that infrastructure during the last decade or so. Next year they will send their first mission to the moon.

[anymouse]

But were we there in the 60s?

I doubt that the Indians will be landing a man on the Moon in eight years, but never underestimate a determined culture to do the “impossible.”

I only wish we were still a determined culture. (sigh)