Can India afford the moon mission?

India takes giant leap to the moon!

It will be a small step for mankind, but a giant leap forward for India. The Indian Tricolor was planted on the lunar surface when the Moon Impact Probe successfully "crashlanded" at 8:31 pm Friday after being ejected from Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned spacecraft to the moon. India's quest for the envious "Superpower" tag just clinched another vote with this uninhibited 239,000 mile journey to our lone natural satellite.

One of India's aims in reaching the moon is the possibility of harvestin helium 3, a key fuel for nuclear fusion. Although fusion is not commercially viable today, scientists say it one day will be, and that once it is a fuel, supply will become a problem, as the Earth is believed to have only 15 tones of helium 3. The moon is thought to contain up to 5m tones.

Another awe-inspiring fact is the shoestring budget within which ISRO worked to flag off this lunar mineral wealth exploration. The annual ISRO budget of one billion dollars is meager as compared to the 20 billion dollars of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ISRO has on its agenda three more missions to the moon, and one to the Mars. ISRO is aiming for a second lunar mission by the end of 2010 or early 2011, carrying a Russian-made rover that will collect rock and soil samples from the moon’s surface for further analysis. By 2015, India hopes to send up two astronauts to study the moon and even land astronauts on the moon by 2020.

India shining reinforced!

Vinny’s take: India has arrived, ready to rub shoulders with US and Japan? Chandrayaan’s cost of $86m might be miniscule compared to the $480m spent by Japan for the Selene Mission, but can India afford it? Call me a critic, but I cannot garner enough reasons for the justification of this unwanted mission. Is it our ego which craves us to seek recognition from the world. In the process are we neglecting more serious problems like solving the communal disharmony our nation is embroiled in. Shouldn’t we spend more on solving the grass root problems of our nation before we can showcase our expertise on the larger one. ISRO’s rhetoric on mineral exploration may have substance (leave alone the lunar land grab debate) but is it essential at a time of spiraling financial crisis across the globe . Power crisis looms large and shouldn’t the best brains in our country be working towards a more realistic solution. India could be spending the money on getting clean drinking water to the poor, get food in their belly. Instead it chooses to blast its way into a space war!