In case you missed it, a story in the September 18, 2009 North American edition of The Indian Express recounts the successes, difficulties, and lessons learned from India's 2008-2009 unmanned, orbiting moon mission.
Lunar probe buffs and spaceflight fans can read all about the Chandrayaan-1 rocket and Moon Impact Probe launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile, take note of the following paragraph:
"Senior scientist at the ISRO Space Application Centre Prakash Chauhan reported at the same conference [held in Goa -- ed.] that three-dimensional imaging of the moon's surface with a Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) had given images of the landing site of the US Apollo 15 mission and tracks of lunar rovers used by astronauts on the lunar surface 40 years ago. The findings proved that the fourth US moon mission was not a hoax, he said."
Photo Credit: The image accompanying this post was taken by Flickr user ridingwithrobots. It was used under Creative Commons license.
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So fascinating to think about countries like India making their first trips to the moon. I wonder what the purpose of these trips is in their eyes. Is their a scientific basis to these aerospace launches? Or is there a nationalist symbolism to it as well?
Okay, weknew we were burying the lead -- or, ignoring the lead altogether, but with today's news dominated by "WATER ON THE MOON!" reports, this space might as well point out the huge role Chandrayaan-1 and the Moon Impact Probe played in the news. See any story here or run your own search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=water+on+moon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
-- TTLA
I can't help but think India's skyrocketing space technology mirrors the nation's promise in commerce. They've historically been fueled with outsourcing.