India’s successful moon landing another sign of the New Space Age
India this week became the fourth nation to land a craft on the moon, and the first to do it on Luna’s rugged South Pole.
Adding to the symbolism: The rising power pulled off its feat less than a week after former superpower Russia failed, as Moscow’s craft crashed while heading to the pole.
The location is a potential gold mine, thought to harbor vast reserves of ice that could yield oxygen and drinking water that now must be hauled out of Earth’s gravity well and enable space-side fuel production.
All of which would boost other space activity.
This success is another sign of a new space age — one with players from across the globe and growing numbers of private-sector ones like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Orbit.
Cost-competitive engineering is changing the game: India’s Chandrayaan-3 is one of the cheapest lunar missions to date, costing “only” about $75 million.
The mission is to last two more weeks, as a rover leaves the lander to conduct experiments in the uncharted territory.
India’s future plans include a September mission to study the sun and a possible manned lunar mission in 2024. NASA’s also headed back to the moon as part of plans for a manned Mars mission.
Step by step, humanity is expanding its reach and its horizons. Look up: The future is bright.
