The race to the south pole of the moon is on. India’s Chandrayaan 3, the third lunar expedition is inching closer to the south pole even as Russia launched her own Luna 25 to take on Chandrayaan on its way to the hitherto unexplored region on lunar surface. So who is going to make it first?
It took the US only 4 days for landing on the moon. Why is it taking INdia 40 days? Obviously ISRO is adopting the cost effective method saving on fuel compared to NASA. ISRO is cash strapped so cannot afford a direct transitional path from India to the Moon or the Mars as the NASA has done. Both of India’s Mars and Lunar missions therefore have been following a progressive orbit raising procedure to get the satellites into the Mars orbit or the lunar orbit. The first task is to propel the rocket out of earth’s atmosphere. Once the rocket soars through the home planet’s atmosphere, it enters the earth’s elliptical path or orbit and starts rotation around the earth following the elliptical motion. The orbit raising is done by the ISRO scientists and the satellite progresses to farthest elliptical motion but still within earth’s magnetic pull. Finally it is out of earth’s gravity and in the noman’s zone from where it can be propelled in any direction. For lunar expedition, the satellite is gently guided to the moon again by the scientists (as it was towards Mars for Mars expedition). It takes days again for the satellite to get into the magnetic field of the moon and when it does, the circulatory motion around the moon begins. From the outermost orbit of the moon now the ISRO scientists maneuvre the satellite to the closest orbit around the moon from where launching a rover to the moon’s surface can be attempted. This is how (I guess) the ISRO works out the lunar missions. This is India’s third. The first lunar mission of India over two decades ago discovered water in the surface of the moon. The second mission attempted landing a rover in the dark side of the moon but the rover crashed. This is India’s third attempt landing a rover in the moon. August 23 is the d-day we are all waiting for with bated breath. A nation of a billion plus wept quietly when Vikram lander, the Chandrayaan-2 probe, crashed in Moon’s surface. It was a national tragedy. But Russia scheduled to land on August 22, one day ahead of India on the south pole of the moon smacks of well concealed envy and hypocrisy. If name is what the Russians want on record, they may have it. As per Indian media, this is Russia’s blatant attempt to steal what may legitimately belong to India – the spotlight and the world history record. Indian govt should stay wary of both Russia and China at all times.
Race is also on for over half a century now to Antarctica. India owns a slice of the Antarctica pie too. We cojointly own (!) Antarctica with (naturally) America, Russia and China who are our permanent partners when it comes to sharing anything in space or whatever! Mars also will be one day owned by these four greatest nations on earth! India became the first nation in the world to succeed in Mars expedition in maiden attempt.
Indian Independence day celebrations were held here in advance and it was a proud moment for the Indian community in America who can never give up the desi customs and traditions. We can continue to be loyal citizens anywhere in the globe and still hold on to our heritage and values.
One in every five doctors in the US is an Indian/of Indian origin. The Bay Area is teeming with Indian IT professionals. At the same time, who says India is backward. Compared to America, we in India have very meagre resources because we are a civilization of over ten thousand years. We reached our saturation limits centuries back. India has been lived in for millennia. Occupied, ravaged, razed and stolen from. The over population is predictable because of favourable climatic conditions that prevailed until very recent times before the earth started getting hotter. But as someone who has seen a bit of the world I know, Indian metropolitan cities are some of the best to live in, with highest academic and professional standards and great food and culture, even if polluted and crowded. Foreign flicks as well as news telecast show only the slums of India to deceive the Americans (this is my guess). They seem to be deliberately painting a very dark and dismal picture of rest of the world which is untrue.
Europe colonized rest of the world in last three to four centuries and they justify colonization calling it the dharma of the times. By the very same laws of time and nature and evolution and civilization, India will own substantial slices of the Moon, Mars and reachable outer space apart from Antarctica even if our partners in the mission will also regrettably be the Chinese alongwith Americans and Russians.
First of all, a nation must have a huge, huge supporting economy to afford outer space ventures. And the nation’s human resources must be a cut above the rest of the humanity. Only these two combined factors can facilitate any space expedition. Rogue Arab nations flinging in the dollars must be denied admit to space unless you want the mullahs to be terrorizing even the space. The false pride of those like UAE flying an astronaut to space is deplorable. Never SELL or export space technology to Islamic nations. Whether they can master technology or not, its dangerous business to allow those nations like Pakistan join the race to space. The four nations that have made it to space have indigenous technology to work out things on their own. You have to earn your place even in the outer space. And you have to be a responsible nation.
It was interesting to watch BBC malign India and showcase our slums when UK economy cannot even dream affording space ventures. May Rishi Sunak, the Indian origin prime minister of UK build the UK economy to the level that most Brits need not have to live on welfare these days.
PS: Elon Musk has been littering (pun intended) not only planet earth but also outer space as one by one his satellites are failing and dropping to earth even as ISRO replaces Starlink.
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