Destination Moon - The Race Begins, Again!!!

The Moon mission stories are phenomenons which always excite the child inside me completely. As a kid, I always aspired to be an astronaut and land on the moon. I dreamed about going in outer space and landing on different planets. Now, at an age of more realistic understanding, I am still amazed by the achievements and discoveries that are made in outer space.

The History

Going to the moon has always been an exciting venture for us humans. The sixties and seventies saw a huge bunch of missions from United States and the then U.S.S.R. in a bid to win the “Space Race”. The race kind of ended after a myriad of successful unmanned and manned missions to moon. The major ones that would be remembered are Apollo-11, when Neil Armstrong set his foot on the moon showing the human supremacy and Apollo-13, which had a series of failures and ultimately brought the crew back alive without reaching the moon.

During the decades there after, the excitement of winning over the Space has waned and the fact that the missions are very expensive has not helped in continuation of those. Yet, scientists spent years figuring out information from the moon rocks and data brought back by the older missions.


The New Moon Race???

After a span of almost 40 years, the human endeavor to reclaim the moon has suddenly gained impetus. The European Union (ESA) sent their moon mission in the year 2004. In the years 2007 and 2008 we see Japan, China and India planning to send their moon missions. George Bush also mentioned another manned-moon mission from the United States in the second decade of this century, but it seems to have been postponed as of now. And like the last Space Race, even this new “Space Age” has been darkened with suspicion and doubts instead of cooperation.

All the moon missions are designed to learn more about the lunar atmosphere and surface have no military purpose. But space technology is a field where civilian technological advances can easily be put to military use, nations closely scrutinize each of their neighbors' steps forward. More so, after tests from Technologies like anti-satellite missiles and inter-continental missiles. All said and done, a new “Technological Era” is about to begin.

Chandrayaan – 1 – India’s First Moon Mission

The idea of an Indian moon mission had been on the minds of ISRO ever since its inception, but the realistic mooting of the idea started happening in 1999-2000. A "National Lunar Task Force" was created, wherein leading Indian Scientists brainstormed and assessed the feasibilty of an Indian Moon mission. Subsequently, Government of India approved ISRO's proposal for the first Indian Moon Mission, called Chandrayaan-1 in November 2003. The fact that Indian economy had improved than before and the facts that ISRO has been very consistent with its technology added further impetus to this daunting task.

Chandrayaan – the name is derived from “Chandra” which means Moon and “Yaan” which means vehicle, thus it stands for “Lunar craft”. Chandrayan-1 was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota by PSLV-XL (PSLV-C11) on 22 October 2008. It used the same idea of sending the rocket to the moon using the Earth’s gravity to provide a boost to the rocket.

When the first orbit around the earth, the rocket just took 6.5 hours to complete the revolution, but over days as the ellipse started getting bigger, and before it entered the moon’s trajectory, it once reached a point where it would take 6 days to revolve around the earth. Finally on 4th November, the spacecraft entered the Lunar Trajectory. Then the craft was slowly moved towards the moon and on November 12, the spacecraft was at 100 km circular orbit to the moon.

On 14th November, ISRO and hence India created history by ejecting the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) and landing it successfully on the Lunar surface. This incident also colored the “Grey Moon” with the “Tricolor”. Currently the devices and sensors on board MIP are functioning and sending back huge amounts of data which will not only help us understand the moon better, but the experience will also help us in moving ahead on other missions.


Economic Effects to India

A lot of people claim that the Indian Moon Mission is a redundant exercise that could have been done away with especially considering the fact that it costed around $78 million. Though there seems to be no direct impact of this mission, there are key-economic benefits which this missions will bring.

ISRO proved that they reached the moon at a very low price. Though we cannot compare it to the amounts spent in 1960-70s because the valuation and needs were different, Chandrayan’s expenditure of $78 million as compared to Europe’s SMART-1 mission cost of about $180 million, Japan’s Kaguya lunar probe cost of $487 million and even China’s Change-1 that costed $180 million, is considerably less.

Not only is the Chandrayaan cost effective relative to similar missions by other nations, this relative low cost is itself a tremendous advertisement for Indian space services in a highly competitive launch industry, and will help generate enormous revenues for ISRO and its commercial arm, Antrix. Though there are a few countries that place orders with ISRO (like the 10-satellite launching mission few months back). The fact that ISRO has the positive moon mission will add a feather to the cap and ISRO will indirectly generate a lot of revenue from the launches for other countries.

Apart from this, an indirect gain (though not substantial or directly visible) is that such illustrious projects in some way encourage reverse-braindrain and this would bring some of the best minds back to India, which will in turn improve the situations for the better.


Political Effects to India

The positive Moon mission will surely help India win a lot of diplomatic votes in the current World situation. Very positive acknowledgements were received from various countries for the successful implanting of “Tri-colour” (as spelled in India) on the Lunar surface. India's quest for the envious "Superpower" tag just clinched another vote with this uninhibited 239,000 mile journey to our lone natural satellite. This moon mission will also help improve the relations with countries further after the “N-Deal Saga” and hence the mission has a lot of indirect diplomatic benefits.

In one single line: “India Shining Reinforced again!”

On a fun note, Moon is revered as “Chanda-mama” in India. This mission has made the first trip to “Mausal” (Maternal uncle’s place) a reality. And since a lot other Moon missions are pipelined with ISRO 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. The old Gujarati proverb seem apt.

“Mama nu gher kettle, deevo bale etle!” (How far is Maternal Uncle’s place, in this case the Moon, just as far as the lamp, who’s light is visible nearby!) Though the translation is loose, the idea is, the Moon will be a near-by place soon...