India Plans Moon Mission by 2008

LPetrazickis writes "According to the Tribune, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has announced today that India will send a spacecraft to the moon by 2008. The Chandrayaan-I mission will showcase Indian achievements in science and technology to the world. Both European and Canadian Space Agencies have shown interest in the mission. SifyNews reports that 2008 was initially mispronounced as 1908. Today is the 56th anniversary of India's independence." Previous talk about this has come from the Indian space agency; this announcement from the Prime Minister seems to have more weight.

Whoa.

[webslacker]

Imagine your tech support calls being rerouted to the moon.

Oh, no! American jobs!

[gooru]

Oh, no! They're going to take away even more American jobs! Think of all the rocket scientists! Programmers first...now this?

Oh, wait, that's right. Engineers can't even find jobs here. Time to move to India.

Moon cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Starlight glittered from the chrome horns as the pressurized bovine arced up and out of Earth's gravity well.

Captain Raj blniked away a tear as he watched the earth diminish in size from his viewing station within the left eyeball of the craft.

The udders steadily increasing delta V that eventually carried the metal cow and the Indians up and over the moon and then back to earth descending gently into a McDonalds parking lot.

It's a Myth

[cioxx]

A similar argument could've been made against the USA back when the USA did it

Americans never landed on the moon. Don't be silly.

Perhaps...

[cliffy2000]

They can just take one of those nuclear weapons from their ongoing cold war with Pakistan, strap it onto a chimp's back and let 'er fly!
Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but that sounds pretty feasible.

Re:Please read the article

[phalse phace]

Please read the article

You're forgetting this is /. Next you'll want us to double check our spelling, grammer, etc. Sheesh!

Re:Right

[mkweise]

They said they'll send a spacecraft to the Moon by 2008, not man.

Indeed. India has scores of mystics who walk around on the moon with their astral bodies [sorceryn.com] every day, so that wouldn't be anything new. But bringing along a craft, now that's exciting!

Flash ...

[Cyburbia]

India's Moon probe will be equipped with a record-breaking 100 robotic arms.

SHIT!

[Rinikusu]

Now we're outsourcing our fucking astronauts?

Not a mistake!

[flossie]

In his Independence Day address, Atal Behari Vajpayee said India will send a spacecraft to moon before 1908. He obviously intended to say 2008.

Why does everyone automatically assume that this was a mistake?!
The stated aim of the mission is to

showcase Indian achievements in science and technology

.
The Indian government want to show off the advances they have made in time travel!

Re:Poland plans space mission, too

[kamapuaa]

Poland announced this week they hope to be the first country to land men on the Sun, with a goal of 2007.

Scientifically, there's no reason you can't do this. The trick is to go at night.

The obvious drawback is they'll have to use the battery-powered kind of flashlight.

Re:Is that supposed to be funny?

[mkweise]

I fully agree that space exploration is worth dying for. But making death seem funny is a tricky matter, requiring - I think - a lot more absurdity than you put into it. Here, let me give it a try:

July 20, 2008 4:17 PM

New record breaking moon crater

Seven hours before its scheduled moon landing, the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-I was forced to shut down its flight control systems when SCO revoked its license to run Linux. Attempting to boot Windows 2009, the crew experienced a general protection fault and remained on hold with tech support in Bangalore for 5 hours and 23 minutes while support personnel dealt with callers from the US who were having trouble installing the newly released Service Pack 19 for SuckOS on their MicroSoft vacuum cleaners.

Once their call was finally accepted, the crew unfortunately had just enough time to give their license and billing information before their ship collided with the lunar surface, creating the largest artificial moon crater to date, 60 meters in diameter and approximately 200 meters deep. In honor of its creators, the new lunar surface feature - easiliy visible from earth using binoculars - has been named Darl And Bill's Hole.

Re:Please read the article

[texaport]

Please read the article. The plans call for a robotic probe to the moon

If India is going do this on-time and under-budget, they'll probably have to outsource technical support to some third world country.