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Moon Space

India Plans To Land Astronauts On the Moon In 2040 (space.com) 86

Posted by BeauHD from the ambitious-goals dept.
The government of India said on Tuesday that it plans to put an astronaut on the moon by 2040 and build an Earth-orbiting space station by 2035. Space.com reports: On Aug. 23, India became just the fourth nation ever to soft-land a spacecraft -- its Chandrayaan-3 lander-rover duo -- on the surface of the moon. In a recent meeting with the Indian government department that manages the country's space program, Prime Minister Narendra Modi "directed that India should now aim for new and ambitious goals," according to an official statement. India's future moon exploration efforts will include a series of additional robotic Chandrayaan missions, a new launch pad and a heavy-lift launch vehicle, the statement added.

India's delayed Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, now aiming to fly three astronauts to low Earth orbit in 2025, will feature 20 major tests, including three uncrewed missions to test the launch vehicle over the course of the remainder of this year and all of next. [...] By the middle of the 2030s, India hopes to have a 20-ton space station in a fixed orbit 248 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, with capabilities to host astronauts for 15 to 20 days at a time, K. Sivan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), has previously said.

Further down the pipeline of missions, ISRO is planning a Venus orbiter called Shukrayaan-1 to study the surface of that hellishly hot planet. The payloads for that mission are currently being developed, current ISRO chairman S. Somanath had said last month. A second orbiter mission to Mars is also on the books, according to the latest statement. The nation's first, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was launched in 2013 and studied the Red Planet's atmosphere for eight years before it lost contact with Earth in April 2022. The follow-up mission, Mars Orbiter Mission 2 or MOM 2, will likely include cameras to study the planet's crust and may also include a lander, although many of the mission plans are yet to be finalized.
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India Plans To Land Astronauts On the Moon In 2040 More

India Plans To Land Astronauts On the Moon In 2040

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  • Catching up with China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ghoul ( 157158 ) on Thursday October 19, 2023 @06:35AM (#63936423)
    Indian ecoomy in 2025 will be approxiamately where China was in 2005 about 20 years behind . India is planning a station by 2035 which China achieved in 2020 aout 15 years behind and India wants to land on moon by 2040 while China has planned 2030. So India wants to close the gap by 5 years at each stage.

    Ambitious

  • WIll they use home grown engs and devs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Thursday October 19, 2023 @06:49AM (#63936435) Homepage

    Astronaut: "The lander won't take off from the lunar surface"

    Engineer: "Its called a lander, not a takeoffer. No one said anything about it having to take off again!"

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      The current lander Chandrayaan 3 /Pragyan was supposed to be only a lander but also did an extra mission to do a short hop to try out takeoff technologies. So it was supposed to be a lander but also did a takeoff.

      Decades of dealing with clueless American Product Owners who can never really figure out the project goals (how could they , they only got their job because they met the funding VP at a Church barbeque), Indian engineers have learnt to always build to more than the specs.

      /s Just Keeping i
      • To be pedantic, if it landed with excess fuel sufficient to take off then it was a design failure - a happy one in this case, but being excessively over-conservative won't help their moon mission.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        " Indian engineers have learnt to always build to more than the specs."

        In which universe? They code exactly to the specs and no more. They use no initiative if the specs are missing something, don't mention it and just try and code around it. And usually fail.

        You get what you pay for with indian coders - ie not much.

    • If you read all that with an Indian accent it really comes across a lot funnier!!

      I'm sorry, no offense intended to anyone. Just sayin'........

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Given the worlds largest poplation of English speakers speak with an Indian accent, its pretty much THE standard accent at this point. US and British English are quaint accents spoken by a minority of English speaking folks.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > "Its called a lander, not a takeoffer. No one said anything about it having to take off again!"

      And the astronaut becomes a flippoffer.

  • Long term goals are tough (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Thursday October 19, 2023 @07:14AM (#63936467) Homepage
    One of the lessons about the last 60 years of space has been that the longer term you set an ambitious goal, the less likely it is to happen as priorities change, and people aren't that motivated. The US managed to land people on the moon in 1969 largely due to a combination of four things: access to incredible talent and resources post World War II, Kennedy setting a before-the-decade-goal, a competition with the USSR, and Kennedy then getting martyred which made changing any of his major goals really difficult. 17 years is a lot longer than Kennedy 9.5 years, and I doubt that Modi is particularly interested in becoming a martyr symbol so his country sticks to the same space goals.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      India is not a Presidential system. Its a Prime Ministerial System. If Modi wants to keep running for the next 4 elections he can but even if he doesnt the Space Program has widespread support. 2040 is a realistic goal given India is planning to launch to orbit by 2025. US went from Orbital launch to Lunar landing in less than a decade.

      • There is nothing about President vs Prime Minister that determines political longevity.

        After FDR we amended our constitution to 2 terms for potus. India could do the same for prime minister or we could reverse the 2 term limit here.

    • 100% this. Not just for space, but for everything.

  • Did you turn the computer off and back on?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      > Did you turn the computer off and back on?

      That's what Apollo 11 should have done when their computer was glitchy. It was running one too many tasks due to an earlier misunderstanding about if and when to turn off a rendezvous utility. The computer kept rebooting, but didn't remove the "extra" task, just restarted the existing tasks, as I understand it.

      If Apollo 11 had the time & hindsight, they should have taken inventory of every running task, and verify with mission control if it should be activa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      What does it say about people who call tech support that this single step fixes 80% of issues?

  • How can it take 17 years? The USA did it in less than 7, without a playbook.

    • How can it take 17 years? The USA did it in less than 7, without a playbook.

      We had essentially a blank check, and a lot of motivation. And really good engineers.

      But as you note - without a playbook. There is a real learning curve to these technological tour de force actions. It seems that countries emulating our success should be able to do it in maybe 10 years or less.

      • And Operation Paperclip.
        • exactly.

        • And Operation Paperclip.

          Yes Paperclip and the V2's we brought back were a pretty good tutorial. It is also kind of amusing that some people believe that the US should have no part in the engineers involved in Paperclip.

          Old Uncle Joe would have had work for them otherwise. Same with him trying to get to the Uranium that was in the Western German area. Had to be approached delicately since the Russian troops weren't supposed to be taking spoils of war. Even though the Germans were trying to create bombs using the wrong technique,

      • Re:17 years? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Tim the Gecko ( 745081 ) on Thursday October 19, 2023 @09:57AM (#63936803)

        We had essentially a blank check, and a lot of motivation. And really good engineers.

        Also a total focus on flags and footprints, with no need for anything afterwards. The scientific achievements were great, but the main goal was having boots on the Moon with a less than 1 in N chance of killing astronauts. And we probably don't want to know what N was.

        It seems that countries emulating our success should be able to do it in maybe 10 years or less.

        Perhaps they should take longer for a more sustainable exploration program, rather than rushing there and then losing interest for decades.

        • And we probably don't want to know what N was

          I think it was 20. Or IIRC, that is how often the rockets failed. They were prolly ok with 10. Maybe 5 but that is really extreme. I doubt the public would've liked that.

          • And we probably don't want to know what N was

            I think it was 20. Or IIRC, that is how often the rockets failed. They were prolly ok with 10. Maybe 5 but that is really extreme. I doubt the public would've liked that.

            Well, a lot of Spacex fans are claiming the first Starship launch was a success, even though it didn't produce anywhere near the thrust needed, destroyed the launch pad, didn't respond to the flight termination system, tumbled and blew up. So I guess they like what it is doing.

            I wonder how many would volunteer to be on the next one. It is important to note that not one of the N1 style rockets have ever reached orbit.

            • There were 84 uncrewed launches of Falcon 9 before the Demo-2 launch with astronauts. I'd hope that Starship follows a similar course.

              • There were 84 uncrewed launches of Falcon 9 before the Demo-2 launch with astronauts. I'd hope that Starship follows a similar course.

                I think that Spacex has managed to keep Musk out of the picture for much of their work. The Falcons are indeed good and dependable rockets.

                The Starship however, has Musk's fingerprints all over it. It has various big compromises, like the engines. They are methalox. There is a reason for that. It makes them more reuseable, than RP1-Lox engines. Presumably in order to be refueled on Mars or something like that. They are supposed to land vertically, reminiscent of Buck Rogers. Now they are talking about gr

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  They are contacted to land the first Artemis astronauts on the moon in 2025, but likely delayed until 2026 due to SLS.

                  So they have 2-3 years to get from where they are now to being able to land on and take off from the moon, safely enough to take passengers.

        • several of the US Astronauts literally volunteered for a one way mission if that would get us to the moon before the Soviets.

        • We had essentially a blank check, and a lot of motivation. And really good engineers.

          Also a total focus on flags and footprints, with no need for anything afterwards. The scientific achievements were great, but the main goal was having boots on the Moon with a less than 1 in N chance of killing astronauts. And we probably don't want to know what N was.

          NASA had plans aplenty.https://history.nasa.gov/spdocs.html But the politicians didn't. Many saw money that could be used to fund projects in their districts, or line their own pockets. So we ended up having politicians decide the form factors of things like the Space Shuttle.

          Regardless, continuing with the balls to the wall approach of the Apollo program wasn't going to be practical. It came at a time when the USA was also throwing money away in Vietnam. With the to be expected inflation riddled time a

    • you forget that Werner von Braun was working on this stuff in the 1950's, he was pushing for it to happen almost since he was 'liberated' from Germany.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BranMan ( 29917 )

        And, from what I've learned, was ignored by the government during the 50's and only given his head after Sputnik got everyone in a panic.

  • They shoot for something no one else has done.
    Like Venus. Or get to Mars before Musk. (But then again, if Musk got there first, would he be really first or just returning to his people)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Soviets have been to Venus multiple times. At this point every inner planet has been visited as well as the asteroid belt and flybys have been done on all the outer planets as well. The repeat missions will send better instruments and different experiments. If you are planning to do real science it doesnt matter if someone has already been there.

  • It's easy for politicians to promise grand schemes that will likely be activated long after their reign. One can give the project a token budget to look like something is happening, but usually it turns out to be too small in practice. It's a way to promise shiny grandness without jacking up debt too much.

    Bush 2 did just that by promising a Mars mission. It was underfunded (and is still underfunded).

    It's similar to the reason we always have big national debt: hand out favors & tax breaks now and let the

  • Ok, but, how is it planning to get its astronaut back?

  • 5 Years to do it. 12 years to phone scam enough Wal-Mart gift cards to fund it.

  • 2040?
    Just buy a ticket on Musk's spaceliner.


  • "Empty vessel makes the loudest sound" --Plato (b. 427)

    India slipped to 111/125 in Hunger Index

    Median Income in India is $3.89 per day

    "A country is not made of land; a country is made of its people" --Gurazada (b. 1862)

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