Chandrayan, India’s historic moon mission

Wow! So, India is finally joining the ‘men-who-touched-the-moon’ club!! This is great news. It’s sad that we are not landing any human on the moon. I was really hoping to see the Indian flag flying there alongside the American flag. Hmmm… I guess, I will have to wait for few more decades before that happens. Anyway, its a good thing that we are finally sending out the mission to moon. Also, landing a rover on the surface instad of a human seems to be the ‘cool’ thing for space engineers …

All the best to the folks @ ISRO and VSSC. The whole nation is praying and wishing for a grand successs of this historic mission….

Some details about the mission

Chandrayan, India’s historic moon mission, will be launched between October 22 and October 26. Director of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Satellite Centre Dr T K Alex and Project Director of the Chandrayan-I mission Dr Anna Durai informed media persons at Bengaluru on Thursday that the exact date for the launch has not been fixed, but the window period is between October 22 and 26.

Chandrayan will land a rover on the moon
Dr Alex added that the main objective of this mission was to understand the origin of the moon. Apart from conducting tests on the surface of the moon, the mission also intends to conduct tests on the poles of the moon. Scientists are planning to land a rover on the moon to carry out chemical analysis of the lunar surface.

Chandrayan technology ten times better than other nations
Chandrayan, which is being launched at a total cost of Rs 386 crore, is also scheduled to carry 11 payloads, which would include those from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sweden, Japan, Germany and Bulgaria. Dr Alex further pointed out that the technology used for the Chandrayan mission is ten times better than other countries. Moreover, ISRO excels in remote sensing and imaging and hence the moon can be photographed from a close range of five metres from the ground.

The spacecraft undergoes crucial tests
The mission aims to cover the entire moon and gather as much information as possible. Currently, Chandrayan is going through crucial tests in Bengaluru. It still has to undergo the vibration and acoustic tests. The spacecraft will be subject to heavy vibration first and then the sound of four jet planes will be put together to check its endurance.

Chandrayan will not land on moon
However, Chandrayan will not land on the moon due to technical difficulties. The spacecraft would hover around the moon, said the ISRO team working on the moon mission. Chandrayan could provide important leads on the possibility of human habitation on the moon, said Dr Anna Durai.

ISRO recently established a 32-meter diameter antenna at Byalalu near Bengaluru to provide tracking and command support for Chandrayaan-I. The antenna and associated systems are the first steps in building the Indian Deep Space Network, which is vital for facilitating a two-way radio communication link between the spacecraft and the earth.

First Tata, now Infosys… may pull out of Bengal

I hope that Mamata and the rest of those filthy politicians are happy now that Tata is almost on the verge of pulling out of Bengal and InfoSys is also rethinking its plans for West Bengal.

I really wouldn’t blame the companies here. How can you expect them to invest huge amount of money in a state where all it takes is a bunch illiterate, insensitive, brain dead politicians backed by a few hundred depressed, deprived common men to stop the working of a production factory and endanger the lives of all its employees. All this while the so called ruling government, law enforcement and judicial system stands by watching the chaos pathetically helpless!!!

Under Budhadheb, after the dark ages under Jyothi Basu, finally W. Bengal was just becoming an attractive haven for investors. And now with the Singur issue, they have back stepped in their progress by many folds. Why is this? Why is it that some Indian politicians manage to screw up things big time and yet the public still supports them.

Buy 1 acre on the moon

Following up on my other post on who owns the moon… I read some more from this site. It’s interesting. You can actually invest in 1 acre of lunar land through these folks.

Looks like now I can safely promise my wife the moon and then get it for USD 20$??????? How cool is that???

How does this work? Check out their explanation of this -

It’s not just a piece of paper. It’s a ticket to the future. In much the same way that major corporations — such as IBM or General Electric — offer shares of stock to raise capital, we are offering a limited number of “shares” in lunar property in order to fund privatized exploration, settlement and development of the Moon. The value of the shares is directly related to their location on the Moon, and the growth of their value is directly dependent upon successfully achieving our goal of permanently inhabiting the Moon by 2015.

In their site, in what seems to be a disclaimer they have clearly explained how someone can be royally screwed for believing that someone actually owns the moon!!!!

Plus, you might be interested to know that THERE ACTUALLY IS A LAW THAT PROHIBITS PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF NATURAL CELESTIAL BODIES IN OUTER SPACE! Read this -

The Outer Space Treaty states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. The Treaty establishes the exploration and use of outer space as the “province of all mankind.” The Moon Agreement expands on these provisions by stating that neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof, or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.

Get out of MY MOON!

Hmmm…. This is interesting!!! Ok.

Who owns the moon???

At first you could own your moon in your backyard. Now, we are talking about owning your backyard on the moon. That’s definite progress for mankind!

Now after fighting over the land by calling them countries. We are now graduating to fight over the land on the moon!! That’s improvement. It’s interesting times ahead! I can already see the Hindu’s claiming the moon as theirs as God Siva has the moon mounted on his head (Lord Siva is also called ‘Chandrachoodan‘. Check out this illustration and note the moon on his forehead).. The Muslims also have the moon in their religious symbol. For the Christians… well, I couldn’t google out anything that links the moon to Christianity. But, no worries. Somebody somewhere would ‘figure out’ some mythology/theory linking Christianity with the moon and soon we can have unemployed, illiterate morons blowing themselves up on the earth and the moon trying to force the ‘Infidels’ out of their country.

Hasn’t this been the story? Everyone these days seem to be very happy in blaming and branding the muslims as ‘the’ terrorist culture on earth. But, stop. Take a look at the history. Almost all the religions have a very bloody past. All the religions have been involved in what would be called today as terrorism or barbaric acts. The Hindus (remember the ancient hindu kings of India?), Christians (read Da Vinci code), Budhists (Remember the budhist monks who practiced martial arts), Sikhs (Operation blue star in India?), the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Egyptians… the list goes on. Every civilization, every religion even embraced by humans have led them to fight among themselves in the name of god, lifestyle, color, creed and most importantly land or in other words their homelands.

Within the next 10 years, the U.S., China, Israel, and a host of private companies plan to set up camp on the moon. So if and when they plant a flag, does that give them property rights?

A NASA working group hosted a discussion this week to ask: Who owns the moon? The answer, of course, is no one. The Outer Space Treaty, the international law signed by more than 100 countries, states that the moon and other celestial bodies are the province of all mankind. No doubt that would irk all of the people throughout the ages, like monks from the Middle Ages, who have tried to claim the moon was theirs.

But ownership is different from property rights. People who rent apartments, for example, don’t own where they live, but they still hold rights. So with all of the upcoming missions to visit the moon and beyond, space industry thought leaders are seriously asking themselves how to deal with a potential land rush, cowboy-style.

[ source ]

Now, that we are bored with the earth, we can fly to the space and fight over the moon. Gives a whole different meaning to the phrase mooning! right?