India's space agency set to launch lunar lander, rover

India's Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will next week launch Chandrayaan-3, a mission that aims to land on the moon and deploy a rover. ISRO yesterday announced that Chandrayaan-3 had been tucked into its capsule and mated with the (LVM-3) launcher that will take it into space. Liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre …

[Grunchy]

Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

The rover had to travel 500m and send images and data back to Earth, and the privateers would win $20 million or $30 million or something. Except the deadline was March 2018.

Well I sincerely hope India makes it, I’m actually confident they’ll succeed this time.

I’m just afraid there’s nothing worthwhile on the moon to bother with. I think the Americans came to that realization in 1972 after just 6 trips…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

Except build a theme park. With whalers.

[amolbk]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

"I’m just afraid there’s nothing worthwhile on the moon to bother with."

As per the mission objectives, looks like they are refining their landing and roving skills. Can be handy on Mars.

[iron]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

> Can be handy on Mars.

And there's sod all there too.

Mars is a dead planet unable to sustain Earth-based life. The only useful thing we'll discover by studying it is the likely final condition of our own planet once we've finished fucking it.

[Version 1.0]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

Right now we're only "intelligent" life on the Earth and when you look at the entire environment it's clear we're not super-smart and our abilities are very limited. So working as the human life to visit and maintain our visits to the moon and then other planets has the potential to bring us up to the intelligent alien standards that might result in human survival for the next 100 billion years ... I would be so happy if we can become intelligent aliens in the Universe!

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

Version 1.0 "Right now we're only "intelligent" life on the Earth and when you look at the entire environment it's clear we're not super-smart and our abilities are very limited."

Well on the positive side of things, at least some of us have realised that the Earth's climate is in danger and are trying to do something about it. We are not completely lost, well , not yet anyway.

[spold]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

... Mars indeed - what's on the next supply shipment? Errmmm a tandoor and some flock wallpaper... apparently it has a rover that can also do delivery.... Hey the planet might even be habitable (add a brewery module).

[Roj Blake]

Re: nothing worthwhile on the moon to bother with

Well, there's lots of helium-3 up there and according to a documentary I once saw, some interesting local fauna that exists by harvesting soup from wells.

[localzuk]

Re: Anybody remember Google Lunar X Prize?

Wallace and Gromit disagree!

[Zebo-the-Fat]

I hope they succeed

[StrangerHereMyself]

Cheap

If India can built a probe for $74 million they can probably afford to lose one now and then. In the US or UK $74 million would probably only cover the cost of the rover's chassis and little else.

I'd really like to see a breakdown of those costs, since previous estimates were shown to be erroneous, not taking into account many cost items. Indian and Chinese engineers are certainly a lot cheaper to hire, but not THAT cheaper.

[Raj]

Re: Cheap

They’re a government organization with a budget and audits. You can find the boring numbers on isro.gov.in .

[sanmigueelbeer]

Can the Indian government not be too over ambitious and aim for something which has a higher chance of success, like faxing infosec incidents to CERT-IN?

The option to fax incident reports to CERT-In also raised eyebrows.

[Spherical Cow]

Why not both?

[Lucy in the Sky (with Diamonds)]

ILSA? quite a She-Wolf she is...

It is so nice, that ILSA is finally making it to space.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071650/

Maybe they are trying to make Iron Sky for real?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/