India Space Travel Plans

Chairman G Madhavan Nair of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has said that space travel will be an essential component of ISRO's future work. ISRO hopes to send astronauts into orbit by 2015 and to send a human being to the Moon by 2020.

At an award ceremony in Kochi on Friday June 19, 2009, Nair announced that India's first Moon mission, Chandrayaan-1 has been a success. Chandrayaan-1 was sent into lunar orbit in November 2008. From June 10, when Japan's Kaguya spacecraft crashed into the Moon on June 10, through June 23, when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered lunar orbit, Chandrayaan-1 was the only spacecraft orbiting the Moon.

Nair explained how the benefits of space technology had benefited average people in India, for example, by predicting natural disasters and by using satellites to provided healthcare and education. He said that every rupee spent on space technology provided a 150% return on investment.

ISRO has established weather stations around India and is using "Village Resource Centers" to help develop villages.

The organization plans to set up a telescope and radar at Thiruvananthapuram.

Nair said that the hard work of India's scientists were the reason for the success of its space program. Other countries had refused to share their technology with India because they were afraid that India would use the technology to enhance its military capability. Therefore, Indian scientists had to develop their country's space technology independently.