India Landed on the Moon. Wait, What? – The American Spectator

On Wednesday at 6:05 p.m. local time, 70 million people watched breathlessly, glued to their screens, as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft hovered over the desolate landscape of the moon’s South Pole. Like a Pac-Man character, the craft was first above the moon, then on it, then its thrusters powered down, and India became the fourth nation to land a craft on Earth’s nearest neighbor.

“This moment is unforgettable. It is phenomenal. This is a victory cry of a new India,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. (READ MORE: Elon’s Excellent Explosion)

It was also the moment that India joined a very small club of elite space powers, including China, Russia, and the United States, who have conducted successful moon landings — a feat that was even more impressive since just days before, a Russian craft had attempted the same landing and had gone dark before crashing into the surface of the moon on Sunday.

It might seem like India’s victory comes out of nowhere, but it’s just the latest — and most visible — achievement in the country’s rise as an influential power on the global stage.

India’s Rise as a Global Power

There’s no doubt that India’s economy still has a long way to go despite the fact that it ranks as the fifth-largest in the world. However, the country has made massive strides in the right direction and currently possesses one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, according to the World Bank. Between 2011 and 2019, India managed to cut the number of people living in extreme poverty in half.

India’s drastic improvements (and its historically hostile position towards China) have made it a desirable ally for the United States. The trouble is, as the Economist recently noted, that “India does not really believe in alliances. An immutable feature of its foreign policy … is a deep, post-colonial fear of being beholden to a richer power.” (RELATED: India Celebrates Lunar Landing)

Practically speaking, India’s attitudes towards alliances have meant that while the nation certainly seems interested in developing better relations with the West, it has also maintained significant ties to Russia, not only refusing to condemn the Ukraine invasion but also happily continuing to accept weapons and nearly half of its oil from Russia.

The feeling is apparently mutual. Even though India technically beat Russia to a South Pole moon landing, that doesn’t seem to have created any ill will. Russia’s space program’s response was perhaps warmer than expected given the circumstances: “Roskosmos congratulates Indian colleagues on the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft … Exploration of the moon is important for all mankind. In the future it may become a platform for deep space exploration,” it said in a statement on the social media platform Telegram.

Meanwhile, India has agreed to work much more closely with the United States on space exploration. In June, President Joe Biden welcomed Modi with open arms, and India signed the Artemis Accords — meaning that the two nations will be collaborating to eventually put Indian citizens in outer space.

Why the Moon’s South Pole

The addition of India’s signature to the Artemis Accords was well-timed — it always looks better when your international partner does something that Russia failed at — especially given that Chandrayaan-3’s mission wasn’t an easy one.

Covered in craters, the moon’s South Pole is not especially friendly to spacecraft. It’s a difficult spot to land, and it’s mostly unprotected from asteroids from outer space. But when the first Chandrayaan mission took pictures of the region in 2008, scientists began to get excited.

“We know the South Pole region contains ice and may be rich in other resources based on our observations from orbit, but, otherwise, it’s a completely unexplored world,” said Steven Clarke, deputy associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The South Pole is far from the Apollo landing sites clustered around the equator, so it will offer us a new challenge and a new environment to explore as we build our capabilities to travel farther into space.” (READ MORE: China’s Advances in Space Warfare Are Terrifying)

Water is not just a necessary ingredient for life; it’s the key to unlocking space exploration. Of course, it can be used for drinking, but it could also be broken down to be used for rocket fuel and for oxygen to breathe. Since discovering its presence at the South Pole, scientists have used robots to map every square meter in the region.

The dream is to eventually build a human outpost on the South Pole, and NASA’s Artemis program has promised to land astronauts there as soon as next year — a goal that Chandrayann-3 will undoubtedly play into.

India’s mission to the moon is especially impressive, considering the fact that India currently has a mere 2 percent share in the global space industry. The government is currently targeting 9 percent by 2030 and recently took an ambitious approach to meeting that goal: It decided to deregulate its space program, allowing hundreds of startups to contribute.

That approach has been successful on multiple fronts. The government budgeted just $74 million for Chandrayaan-3’s launch — significantly less than any of the Apollo missions, and it has been extraordinarily successful in encouraging startups. In 2020, just five contractors were listed as working with the ISRO on satellites; today, it’s more like 140.

In a race historically dominated by Russia and the United States, it will be interesting to observe how a country, seemingly committed to siding with neither, will be able to compete.