But we've crashed a probe on Mars.

...at 3,000+ MPH?

Call that success? Bet it stung the man-in-the-moon a bit.

('Specially if it got him in the 'nads)

Congratulations India. It's also, according to the ever-accurate(?) Wikipedia the 2nd lightest manmade object on the moon (discounting various individual items left by the Apollo missions), so whilst it is undoubtedly an impressive achievement, their 35Kg probe is a long way short of a 15,000Kg Apollo LM.

A case of one small step for mankind, one giant leap for India, perhaps?

Mine's the one with the ALSEP in the pocket.

This may sound a bit far-fetched...

Does anybody really believe this story? GIven the US moon landings were originally clearly faked - from a technical point of view - are China and India really capable of building machinery that can actually get to the moon and back? I mention this purely because I've been to both countries, and given the above news would really rather they spent more of this wasted money on things that actually matter.

Let's sort the big world issues out first then worry about planting a flag on the moon. It's the moon - we know enough about it now, jeeso.

Fifth nation, if you include the British 1901 Bedford-Cavor expedition to the moon.

The third, a pedant writes.

ESA finally crashed the Smart 1 on the Moon, but is a multi-national organisation. was the third organisation

China has only sent an orbiter so far.

Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Landing something on the Moon... the UK have the 1st two but not the 3rd !

Who's the 3rd world nation now ? Oh wait, got that little problem of poverty, infant mortality etc. to resolve. However, the thinking must be : lead in technology and prosperity will follow...

Video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HArUmqqiL0s

Now that India have joined the Space Race by dropping stuff on the moon, we can now stop sending millions of £££s of taxpayers money for those unimportant things like medicine, food, and shelter. It seems as though India has enough money now to spend out on a few luxuries...

before you can get a chicken tikka?

One small step. Keep 'em comming.

Excellent job, who would have thought India would be the fourth to land an object on the moon at the time of the Apollo series?

A great deal of the best science on the planet is being carried out by scientists from the Sub-continent.

But the question is: can they see the old U.S. flag and confirm that they actually landed on the Moon back in 1969?

-dZ.

Mine's the one with the tinfoil hat in the pocket.

I want to see pics of the old US flag and the lander... and the footprints...

and cheese too if pos, cheers.

India has made a superb achievement in landing a capsule on the moon. CONGRATULATIONS to all those Indian scientists and technologists involved in executing this enormous project.

Space research has come a long way in China, Japan and India. We are likely to hear of greater accomplishments in the coming years from these countries -- a testimony that their scientists can perform extraordinary feats, given the opportunity.

RB, San Diego CA

"are China and India really capable of building machinery that can actually get to the moon and back? I mention this purely because I've been to both countries"

Well based on that argument, given the state New Orleans is still in, and the number of people living in trailer parks across Tennessee and Georgia, how can we be sure America can even build cars? ;-)

It doesn't matter what country it is or how many poor people they have, those in charge will always find money for guns, rockets and champagne.

They won't be able to confirm a US flag on the moon since there is none. With the technology they had at the time it's more like science fiction. But you know "americans" or "USers" or "United Staters" they tend to believe or try to prove they are the best no matter what trickery is required to achieve it.

...if they'd just have crayoned an Indian flag on that bloody 'fridge, and lobbed it the other way...

Its great to able to witness this. Now once China can get something up there I believe the race will be on.

So then first to put people on Mars, asteroid belt, etc

mines the one with the checkered flag in the pocket

lol.. Andus got it right... ...at 3,000+ MPH?

i call that FAIL of epic magnitude..

and on another level of fail... i thought that there were very many starving and destitute people in India? and they are proud of this 'achievement'?? W T F ? ?

i've said before that it's all an astronomical scam..

how best to make (con) billions getting money to develop expensive ship, then steal most of it and stick a pile of scrap in a rocket, send it up, then: blow it up, loose it or smash it into the moon at a massive impact velocity where it'll be smashed to smithereens. job done mate nudge nudge.

F A I L ! ! !

Cant somone (I am looking at you china) land a probe near the american flag so we can have an answer on the Fake/Real landing once and for all dam it.....

...and all our call centres will be outsourced to the Moon.

Thank you for calling the Moon, please note that your call is very important to us...

OK, all you flat Earth doubting Thomases... here's the pic of the flag you've all wanted, and it proves that the US and China share a flag on the moon!

http://www.acreditesequiser.net/2008/10/14/made-in-china/

Mine's the one with the pockets full of smarties, Alec!

So, here come the usual pack of whiners moaning about how the money could have been spent on poor people etc.

granting that india is indeed poor, does not mean that we should not spend anything on research. or do they want us to remain this way and look to the West for all the wonders with starry eyes?

i do not know whether the technology will enable us to get more money but certainly beats fabricating WMDs and invading other lands for oil. seems to me a more honest effort...

finally, regarding the "billions" of pounds being poured into india as aid, just think of it as a loan being repaid.....

http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_060206.htm

The time for India and China to reclaim their stature in the world is here.

Congratulations India on conquering the final frontier. I hope someday, space will be as easily accessible, as a ride in the tube.

Eli

www.noizemag.com - The voice of gay America

The moon today, mars tomorrow?

It's amazing, how a country with big challenges (poverty, corruption, literacy) can achieve the impossible, with determination and leadership.

What's more important is that this mission cost less than half of any other comparable lunar missions, using indigenous technologies and labor.

Next step, outsourcing NASA and ESA phones to India. : )

Eli

http://www.noiZemag.com/ - The gay voice of America

dream big, strive hard, and make those dreams come true.

As an indian, this is one of the proudest moments I can remember. As an engineer, I know we have some of the best technical and engineering minds here on the sub continent. Nothing is impossible.

And please spare me the ''people are starving'' and ''babies are dying'' bull poo. Hunger, poverty and suffering are global humanitarian issues, and should not be used as tools by some frustrated, jingoistic, semi literate, know it alls to get themselves off.

all very well to say that, by we should all get our own house (world) in proper order first.

yes, spending money this way is absolutely NOT in order so long as there is imbalance with so many rich who don't care about the destitute masses.. end of story.

you can call me (and others) a 'whiner' or anything else you like, but i can guarantee you wouldn't be saying that if you were destitute, and/or your family starving. dumbass!

yes technological advancement is important, but only if it's purpose is morally correct.

so yes, i say again, that if you have starving masses then you have no business spending money on other things instead of feeding and sheltering those who need it.

starry eyes and envy is nothing compared with LIFE.

and this applies to ALL nations of this supposedly civilized earth.

WHS. The money was used for research, developing the technology, and the salaries of the people involved. It's still circulating in India.

The way some people talk, you'd think it was sitting in a bank account on the Moon.

I find it rather annoying to hear folk knocking India for their achievement, rather than castigating the UK government for its failure to do better.

Is space exploration pointless? Compare it with the impending waste of billions on a useless and unwanted ID card scheme...

To all the people who think that landing at 3000+ MpH is a failure...read the bloody article again. Its not a Landing Module...it's an impactor. It's designed to crash at that speed. Hopefully, they ruggedized it so they can take samples of the subsurface. Maybe they'll find Uranium or some other metals up there.

Mine's the one with the Bruce Willis picture embroidered on it.

for all you tinfoil fetish freaks...

they did land on the moon, there is proof.... just because you choose not to believe it, that's your problem. all that nonsense about the photographs etc has all well and truly been set to bed.

just get over it, and go looking for white fiat unos or go looking for footprints and shell cases behind white picket fences in Dallas.... and get a better education than a BA in discovery channel.

seriously. theres a frickin mirror on the moon thats been bouncing laser beams back since the Apollo missions. so please stop with the self indulgent conspiracy theories. they are the dull, ill-informed, nonsensical ravings of the feeble minded.

...hopefully they'll send everyone who's worked on a Bollywood movie.

there's this big black shiny breeze-block thing in my back garden.

<<To all the people who think that landing at 3000+ MpH is a failure...read the bloody article again. Its not a Landing Module...it's an impactor.>>

And the usefulness of an impactor is...????

Oh, for fuc*k's sake... Can't you recognise a bit of humour??? BTW, "All the people" is two. Yep, a major acheivement for India. Congrats to them, but a bit of a larf is in order, surely?

(BTW, that bloody 'fridge was an "impactor", too. On Earth. Just not designed as such).

You should get out more. ;-)

Well, that does it for me. Some anonymous poster on the Internet telling me that they did land on the moon and that there is proof is more than enough to put any doubts I had to bed. Cheers mate, I was under the impression that cosmic rays would have killed the astronauts once outside the Earths magnetic sphere.

Oh Adam, thanks for that, it's good to know that I can bounce a laser beam back at myself from a certain part of the moon. What more proof do I need that US astronauts landed on the moon with the computing power of a speak and spell and with no protection against cosmic radiation yet suffering no ill effects.

Why not just claim I am being un patriotic and that if I don't believe the US landed on the moon I must be a damn terrorist and deserve to be locked up. 20 years ago I would have been a commie, but alas I digress.

Yeah, course they have been to moon. There was some seriously strong acid around at that era. Most people had at some point or other.

Radiation was a known risk. The short duration of each trip was a key to creating favorable odds. Granted the two and a half year round trip to Mars will expose an astronaut to a dangerous amount of radiation, but the trip to the moon was an acceptable risk. That the trips were done using minimal computer power is something to be celebrated, not condemned.

What is so laughable about all the conspiracy theories is the idea that successive American administrations choose to and are sufficiently competent to continue covering up the failure of the Apollo missions to reach the Moon. Oh and the mathematics behind getting a rocket to the moon isn't all that difficult, even with just pencil and paper. Perhaps more than calculations that one would like to do on a Sunday afternoon, but not more that the combined resources of the American people.

I assume you're talking about the Van Allen radiation belts when you mention cosmic rays killing the astronauts? The astronauts were only exposed to this radiation for ~4 hours each way, and both times were protected by their spaceship. There's a very interesting link about the radiation here:

http://www.wwheaton.com/waw/mad/mad19.html

"Why not just claim I am being un patriotic and that if I don't believe the US landed on the moon I must be a damn terrorist and deserve to be locked up. 20 years ago I would have been a commie, but alas I digress."

Wait a minute- nobody said anything about you being unpatriotic! Nice attempt to play the victim because everybody doesn't agree with you, but it's not going to fly. Next time try arguing the facts.

Ultimately, if you want to believe the moon landing is faked nobody is going to stop you. Just like if you want to believe the earth is flat nobody is going to stop you (just google the Flat Earth Society if you don't believe there are people out there who still think *this* too). However, if you're going to argue against it you should use facts rather than abuse.

..."Calling a crash landing on the moon a "success" is like saying you've successfully swum the channel because you're corpse washed up on a French beach."

'Nuff said.

I guess an impactor-type probe wailing in at 3kmph or so sort of gives a whole new meaning to the word "plant"... as in what happens to your face vis-a-vis the street when your Segway catches a chunk of gravel at top speed (approx 12mph, iirc).

For the benefit of you whippersnappers out there, the US Ranger probes, circa the mid-1960s, also "planted" themselves on the Moon. I always got quite a vicarious thrill watching the time-lapse video transmitted by the probes' cameras as they hurtled towards the impact point. (I keep hoping one day soon a planetary lander will have enough power and bandwidth to transmit full-motion video of its approach and landing; that'd be extra sweet)

Oh, and @ William, 11.16, 13:42: If you still honestly believe the landings were faked, how do you explain the age and composition of the rocks brought back by the Apollo crews, along with the parts cut off of the Surveyor probe -- which landed for real -- brought back by the Apollo 12 crew? Never mind that the cost in money, resources and logistics to _fake_ a landing would likely have been equal or greater than just sending a mission to the Moon for _real_. Get a goddamn' grip, man.

(Jeezus H., how the hell'd he get in here, anyway? Is Sarah home sick today or something?)

> What more proof do I need that US astronauts landed on the moon

> with the computing power of a speak and spell

Actually, the Speak'n'Spell had way more computing power than the onboard computer of the Apollo had... And technology developed for the space program is one reason you could later play with such microprocessor toys.

The computers on ground used for planning were of course way more powerful. But what really counted they had skilled humans onboard, who could and did override the autopilot when it was taking them to a field of boulders on the first moon landing.

> and with no protection against cosmic radiation yet suffering no ill effects.

They were lucky no solar storms occurred at the time, and the mission was short, a just few days.

It wasn't that the moon landings were faked. The whole moon is a fake. It was destroyed by the Nazi's during world war 2 to prevent allied pilots from using it to navigate. The allies replaced the moon with a large high altitude balloon painted to look like the original lunar surface immediately afterwards to negate this effect.

"I was under the impression that cosmic rays would have killed the astronauts once outside the Earths magnetic sphere."

So the famous Apollo 8 lunar flyby footage was faked, too? Impressive stuff.

"There was some seriously strong acid around at that era."

Was Nixon doing it, too? The whole "fake moon landing" stuff is funny for a few minutes - James Bond driving a moon-rover round in Thunderball, and all that - but people who keep banging on about it like it's "just so hilarious" really need to be in primary school to justify not being a total bore. And people who keep banging on about it like "there's a conspiracy, man" really need to redo primary school.

if i were poor, i would certainly not like it. on the same scale, if you were poor, you would not be posting comments on the Register and dislike a great many research things. do you mean to say that those should be stopped?!!

personally, i think that its a wonderful job by everyone involved and not just because it is Indian...

the main proof that the man moon landing was real is that URSS didnt say that was a hoax. SIMPLE.

It infuriates me no end that there are supposedly rational people who still dispute the veracity of the 69-onwards moon landings; it demonstrates a severe lack of scientific literacy and comprehension.

It's the end result of unbridled cynicism, far to prevalent in IT circles.

Still, makes for a great interview question - "Do you think the moon landings were faked?" "Yes!" .... CV immediately goes in the circular file.

Guys, i'm not knocking the achievement for what it is, even though the money could've been better spent, but I'd wager on the wording used in this article being lifted from an Indian press release, there was not a flag planting, you crashed a flying engine, with a painting on it, into a large orbiting body.

You can't claim you've joined the moon club, this is just cheating and detracts all other scientific missions and landing with and actual purpose.

what was the purspose of this merry space jaunt, other than the oppertunity to release said press statement?

I'm sorry, it's all just whistles and bells, which is the attitude we get from India, attention grabbing, not paying heed to the actual issues happening to it;s citizens.

Tremendous achievement! Way more successful than any nation that preceeded them in this type of effort - if anyone has a clue on how disastrous the first space experiments of every single space faring nation were - the sheer cost of the missions, the failures etc. By any measure India's moon mission tops them all. The clueless can readup on the mission, especially what function an impactor is supposed to perform. No Skylab with US Flag dropping on your heads folks.

As for the whiners over here, check out the social evils, the poverty, the debt situation, the relatively uneducated masses, the lack of universal healthcare, in your own countries first, before passing judgement on India. China and India are the future, not just for manufacturing and serivces, but for the most advanced technologies. Everything will be oursourced to these countries in the future. e.g. Taiwan used to be ridiculed for cheap bicycles - the best bkes are Taiwanese and Chinese today (ask Colnago and Cervelo).

P.S. India will show old British car manufacturers how to build quality cars, yes, for a profit. May also buy up the Detroit 3 Autos for pennies if US taxpayers don't cough up $25B in socialist capitalization in the next few weeks. (General Motors headquatered in Jamshedpur sounds OK to me) :)

Ah, that explains it...

WTF was wrong with the last message i posted on this thread?

Is it just me, or is there some extreme sauciness in this data?

http://www.isro.org/Chandrayaan/images/Radom4NOv.jpg

mine's the grubby mac, thanks