India successfully launches third moon mission Chandrayaan 3

India has launched its third Moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, aiming to be the first to land near its little-explored south pole.

Chandrayaan-3 blasts off from Sriharikota

Chandrayaan-3: India's historic Moon mission lifts off successfully

 

India became the fourth country on earth to succeed in a soft landing on the moon, and the first to do so on the lunar south pole, with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/23/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-mission.html

India on the moon! Chandrayaan-3 becomes 1st probe to land near lunar south pole

From bated breath to cheers: India's journey to rare moon-landing feat.

Chandrayaan-1 had detected presence of lunar water with its instruments, which was also corroborated by NASA's spectrometer onboard.

Chandrayaan-2 had attempted to soft land on the moon in 2019, but it had ended in failure due to a software glitch resulting in deviation from its intended trajectory. However its orbiter payloads have yielded discovery-class findings, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), being among the first to map the surface composition of sodium on the moon as well as Argon-40 in the lunar exosphere.

 

Congratulations to India on its successful moon mission!

 

Chandrayaan 3 has detected the presence of sulphur on the moons surface.

Pragyan discovers sulphur, oxygen in Moon's south polar region: Why it's a big deal

 

Wholesome virtuous behavior progressively leads to the foremost. ~ Buddha AN 10.1

If you do right, irrespective of what the other does, it will slow down the (turbulent) mind. ~ Rajini Menon

I certainly agree with both of those.
India is one of the most interesting countries in the world, here in the UK, we first started trading with them on a commercial scale in the year 1600.
50 years ago, they sent young doctors to us for training. They went home and founded their own medical colleges which now rate as some of the finest in the world.

 

Sir Isaac Newton's body of scientific work is considered crucial in developing modern space travel.

Science in Action: Newton's Second Law of Motion - Space Center Houston

 

Retired astronaut Chris Hadfield on why the Vikram lander took two descent pauses.

Chandrayaan 3: Canadian astronaut explains why Vikram took ‘2 descent pauses’ just before Moon landing

 

Scientists have brought the Propulsion Module (PM) of the Chandrayaan-3 mission — which took the Vikram lander to within 100 km of the surface of the Moon before it detached and made the historic controlled descent to the lunar surface on August 23 — back into Earth orbit.

The PM, carrying the lander, left the Earth’s orbit on August 1, and was inserted in a lunar orbit on August 5. Its successful return to Earth orbit is a significant achievement that marks a step towards bringing back samples from lunar missions in the future.

This was not part of the original mission plan. Meticulous mission planning and precise injection orbit by launch vehicle resulted in propellant savings(100 kg of fuel) which enabled the above manoeuvres, used as a demonstration for future lunar sample return missions.

India returns Chandrayaan-3 moon mission's propulsion module to Earth orbit

https://indianexpress.com/article/e...n-isro-propulsion-module-earth-orbit-9056529/

 

A fighter jet uses up a lot of fuel while operating and even dump fuel before landing for safety reasons. I was just thinking yesterday what a waste of resource that is.

The Indian space programme has a vision of creating lunar habitats and this is the reason for the first ever lunar landing in the south pole which is considered to have resources for successful habitation such as oxygen, metals , solar power and ease of radio communications. The sequence of crewed space travel, space station, the future Chandrayan-4 project to get lunar soil samples, bringing astronauts to the moon by 2040 are small steps in this regard.

Indian scientists have also conceived of space bricks for the purpose of developing lunar habitats, using resources available on the moon.

Space bricks for lunar habitation

Hopefully, excess population on earth can be transferred to new habitats in large space stations, moon, mars and habitable moons of other planets. This can greatly reduce the pressure on nature on earth , and also reduce ugly competition for natural resources on earth which can lead to conflicts and wars as well, further fragmenting humanity.

 

It might ensure that the human race continues even if we destroy the earth, but I don't think this is going to be a solution to overpopulation. It would be really expensive to send people to other planets and to make those planets habitable.

 

With enough advances in science and technology I believe it can become economical to send people to space stations or other planets, terraform them and make them inhabitable.

That which was thought to be impossible a century back has become possible now.

Of course it is important to work on the moral and sociological development of human society as well to ensure scientific and technological advances do not become self-destructive.

In the first half of the last century, the Germans had the best scientists and engineers in the world, but their poor sociological development ensured that their science and technology became regressive rather than progressive.