241 Pizza

The idea of colonising the Moon, let alone Mars, marks a huge strategic shift for India, which has previously focused on cheaper projects with more earthly applications.

India’s modern space programme was conceived by Jawaharlal Nehru, its first Prime Minister, as a peaceful way to lift the country out of poverty. ISRO has concentrated on civilian projects with social or industrial benefits, laying the foundations of India’s recent information technology boom.

Today India has 16 satellites in orbit, supporting telecommunications, TV broadcasting, earth observation, weather forecasting, remote education and healthcare.

Because of an early shortage of funds it also boasts the world’s most efficient space programme, generating income from spacecraft sales and commercial satellite launches.

Now ISRO has far more ambitious and expensive plans. The Government has approved a second unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan2, that will land a rover on the Moon by 2010-12 at a cost of £47 million. ISRO is also planning to put its first Indian astronaut into orbit by 2014-16, depending on when the Government approves the £1 billion budget. It has already announced plans to land a man on the Moon by 2020.

The public response to the plans appears to reflect the gulf between India’s consumer class of between 50 million and 100 million people and the rest of the population of 1.1 billion. Poorer Indians tend to say that the money should be spent fighting poverty in a country where 800 million people live on less than $2 a day and 47 per cent of children under 3 are malnourished.

“Will going to the Moon help me to stop pedalling this?” asked Pappu Tiwari, 34, who pulls a cycle rickshaw in Delhi, supporting a wife and four children on 2,000-2,500 rupees (£25) a month. “To me, this space exploration is nothing but a gimmick.”

Wealthy and middle class professionals generally respond that the country lacks good governance, rather than money, and that the space programme benefits Indian industry.

“Poverty and hunger will always remain,” said Rajeev Kapoor, 48, a salesman from Delhi who supports his wife and two children on 5,000-6,000 rupees a month. “By the time the Government would try to eradicate them completely, the world itself would have vanished.”

There is, however, a new impetus for India’s lunar ambitions. Mao Zedong initiated China’s space programme in 1958 with specific military applications in mind and placed it under the purview of the People’s Liberation Army. That head start, combined with a 30-year economic boom, means that China is now years ahead of India on several fronts, as demonstrated in a series of recent breakthroughs. China put its first astronaut in space in 2003, shot down a satellite and launched a lunar orbiter in 2007, and conducted the first space walk by a Chinese taikonaut last month. Beijing now plans to land a man on the Moon by 2024.

Indian officials insist that they are not racing with China, but they have eyed it with suspicion ever since Chinese forces easily prevailed in a brief border war in 1962. Last year India’s army chief spoke in public for the first time of his fears about China’s military space programme and the need for India to accelerate its own.

Other Asian powers have also been spurred into action by China’s success, and by North Korea’s claim to have tested a nuclear bomb in 2006. Japan launched a new unmanned lunar orbiter last year, has plans for an unmanned Moon lander in 2012-13, and is considering putting a man on the Moon by 2025. South Korea accelerated its space programme in 2004 by teaming up with Russia to develop a spaceport and a satellite launch vehicle, due for completion this year.

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