Moon struck

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: Any joint manned space flights involving China and the United States will have to come in the future when there is more trust and openness between the countries, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator, Michael D Griffin, said last week in Shanghai, China. These harsh words are in contrast to a slew of initiatives announced during his recent visit to Bangalore — the first NASA chief to visit India in an official capacity since the early 1970s—in order to boost space cooperation between India and the US. The US space agency intends to provide scientific instruments for Chandrayaan, India’s first unmanned moon mission, scheduled for early 2008. Interestingly, the Chandrayaan-1 mission also marks NASA’s first partnership with India.

While the space collaboration forms part of the Bush administration’s drive to build a tight strategic partnership with India, analysts say that US won’t return to the Moon until 2018, so collaborating with India on its Moon mission will provide an opportunity to continue research on the Earth’s satellite.

Space scientists say that the Moon—nearly one-quarter-million miles away from Earth —is going to get interesting again. Only Russia, Japan and the United States have sent spacecraft into orbit around the Moon. And, only 12 men have set foot on the surface of the Moon, according to NASA.

Within the next two years, Moon missions from China, India and Japan will generate considerable research data that will keep space scientists enthralled for the better part of the next decade.

China, which in 2003 became the third country to put a man in space after the US and Russia, seems likely to get there long before others. The Chinese scientists are developing a lunar exploration craft, weighing around two tonnes that is scheduled for a launch in April next year. The lunar is named ‘Chang’e-I’, an apparent reference to an ancient legend about the fairy Chang'e who flies to the Moon.

The goals of China’s Chang’e-1 project are first to place a satellite into orbit around the Moon in April 2007; then to land an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010; and to collect samples of lunar soil with an unmanned vehicle by 2020. The spacecraft carries five instruments to image and measure different features of the Moon.