Monday, February 23, 2009

Indian Space Programme

China's century? Maybe, but it is still a country where more than 60% of the population are effectively, "excluded" and India? Today, the 'Guardian' is carrying a story about how The Indian Space Research Organisation has a launched a 1.7 billion pounds sterling programme to catch up with China in what is, perhaps, a new Asian space race. Moreover, it would appear that they are not going to be on their own, with Iran recently announcing that it will attempt to launch a manned space flight by 2021. Now the sum of money mentioned above is not, I suppose, that astronomical - forgive the pun - but one really would expect that China, India and Iran would have other, more important things, to spend their money on. Yes, the next few years might see us confronted with two or three new global powers, but the evidence would already seem to suggest that these new players have got their priorities just about as screwed up as "Uncle Sam", with his Afghan adventures and the British and French with their absurd war games and absolutely useless "nuclear deterrents". The world really is quite a little mad house, isn't it?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/india-space-astronauts

No comments: