Harry Eagar Saturday, 15 November 2008 at 13:36

I am surprised. Smashing a semi-dumb camera into the moon, at this date, doesn’t advance science very much.

I am reminded of Bernard Lovell’s remark. At Jodrell Bank, he took some measurements of the moon by radar in 1946. This was the first use of radar in astronomy. I think I read this in ‘Out of the Zenith,’ but in one of his books, Lovell was rather sour about some Czech who had obtained a leftover military radar (as Lovell also had done) and bounced a signal off the moon, claiming priority.

To what purpose? asked Lovell.

Annoying Old Guy Saturday, 15 November 2008 at 18:57

No, it doesn’t advance science. But it does advance commercial development of space and that’s what I am far more interested in. The more nations that have space flight capability, the more likely commercial interests in one of them will expand in to commercial space activity. That it was Indian is particularly heartening because they are an expanding economic power with lots of smart business owners looking for profit.