Keith’s Note: According to the Times of India: “I congratulate you on the Moon landing. But as an economist let me congratulate you for doing it in a budget less than that of the movie, ‘Interstellar’. Bravo!” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Georgieva was quoted by a source as saying at a meeting during the G20.” FYI “Interstellar” cost $165 million. “Gravity” cost $100 million. “The Martian” cost $108 million. Chandrayaan-3 will end up costing around $75 million. Just sayin, NASA.

Keith’s note: I did an interview with Deutsche Welle about Chandrayaan-3. They aired an intro piece before me where they talked with a family in India and their children’s reactions to the landing and I almost had tears in my eyes since, as I said in my interview that was me as a little boy. [DW Audio]. I also did an interview with CGTN talking about how the Moon is a place that everyone can and should visit. [CGTN Audio]

Keith’s note: India’s Chandrayaan-3 has landed safely at the Moon’s south pole. India is the first nation to visit this part of the Moon and only the fourth nation to land successfully on the Moon. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at ISRO mission control and made some rousing comments – among which where these words in English: “This mission was not India’s alone … The global south can achieve these things. We can all aspire to the Moon and beyond … the sky is not the limit”. Over 8 million people were watching the YouTube live stream. How often does NASA do that? There is a vast soft power potential opportunity for NASA. India has signed the Artemis Accords. NASA is no longer the only show in town. Let’s see if NASA can truly tap the abundance of pent-up, raw enthusiasm for space exploration resident within Earth’s Global South. Or will NASA just issue more press releases.

Keith’s note: India has signed the Artemis Accords. Frequent mention has been made of joint U.S. – India cooperation in space activities including the sending of an Indian astronaut to the ISS. Here are the official mentions of this reinforced space cooperation that have bene released during Modis visit to the U.S.:

Bengaluru firm to build moon lander for Nasa 2020 mission, Times of India “Confirming the development, Team Indus engineer Ananth Ramesh told TOI: “Yes, we will be building the lander. It is most likely to be built in India too.” Team Indus CEO Rahul Narayan was in the US to sign the contract documents on Thursday.” America’s first private moon lander will be engineered in India, Quartz “Orbit Beyond, which […]

India to have its own space station: ISRO, The Hindu “India plans to have its own space station, and modalities for it will be worked out after the first manned mission, Gaganyaan, scheduled for August 2022, K. Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said on Thursday. “We want to have a separate space station. We will launch a small module for microgravity experiments… that is our ambition,” […]

Video of ISRO pad abort test@NASASpaceflight @ChrisG_NSF @Skyrocket71 @Axm61 @isro pic.twitter.com/ViK2qi5cW3 — Ravi_98 (@Ravi9814) July 6, 2018

The final frontier: Making life thrive on Mars, Deccan Chronicles “For Indian scientists who are designing gadgets to probe the surface and sub-surface of the red planet, the results hint at the need to scrounge for toxic chemicals that could hinder efforts to establish a sustainable agricultural system 400 million km away! Buoyed by the success of Mangalyaan-I (Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM), the top brass at the Indian Space […]

The US intelligence nominee can’t believe India just launched 104 satellites, Ars Technica “During his confirmation hearing this week, the Trump administration’s nominee for this cabinet-level [Director of National Intelligence] position, former Senator Dan Coats, assured the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that he would remain vigilant in keeping the nation’s reconnaissance satellites ahead of the global curve. The United States would also speed up the process by which it […]