The Indians are making a moonshot.
No, not the American Indians! The Indian Indians! According to this article on XinhuaNet, in English, the Indian space agency is planning an unmanned moon mission, called Chandrayan. Chandrayan is expected to take place in 2007-08 if everything proceeds as planned, which it seems to be. If they do it, India will be on the cusp of being a real world power on the scale of the US, China, and Russia. As few ethnicities as we’ve seen in science-fiction, other than WASPs, that is, it’s interesting to me that the Chinese and Indians have become so space oriented lately. I really hope that writers take note of this and alter their views accordingly. One of the notable exceptions has been China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh and Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom, which is the first in a series by the same name, all by David Wingrove. I’d love to see more of it.
