China and India both are planning to launch moon shots within a year in the latest sign of the two Asian powerhouses' intensifying rivalry and growing technological prowess.
India's space scientists are reaching out further into the universe. Even as an unmanned mission to the moon is readying for launch, and a manned mission to space awaits final approval from the government, they are already eyeing the next destination - Mars.
As part of the Bush administration's effort to forge a close strategic partnership with India, NASA has announced it will piggyback one of its lunar probes on India's lunar mission. Critics argue that cooperating with India will weaken the voluntary Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
The author argues that U.S. plans to cooperate with India on space technology "risks repeating in India the same errors that previously allowed damaging U.S. space technology transfers to China."
ndia and Russia were scheduled to sign four agreements on space and defence cooperation during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's three-day visit to Russia.
Warming relations between the United States and India has opened the door for space cooperation between the two nations. Taylor Dinerman suggests that India could play an even greater role in space in the future.
A bid by India and the United States to expand space ties will bring the world's two largest democracies closer and provide a platform to launch global projects to benefit developing nations according to analysts.
India's space program has been relatively successful in its short lifespan but critics argue that its core rationale is nationalism rather than scientific pursuit.
The US has agreed to help India with its nuclear energy and space technology in return for India's promise to use the assistance for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons.
India joined an elite group of nations with the testing of a rocket engine that uses supercooled liquid fuel, a technology that would allow it to launch high-altitude satellites, send a man to the moon -- or build intercontinental ballistic missiles.