India Enters Space Race With Rocket Moon Launch

Along with the growing number of nations around the world that will be joining the club of countries with nuclear weapons and capabilities there are also a number of nations that are now entering the space race for the first time. The latest one is India. On october 22nd The Asian nation of 1.2 billion people launched an unmanned spacecraft it calls Chandrayaan 1 (translates to Mooncraft 1). The rocket is set to orbit the moon for two years during which time it will attempt to map the lunar surface. This launch comes only a year after China launched its first rocket into space. The launch took place from the Satish Dhawan space center which is located in the southern part of India. This now makes 4 the number of countires that are active in their space exploration. The list would be 5 if you included the European Space Agency (E.S.A.) which is a joint effort on the part of several European nations that combine their resouces and efforts. The total list now includes the U.S., Russia, China, India, and the E.S.A.