Do we get to see the Apollo landing sites to prove they really went there?

You took the comment right out of my mouth!

A picture of the flag, please. Preferably not fluttering in the wind...

Take a look at the fluttering flag film. I have seen the clip with conspiracy theorists raving "There! Look!! It's Fluttering!!!"

At that exact moment there is an astronaut trying (in 1/6 gravity) to push the flag pole into the moon. The pole is shaking so the flag moves. I would happily lock these people in a vacuum chamber and not let them out until they can plant a flag without it moving. Anytime they complain that they want more air for the space suits I would tell them they cannot be in a vacuum because the flag flutters.

been 'offshored'?

And will the booster be a bright metallic colour, festooned with fringes, and have 30 or 40 other probes clinging onto the side of it, like lots of other Indian transportation.

'Of course, as the BBC notes, the project has taken flak for being "over ambitious" and a "waste of resources" for a nation where "millions still lack basic services".'

The same can be said for the USA...

Chandrayaan has a minimum 5m resolution so it's *possible* it can resolve the lower stages of the LMs which were left on the Moon - if not pick out any details. With favourable lighting it might even be able to image the Lunar Rovers.

If you can wait until 2009, NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter will carry a 0.5m resolution camera into lunar orbit *AND* it'll watch a spent booster crash into the surface - now that's what I call value for money.

The evostick holding the corrugated cardboard on re-entry capsule came loose during testing...

..we need rockets to get into space, when they have planes that fly on the edge of space. Wouldnt it be easier to have a plane that takes off normally then just floats out of the atmosphere?

I never understood this part of the physics.

Educate me please.

A perfect comment. And of course the BBC don't take a pop at America for this and other profligacy. It's funny how we measure the whole third world/developed country thing. The people on the ground have one version and the politicians/corporations have another, as always. I worked for a homeless shelter in San Francisco for a number of years and also for the SF Aids foundation and yeah, I'm sure they appreciated NASA's spending/budget...cough.

In a country where education is an option and even if you take it, it's laughable. Water's not safe to drink in a number of small towns. Electricity and road networks are missing or infantile in a number of places too. A large number of people below the poverty line, three-quarters or the population still stuck in the dark ages, happily boarding a plane one minute and then extolling the virtues of Creationism/decrying the scientific method and doctrine the next, without a hint of irony. Am I talking about India or America? America of course.

Anyway, whatever...

If India are trying to acheive something then fair play to 'em and the BBC (Britain's answer to Fox News) can go take a long walk off a short pier; they are irrelevant as a news source.

if the bbc are so concerned about the people who need aid, why dont they give some

of that £111m profit to homeless/less well off . Could start in Britian even and move on from there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2007/06_june/annual_review_2006_07.shtml

Then they can throw stones.

"Space" in this context doesn't mean "no longer affected by gravity" it is simply a boundary where the atmosphere ends and space starts. The satellites that are currently orbiting earth would fall quite quickly if they were to slow down too much.

So while some planes might be able to come close to the point where they are considered to be outside the atmosphere, they still need *a lot* more kick to get them into orbit let alone break free of earth altogether.

Also, once you are outside the atmosphere jets stop working so rockets are your only option for high thrust propulsion. Even if you use a plane style launch to get to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, going any higher means rockets. And once you are running on your rockets, why bother keeping the jets around? Far more efficient to use a carrier plane ala spaceshipone.

Any truth to the rumour they are heading to the moon to set up the ultimate in outsourced call centres?

Considering the UK pumps money into India to build hospitals and considering pregnant women are allowed to die in front of the hospitals based on their skin colour there is a considerable difference between the USA and India in this case.

The caste system is alive and well and killing people in India. Worthless wastes of money such as this crappy probe should be prevented by the international community. Why should British taxpayers subsidise superfluous Indian space nonsense?

>pregnant women are allowed to die in front of the hospitals based on their skin colour there is a considerable difference between the USA and India in this case.

No, people die outside USA hospitals based on skin colour, social class and religious belief, sounds like the USAs version of the caste system to me.

>Why should British taxpayers subsidise superfluous Indian space nonsense?

Because they actually get technology and experiments out of it for minimal funding, far cheaper than a soley british space program would be, read the article before you go off on one.