Will India beat NASA back to the moon?

At a forthcoming meeting of the country’s top scientists on November 7, ISRO will, for the first time, unveil two of its ambitious plans – to send an Indian into space around 2014 and then to have one walk on the moon about six years later. Both missions will be accomplished without any foreign assistance. ISRO will even find a Sanskrit word equivalent for the US’s ‘astronaut’ and Russia’s ‘cosmonaut’ to describe the Indian in space.

They seem to be taking the same high-cost approach, though, so I’m not sure where this will lead, or how affordable it will ultimately be. Of course, they also have to avoid a nuclear war with Pakistan.