Indian PM chooses to go to the moon

India will send a spacecraft to the moon before 2008, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee pledged today in his Independence Day address.

“Our country is now ready to fly high in the field of science. I am pleased to announce India will send her own spacecraft to the moon by 2008,” he said.

The prime minister said the spacecraft would be named Chandrayaan Pratham, or Moon Craft One.

It was not immediately clear if Vajpayee meant the spacecraft would be manned with an astronaut.

The state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said it hopes to send a small, unmanned satellite to circle the moon by 2005 and an astronaut by 2015.

The ISRO entered into an agreement with the Canadian Space Agency in March for possible co-operation in the unmanned moon mission.

The unmanned satellite project has received some criticism from scientists, saying it would drain much-needed resources and fail to yield much scientific benefit.

Only the United States, Russia and Japan have carried out moon missions. China plans to start unmanned space exploration in 2005.