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India became the fourth country to successfully land a craft on the Moon last week. The feat sparked an outpouring of national pride. The Chandrayaan-3 robotic lander touched down close to the Moon’s south pole, an area of profound scientific interest that had not been visited until this point.
China has had a few craft make it to the Moon in recent years, while NASA’s Artemis program, that aims to return human to the surface, is aiming for a landing as soon as 2025. Russia too remains very interested in the Moon. It launched a robotic craft – Luna-25 – at the lunar surface this month, but it crashed just three days before Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing, serving as a reminder that such missions remain very difficult to pull off.
What’s with all this renewed interest in Earth’s only natural satellite? I asked Mariel Borowitz, an expert in international space policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, for more insight into the geopolitics of Moon landings. Meanwhile, the range of players in this space race serves as a reminder of change international political dynamics, and the rise of the growing Bric bloc.
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India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully touched down on the south pole of the Moon on Aug. 23, 2023, sparking celebrations across the country.
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
Mariel Borowitz, Georgia Institute of Technology
India became the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon, a notoriously difficult achievement that also marks them as the fourth country to land on the Moon.
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Gail Iles, RMIT University
Space missions are still difficult, dangerous and risky – but it’s still early days in the human journey beyond our planet.
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Megan T. Stevenson, University of Virginia
One by one, former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia presidential election interference case turned themselves in for arrest at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta.
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Marsha Gordon, North Carolina State University
‘Ex-Wife’ originally outsold ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but critics sniffed at the novel, deeming it a melodramatic period piece − even though it tackled timeless issues like gender, money and power.
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Liz Giuffre, University of Technology Sydney
It was reported this week that Queen’s song Fat Bottomed Girls has not been included in a greatest hits compilation aimed at children – presumably because of the lyrics.
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Bhaso Ndzendze, University of Johannesburg
The disparate nature of the six prospective members is bound to spark debate about the real nature of Brics.
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Maida Lynn Chen, University of Washington
Exposure to screens before bedtime can contribute to chronic sleep deprivation, which raises the risk for anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts.
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Ciara Molloy, University of Sheffield
Set in the fictional town of Kilkinure in western Ireland, the BBC drama captures the story of an unmarried mother who was formerly detained in a Magdalene Laundry.
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Christopher Pittard, University of Portsmouth
The enjoyment of the show is not in working out who did it but in the eccentricities of the ever-turning plot.
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Francis Okpaleke, University of Waikato; Olumba E. Ezenwa, Royal Holloway University of London
A geopolitical struggle for valuable resources such as uranium is behind the wrangling over Niger.
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