Recently, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to South Africa to attend the BRICS conference, the Indians did something big: the Chandrayaan-3 probe successfully landed on the lunar surface.
Coincidentally, a few days before India's success, the lunar probe launched by Russia after 47 years "disappeared" halfway and crashed on the moon. Now Indians have even more reason to revel: all the reports are that India is the first country to land on the south pole of the moon, and the fourth to join the "lunar exploration elite club" after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China.
Note that they use the name USSR, not Russia, and the meaning is clear: now Russia is no longer qualified to mix in this circle, India is the top three.
And the Indians seem to be not satisfied with the title of "top three", and even want to compete with China and the United States. However, because China and the United States are indeed strong in the technology of lunar exploration, India's media and self-media have changed their tricks to announce "catching up with China and super-America".
First of all, before the official landing of Chandrayaan-3, the Indian media could not wait to announce that it had surpassed China, and the angle was also very peculiar: India accounted for three of the spacecraft currently active around the moon, more than China and the United States. When they counted the Chinese data, they calculated that China now only has the Yutu-2 lunar rover and the Queqiao satellite. When counting Indian data, it is calculated like this: the Indian Chandrayaan-2 aircraft is counted as one, the Chandrayaan-3 thruster is counted as one, and the Chandrayaan-3 lander module is counted as one, and I really want to break a probe into 8 pieces. Now that the lander module has landed, it can be divided into fixed landers and mobile lunar rovers, and it is estimated that a total of four can be counted according to this algorithm.
This is pure self-deception, and why is China's Chang'e-3 lander not counted? The lander landed on the moon at the end of 2013 and has been sailing for nearly 10 years. And 3 years ago, our Chang'e-5 probe could even return from the moon, so after Chang'e-5 left, India could snort.
In addition to this, the Indians are also making a fuss about funding. Indian media claim that China spent $180 million on the Chang'e 4 project, the budget of the American Artemis moon landing program is as high as $20 billion, and the Chandrayaan-3 project only spent $74 million, which is less than a Hollywood blockbuster.
But India doesn't want to think about when Chang'e 4 was launched, which was five years ago. Aerospace technology is constantly improving and improving, India has a latecomer advantage, ten years after China launched Chang'e 3 to land on the moon, more cost-saving is a matter of course, I don't know where the face boasted.
As for the American Artemis moon landing program, although it costs a lot of money, it is not something that India's Chandrayan 3 can "touch porcelain", because it is a huge project. NASA of the United States intends to cooperate with several space agencies such as Japan and Europe to establish a permanent human survival base on the moon to lay the foundation for human colonization of Mars in the future.
The success of India's Chandrayaan-3 does reflect the progress of India's scientific and technological level, and it also shows that India is expected to contribute to the common cause of aerospace, which is a common cause for all mankind in the future, which is good, but don't forget that a mountain is still a mountain high.
Even in China, there is still a lot to catch up in the field of aerospace. At the end of May, China said it had now launched a manned lunar landing program, ready to achieve within seven years the great feat accomplished by the Americans in the late '60s. China is now moving forward step by step, without arrogance or impetuosity, and in a down-to-earth manner. If you want to really catch up with China, India better stop nostrils and bow its head to hurry.