"It's a wonderful thing that has happened," ex-Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, U R Rao told PTI here. "Essentially, they are making sure that they are going ahead systematically with manned mission programme".
China today launched its longest and heaviest rocket to sent its first woman astronaut in space as part of a three- member team to conduct its maiden manned docking of its space lab being built to rival Russia's Mir International Space Station.
Another former ISRO Chairman, G Madhavan Nair said China is marching forward in manned space programme with a lot of aggression.
ISRO first formally mooted the proposal on human space flight programme after about 80 senior scientists from across the country participated in a meeting to discuss the issues related to Indian manned space mission in 2006.
The country's premier space agency had carried studies for four years before that to examine the technological challenges of a manned space mission and its capability to undertake such a mission, estimated to cost around Rs 12,000 crore spread over eight years.
Back-to-back failure of India's Geosynchronous Space Launch Vehicle (GSLV) -- one with home-grown cryogenic engine and another Russian one -- in 2010, put brakes on India's proposed human space flight, which ISRO was eyeing in 2008-09 to undertake it in the 2015-16 time-frame. (More)