Shooting for the moon

Municipal water and waste recycling systems are based on space designs and so is our understanding of climate change. ISRO's missions will help India gain capabilities in these respects

In a 1950s novella by Robert Heinlein, a robber baron named Delos D Harriman does a lunar land grab. “The Man Who Sold the Moon” raises money to land a rocket there, by marketing giant advertising billboards, setting up broadcasting stations for TV networks, offering diamond-mining concessions, and so on. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 (C-II) — India’s second moon mission has purely scientific objectives. But the commercial returns from C-II could be huge, and more realistic than those imagined by Heinlein. 

In brief, Isro launched a big rocket (Bahubali) on Monday, July 22. If all goes well, Bahubali will push an orbiter