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Japan Space Program Lagging While India and Iran Push Forward
Japan announced earlier this month that it may scrap a lunar mission originally scheduled for lift off in 1995. The mission would have been Japan's first to the surface of the moon, putting them in company with only the United States, Russia and the European Union.
While Japan has yet to launch a manned flight of its own, India seems to be inching ever closer to accomplishing its goal of 2008. India's space agency announced the safe return of an orbiting capsule that "was blasted into space as one of four payloads on January 10 from a launch pad 100 km (60 miles) north of the southern city of Chennai. It splashed down in the Bay of Bengal 11 days later, boosting plans for a lunar mission in 2008."
Iran also seems on the verge of a space program breakthrough by converting its most powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle, which is set to launch in the near future. Some are skeptical of the space exploration aspirations of the country, however, suspecting a "wolf in sheep's clothing" for testing longer-range missile strike technologies.
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This New Scientist article on Iran's missile brings up some good points. First off, as mentioned in the news article here, the space launch capability is quite obviously a cover for developing a ballistic missile. If you can put an object in space, you can hit any point on Earth. New Scientist also alludes to something I read elsewhere, though, that any nuclear weapon developed by Iran will likely be too big and bulky for missile delivery. That will take some years of tests and improvements to miniaturize and work on reliability before their warheads can be launched on a missile platform.
The second thing that New Scientist mentions is their need for reconnaissance capabilities to keep an eye on Israel's capabilities. Any recon aircraft will quickly be shot down, but a satellite would let Iran see things they want to know.
As for the anonymous poster who worried about India, years of possession of nuclear weapons have calmed fears that they will act irresponsibly with them. That's not the best way to find out if a country will behave though. India is rather politically benign, versus, Iran, as LordDilly pointed out. Moreover, India is one of the fastest growing world economies and is totally dependant on globalization for its growth. There was a fantastic example of how India backed away from a hostile encounter with Pakistan a few years ago because it's economy plummetted due to nervous foreign investors in The World is Flat. India values its connections, especially economic connections with the rest of the world too much to be likely to nuke anyone anytime soon. It's just bad for business, and right now business if very good for India.
Iran, on the other hand, seems to enjoy being on the fringe, and also glorify suicide bombers--kind of scary when you match that up with a nuclear capability.
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Why be suspicious of only Iran?? by Anonymous :: NR0 :: Show
I wonder to a great extent why all of us are only suspicious of Iran?? why not India?? India is an acknowledged nucleur-power and its aspirations may not be as virtous as we're all led to believe...give it due thought without unfairly biasing your point of view