Nasa’s Moon base: Too early to tell where India fits in

Nasa just invited India to help build a permanent base on the Moon. It’s the kind of headline that writes itself — and yet, what it actually means for India is still almost entirely undecided.Nasa wants to do something considerably more ambitious than return astronauts to the Moon. It wants to start building a place where humans can eventually stay. The agency’s new Moon Base programme envisages a sustained human presence near the lunar South Pole, built gradually through robotic missions, crewed landings, commercial landers, rovers, power systems, communications infrastructure and, eventually, habitats.From visiting to stayingThe Moon Base is essentially a shift in emphasis from exploration missions to infrastructure. The first phase, through roughly 2028-29, is expected to focus on learning how to operate reliably at the South Pole.