India is on the search for aliens, and not illegal aliens, real aliens, having just launched their first craft into space.

Move over NASA and the Orion Program, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and it's Chandrayaan 1 (the Sanskrit word for "moon craft") spacecraft was launched and has successfully moved into the race to the colonize space.

The unmanned Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, an island off the coast of Andhra Pradesh, at about 6:20 AM local time today from a launch pad in southern Andhra Pradesh to embark on a two-year mission of exploration, dramatically expanding the country's space ambitions. These include a manned moon mission by 2015, a robotic Mars visit by 2012 and even a moon colony as a base for interplanetary exploration.

The robotic probe - a device that conjures comforting thoughts in space only - will orbit the Moon, compiling a 3-D atlas of the lunar surface and mapping the distribution of elements and minerals. The launch is regarded as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring nations in Asia.

Chandrayaan will slip into a near-circular orbit at an altitude of 1,000km. After a number of health checks, the probe will drop its altitude until it is orbiting just 100km above the lunar surface.

India also intends to drop the Indian flag on the surface of the Moon. The country's tricolour is painted on the side of the probe and, if successful, India will become the fourth country after the US, Russia and Japan to place its national flag on the lunar surface. 

The mission comes with controversy, as India is facing economic distress along with the rest of the world. The question is whether or not India should be shooting for the moon at a time when the global economy is trembling fearfully. The courage exhibited in doing so anyway speaks not just for the country's impressive economic stability, but also the quality of its space scientists.

India expects that the jobs created and other developments will give them a $2 return for every $1 invested in its space program. But its investment comprises just 0.5 percent of its national budget on scientific programs, and spending on Chandrayaan is only 3 percent of  that budget. Comparatively, India's space budget of $1 billion is one-tenth that of the US's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and less than half of China's space program.

India, China, Japan and South Korea all have their eyes on a share of the commercial satellite launch business and see their space programs as an important symbol of international stature and economic development.

Last month, China became only the third country in the world to independently carry out a spacewalk.

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