SUMMARY

It was a historic day for India as it became the fourth country to land on the moon. It comes after a failed attempt in 2019 and just days behind a failed Russian lunar landing. Prime Minister Modi watched alongside the team at the Indian Space Research Organization as the Chandrayaan-3 touched down in the moon’s south polar region. Amna Nawaz and Miles O’Brien discussed the monumental moment.

For a transcript of this story, click here.

News wrap alternative: Check out recent segments from the NewsHour, and choose the story you’re most interested in watching. You can make a Google doc copy of discussion questions that work for any of the stories here.

FIVE FACTS

1. Why did India go to the moon? 
2. How do humans get to the moon? Is it different from the U.S.’s 1969 trip? How about the landing?
3. Who is Narendra Modi? 
4. What does Miles O’Brien say are lessons we might learn about space exploration as a whole by going to the moon? What excited him India’s moon landing? 
5. Where did the spacecraft land?

FOCUS QUESTIONS

Do you think humans should still be going to the moon? Why or why not? Would you go?

News analysis: What do you think is the most important detail revealed in this story about India’s moon launch? Is the detail you chose more about science or about politics and international relations? 

Alternative: See, Think, Wonder: What did you notice? What did the story make you think? What story would you want to find out more about? Where would you go to learn more?

FOR MORE

What students can do: Take a look at the space program as a whole. Reflect on one of Miles O’Brien’s closing lines:

“And nobody is enjoying any moment of schadenfreude over the Russian failure. The more that the U.S. and its other — and other spacefaring nations succeed, the more the Earth as a whole does better by using space as a tool to make life better here.”

Read this AP article Russia’s lunar mission failure raises questions about state of space program and find out more what happened with the downed Russian spacecraft. What lessons came out of the crash? Space travel in recent decades has involved a greater collaboration among different countries working together. Why do you think this is the case?

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