Death on K2: Inside the world of elite mountaineering, where normal rules don’t apply

Daily Telegraph UK

By Tarquin Cooper

13 Aug, 2023 

OPINION

Here we go again, a roll of the eyes, but sadly no surprise. Like many mountaineers, I suspect there will be a grim resignation to hear that once again, climbers hell-bent on the summit are accused of walking past someone dying in order to get to the top.

Video footage has emerged this week of climbers on K2 apparently walking past porter Mohammed Hassan, who had fallen at 8200 metres, and not going to his aid. Particular anger has been aimed at Norwegian Kristin Harila, who was in the middle of a record-breaking climb and was seen to celebrate when she reached the summit.

But we’ve been here before. In 2006, the New Zealand double-amputee Mark Inglis conceded that on his way to the summit of Mt Everest, he and his party had passed the dying English climber David Sharp. The furore that erupted caught him by surprise, and shone a light on the unsavoury side of elite mountaineering.

Inglis was even castigated by none other than legendary mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who expressed dismay, saying his world-first climb of Everest in 1953 would have been abandoned if a man’s life had been at stake. “It was wrong, if there was a man suffering altitude problems and huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say ‘good morning’ and pass on by,” Hillary said at the time.

Mohammad Hassan died on K2 after falling off a sheer edge at the top of the area known as the "bottleneck", some 8200 metres high. Norway’s Kristin Harila has been criticised for ignoring the dying climber. Photo / Adventure Alpine Guides

“I think it was the responsibility of every human being. Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain. My expedition would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members to just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit.”

Everest does, of course, tend to be the focus of these kinds of stories. It was in 1996 that a huge storm ripped through the mountain, killing eight climbers who’d signed up on commercial expeditions. The disaster story was turned into a best-selling book, Into Thin Air, by one of the survivors, Jon Krakauer. Another, Beck Weathers, wrote his own account, Left for Dead, after he was forced to fight his own way off the mountain.

Every May, during summit season, stories emerge of overcrowding, of huge lines of climbers following fixed lines of ropes. There are tales of commercial clients who don’t even have a basic grasp of mountaineering setting off for the summit, who don’t know how to put on crampons or hold an ice axe correctly.

But until now, these kinds of stories were confined to Everest. Not anymore. Today, these incidents are happening on all 14 of the 8000m mountains (“the 8000ers”), including K2, once considered the preserve of only the most elite and hardy climbers on account of its risk and difficulty.

Known as the Savage Mountain, it’s lower than Everest at 8611m, but it’s a technical climb from the start - at least it used to be, before the commercial guiding operators moved in. They now rig the mountain with lines of fixed rope.

K2 is the second-highest mountain in the world.

“As far as I’m concerned, mountaineering has ended on the 8000ers,” says Stephen Venables, the first Briton to summit Mt Everest without oxygen. “It’s become a monopoly of slick-operated cartels escorting people to their trophies, which to my mind has nothing to do with mountaineering.”

It’s changed even in the past few years, says the British climber Kenton Cool, who guided a client to K2′s summit in 2021. “If you look at the likes of Reinhold Messner, the first person to climb all 8000ers, it was more of a spiritual journey. Now we see more and more people are attempting these things with large amounts of logistical support, Sherpa support, fixed lines, oxygen, and it becomes, to an extent, a box tick - something they can put on the ‘Gram, and [a way to] associate themselves with the practitioners of the past.”

The climber Nick Hollis, who summited Everest in 2019, has also observed the adverse influence of Instagram. “During my time, the appeal for a significant proportion of mountaineers is the Instagram photo - and the fame. They’re in it for the glory as opposed to the experience of being there.”

The result, says Greg Moseley, mountain commission president at the international mountaineering federation, the UIAA, is people who shouldn’t be there - and people who wouldn’t know how to respond to a situation if one occurred.

“These adventure tourists that go up 8000m peaks,” says Moseley, “and most notably the big ones like Everest and K2, know nothing of the history and ethics of mountaineering.”

This is the background to the recent events on K2. Not surprisingly, Kristin Harila has been a lightning rod for criticism. Her July 27 summit marked the culmination of a remarkable - and controversial - record attempt to climb all 14 mountains over 8000m within three months - supported by helicopters, oxygen, slick logistics and funding. She succeeded in completing the feat in just over three months, beating the previous record set by the former Gurkha, Nims Purja.

But helping others in the mountains is one of the unwritten codes of mountaineering, says Moseley.

“If someone’s in trouble, it doesn’t matter what the problem is. If someone is lying there in the snow, you cannot leave him there. The chances of getting him down in a rescue may be effectively nil. But the least you can do is stay with him, hold his hand, talk to him. It’s basic humanity.”

Hollis says when he came across a body after climbing Everest, he instinctively shook the dead man’s shoulder. “It was frozen solid. I later discovered he died that morning. If I’d been able to assist, I would not have gone on - not a chance. I would not have been able to live with myself.”

Part of the problem, says Andy Syme, president of the British Mountaineering Council, is that clients on commercial expeditions are not bonded by camaraderie. “When people used to climb Everest, they were teams of friends. Consequently, they were very invested in trying to save their friends, whereas now they’re just brought together for a particular purpose, and they’re not very invested in each other.”

Harila has fiercely rejected the claims: “It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him,” she told the Daily Telegraph. “We tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half, and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone.”

Other seasoned high-altitude climbers are inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Did they know he was dying when they were looking through their fogged-up goggles in a high-altitude miasmic confusion?” asks Venables. “Above 8000m, your mind is not functioning at your tip-top best, that’s for sure. On the one hand, everything seems bright and beautiful, but you’re viewing the world through a hypoxic fog which dulls rational decision-making. It’s easy to understand people not making clear moral decisions.”

British climber Alan Hinkes, the first Briton to summit all 8000ers - a feat he completed in 2005 - is also prepared to cut Harila some slack. “I think it’s a bit much to blame Harila and Tenjen. There were scores of other expeditions, and I think people did what they could. If you’re not walking wounded, your chances are slim. It’s not really possible to stretcher a person down. In Britain, you need eight people to carry a stretcher and eight to rotate.”

He added that it seemed the porter was ill-equipped and not very experienced. “Obviously he wasn’t sent there at gunpoint, but there’s still a duty of care for whichever expedition had let him go up.”

Perhaps the real question in all this is K2′s continued appeal to climbers. Although he’s climbed Everest 17 times, Cool says K2 is one of the most special expeditions he’s done. “The line is beautiful. The history is incredible. Yes, there is a level of fear and anxiety when you’re underneath the bottleneck, knowing that it really is Russian roulette, but the vista looking out across the Karakoram... It even makes the view from Everest look a little benign. And don’t forget the Pakistani people. They’re some of the most generous-hearted, fun-loving and hard-working people I’ve met.”

K2 gets its reputation from its fierce fatality rate, which once stood at 25 per cent, and from being more prone to bad weather and avalanches than Everest. It famously claimed the life of the British climber Alison Hargreaves and five others in a brutal storm in 1995. But in recent years, the rate has dropped significantly as the mountain has become more tame. In 2022, only three climbers died on the mountain, 1.6 per cent of successful summits.

In fact, the talk among seasoned high altitude climbers is not Mohammed Hassan’s death, but the fact that at present, it seems his is the only one this season on the mountain.

The real fear is what happens if a huge glacial wall of ice that teeters above a zone called the “bottleneck” breaks. “That’s a tragedy waiting to happen,” warns Hinkes. “Or if there’s a storm like there was in ‘86 or ‘95 - there’s the potential for a vast amount of deaths.”

German lawmaker Goekay Akbulut says she was detained in Turkey for social media posts


Goekay Akbulut, a Bundestag member for far-left Die Linke party, was detained in Antalya airport on August 3 after an arrest warrant was issued by the Turkish public prosecutor. (X)

Reuters
Published: 14 August ,2023

A German lawmaker said on Sunday she was detained for several hours when entering Turkey earlier this month based on social media posts she made in 2019, adding that she would still travel to Turkey and speak her mind about its government.

Goekay Akbulut, a Bundestag member for far-left Die Linke party, was detained in Antalya airport on August 3 after an arrest warrant was issued by the Turkish public prosecutor for alleged “terror propaganda,” she said.

Germany is home to the world’s largest Turkish diaspora community, but relations between Berlin and Ankara have been strained in recent years by German criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on suspected opponents after a failed coup in 2016 and Turkey’s military offensive against Kurdish militia in Syria in 2019.

Akbulut, a Turkey-born German citizen of Kurdish heritage, was released after making contact with the German foreign ministry, she said. Turkish authorities were not immediately available to comment.

Akbulut has criticized the Turkish government for “waging a brutal war against the Kurdish population inside and outside its borders,” according to her official website.

“I will travel to #Tuerkei in October again as part of the delegation trip of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Group and, as always, will not mince my words: #FreeThemAll,” she said in a post on social media platform X on Sunday.

It was not clear exactly what she was referring to, nor which social media posts she believed triggered the Turkish arrest warrant.

The German embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Antalya were in contact with lawmaker, a source at the German foreign ministry told Reuters.

Akbulut, 40, has called for the lifting of a German ban on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.

Saleh Muslim: “Damascus Government Does not Have Strength to Take Decision to Remove Turkey from Syrian Territory”

Monday August 14th, 2023 by DAMAS POST (Opposition website)        

The co-chairman of the PYD highlighted the ongoing conflict among major powers in Syria, according to Damas Post.

Saleh Muslim, the co-chairman of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a prominent party within Syria’s Autonomous Administration, emphasized that the current Damascus government lacks the strength and capacity to expel Turkey from Syrian territory unilaterally.

Muslim highlighted the ongoing conflict among major powers in Syria, noting their lack of consensus on Turkey’s withdrawal from the region. He elaborated that Tehran maintains certain interests with Ankara, hindering its support for Turkey’s departure, whereas Russia aims to advance its strategic plans in collaboration with Turkey.

Iranian Officials Seek to Enhance Economic and Trade Ties with Damascus

Muslim further pointed out that the international coalition is cautious not to antagonize Turkey, a NATO ally, even though their objectives are not aligned with Turkey’s stance. He previously reported that despite being led by the United States, the international coalition has been unable to prevent Turkey’s incursions into areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration in northeastern Syria.

Saleh Muslim emphasized that the reticence of concerned parties is a recurring issue. He underlined their lack of insight into closed-door discussions and denied any engagement with Damascus or Moscow on this matter.

Megan Bodette, the director of research at the Kurdish Peace Institute, shared her perspective that the United States tends to focus on northern and eastern Syria and the Kurdish question solely during crises. She emphasized the necessity for a proactive approach from Washington to foster peace between Turkey and the regions of northern and eastern Syria.

The Autonomous Administration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) expressed discontent with the silence exhibited by its allies in the international coalition, as well as the guarantor states (Russia and the United States), regarding the persistent Turkish assaults on northeastern Syria. They viewed these attacks as contradictory to efforts aimed at stability promotion and counter-terrorism endeavours.

 

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.

Drunk raccoons are terrorizing German towns

Story by Sam Riches •

While initially limited to the countryside, raccoons have increasingly moved into cities like Hamburg, Berlin and Munich

Germany is dealing with a raccoon rampage as the non-native mammals are reportedly robbing homes and cottages in search of food and drink.

According to The Telegraph , raccoons have caused up to $15,000 in damages to some properties, raided kitchens and pantries, killed pets like rabbits and fish, and are drinking beer wherever they can source it.

“Raccoons are funny and clever … and they like beer,” Berthold Langenhorst of the German Nature Conservation Association (NABU), said, adding he’s witnessed the animals deliberately knock over beer bottles to get at the liquid inside.

Raccoons were introduced to Germany in the 1930s and their population has increased by up to 17 per cent annually. It’s now estimated that about a million of the masked marauders call Deutschland home.

While initially limited to the countryside, raccoons have increasingly moved into cities like Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, as they’ve “discovered better food and nicer accommodation,” Ulf Hohmann, a raccoon expert and biologist at Göttingen University, told German publication DW.com .

Germany’s raccoon population is believed to have surged during the Second World War, after a bomb reportedly hit a raccoon farm east of Berlin and the escaped raccoons began breeding in the wild. Now listed as an Invasive Alien Species by the European Union, raccoons are not allowed to be imported, kept, transported, bred or released.

There are also no natural predators for the animals. Hunting raccoons is banned in several German cities, including Berlin, but is allowed in other areas.

Germany’s National Hunting Association (DJV) said it killed a record 200,000 raccoons in 2022 in an attempt to control the population, a significant spike from the 10,000 that were culled annually a few decades ago.

And while their population continues to climb, others have called for humane management methods to curb their growth. These measures include things like fertility control and catch, neuter and release strategies.

In fact, some reports indicate that hunting raccoons has only pushed their populations into new areas and caused them to reproduce at a faster rate.

And while the damage they are causing to homes is not insignificant, humans themselves need not worry as, unlike their North American counterparts, raccoons in Germany aren’t known to carry rabies.

However, beyond economic damage, and the potential peril raccoons can pose to household pets, they also leave behind more than just paw prints.

There is a growing problem with fecal and urine contamination as the animals select areas to act as “communal toilets.” With a new-found taste for beer, that’s an issue that seems likely to get messier.

Mysterious naked ‘wolf man’ spotted in German mountains

Jorg Luyken
Thu, August 24, 2023 

The 'wolf man', photographed by two hikers near Blankenburg in the Harz mountains - BILD

Blurry photos of an unkempt man carrying a “spear” in a German forest have stoked speculation that legends of a “wolf man” stalking the woods of the Harz region are true.

Two photos captured by hikers show a naked and shaggy man sitting on a rock holding a long stick in his left hand and scratching the rock with another instrument in his right hand.

Gina Weiss and her friend Tobi claim to have taken the pictures on their mobile phones while walking beneath a set of sandstone caves in Harz national park on Tuesday.

“We saw the ‘wolf man’ when we reached the sandstone caves,” Ms Weiss told the German tabloid Bild. “He was standing on top of one of the caves, holding a long wooden stick like a spear in his arm.”

“He didn’t take his eyes off us and didn’t say a word,” she recounted, adding that the encounter lasted for nearly 10 minutes.

“He looked dirty and behaved like a stone age man from a history book,” she added.

Mysterious hermit or just ‘a prank’?

According to Bild, there have been intermittent sightings of the man since 2015, with local authorities claiming to have found evidence that someone was starting fires and building rudimentary dwellings in the forest.

However, one volunteer with the local fire service told The Telegraph that they had not noticed anything unusual in the forest, describing the story as “nonsense” and speculating that the photos were “a prank”.

With a third of Germany’s landmass covered by dense forest, stories of hermits living off the land occasionally crop up in the local media.

In 2007 a US citizen was found living in a hut in the depths of the Eifel, a low mountain range in western Germany, where he had cultivated a small marijuana plantation.

Modern legends attached to the woods, which inspired many popular fairy tales by the German Brothers Grimm, loom large in the public imagination.

Reports this summer of a lion prowling the forests outside Berlin gained significant attention for days only for the beast to be revealed as a wild boar.

Authorities in the wealthy suburb of Kleinmachnow told people to stay at home after they claimed to have video evidence that showed the rear end of a lioness.

After helicopters and drones scoured the scene without success, local authorities were forced to concede that this was a case of mistaken identity.

Chandrayaan-3: Rover exits Moon lander to explore lunar south pole

Vishwam Sankaran
Thu, 24 August 2023 

Chandrayaan-3: Rover exits Moon lander to explore lunar south pole

India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission has crossed another milestone with the exit of the mission’s rover from its lander to explore the lunar surface just hours after the country made history with a successful soft landing near the Moon’s uncharted south pole.

The six-wheeled 27kg (60lb) rover – named Pragyan, which means “wisdom” in Sanskrit – rolled out onto the lunar surface at about 1.30am Indian Standard Time on Thursday (8pm GMT Wednesday), using the lander’s ramp, about four hours after Indian space agency Isro achieved the historic Moon landing.

Both the rover and the lander are designed to function for one lunar day, which is about 14 days on Earth.

The rover, designed to move at a speed of 1 cm/s, is equipped with instruments to study the composition of the Moon’s atmosphere. These include the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS).

APXS will analyse the elemental composition of the Moon’s surface and assess the composition of elements like magnesium and aluminium in lunar soil around the landing site.

Portion of Chandrayaan-3 landing site taken after landing (Isro)

The rover’s wheels are also designed to leave imprints of Isro and India’s national emblem – the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath – on the lunar surface.

Since the Moon lacks any wind that could disturb its soil, the rover’s imprints are expected to last forever on the lunar surface.

“I once again congratulate the ISRO team and all fellow citizens for successful deployment of Pragyan-rover from inside Vikram-lander. Its rolling out a few hours after the landing of Vikram marked the success of yet another stage of Chandrayan 3,” said India’s president Droupadi Murmu on X, formerly Twitter.

If the rover manages to find water ice on the lunar surface, it could begin a rush to use it as a resource to help extract fuel and oxygen from the Moon.


The estimation of water ice on the lunar surface could also raise hopes for longer-term human presence on the Moon, and facilitate future missions to other planets.

Both the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover are set to conduct science experiments on the Moon at a total cost of about £63m ($82m).

The mission would assess the Moon’s surface thermal properties using an instrument called Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), and one dubbed ILSA for measuring lunar seismic activity.

They would also conduct ranging studies and analyse the gas and plasma environment of the Moon.

The overall mission has been planned on a restrictive budget of about Rs 6.15 billion or $75m, which is less than the cost of Hollywood science fiction films like Interstellar and Gravity.

India's rover sends mission's first photos from moon's south pole

Clyde Hughes
Thu, August 24, 2023 

A simulated image is played on screen during live telecast of the landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon at the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) center in Bengaluru on Wednesday. India's rover rolled on the moon's surface on Thursday. Photo courtesy of Indian Space Research Organization

Aug. 24 (UPI) -- India took another step in solidifying its historic status on the moon's south pole, sharing the Chandrayaan-3 mission's first photos of the surface.

The 57-pound Pragyaan rover slid down a ramp deployed by the Vikram lander Wednesday and will now start its scientific work of roaming around rocks and material and analyzing them for researchers back on Earth. Researchers believe water trapped within rocks could be the key to permanent human settlement on the moon.

"The Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walk on the moon!" The Indian Space Research Organization said on X.

The country celebrated Wednesday after the lander touched down on the south pole of the moon, making India the first country to do so and only one of four countries to ever make a soft landing anywhere on the satellite, joining the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

Chandrayaan-3 was India's second attempt at landing on the moon. The lander from Chandrayaan-2 crashed into the moon due to a software glitch. Chandrayaan-2 continues to orbit the moon.

Russia nearly became the first country to make a soft landing on the south pole, but its lander lost control and crashed just days before India made its successful landing on Wednesday.

See 1st photos of the moon's south pole by India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander

Tereza Pultarova

SPACE
Wed, August 23, 2023 

the gray surface of the moon can be seen beside the leg of a lunar lander

The first images from India's Chandrayaan-3 mission taken after the probe's historic moon touchdown reveal a pockmarked surface near the lunar south pole.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared the images on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday (Aug. 23), about four hours after the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft completed its smooth descent.

The first set of four images were taken by the lander's Horizontal Velocity Camera as it was nearing the surface of the moon. An additional image from the Landing Imager Camera, shared a little later, shows a glimpse of the landing site, including a portion of the spacecraft's landing leg and its shadow.

"The communication link is established between the Ch-3 Lander and MOX-ISTRAC, Bengaluru," ISRO said in a post on X. "Chandrayaan-3 chose a relatively flat region on the lunar surface," the agency added in the subsequent post.


Related: India on the moon! Chandrayaan-3 becomes 1st probe to land near lunar south pole

The landing made India only the fourth country in history to successfully put a spacecraft on the surface of the moon, after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China. Chandrayaan-3 is also the first spacecraft in history to touch down near the lunar south pole, an area that is currently attracting the attention of scientists and space agencies from all over the world.

Scientists think that the permanently shadowed polar craters contain water ice trapped in the rocks, which could be extracted and used to support a permanent human presence on Earth's natural companion. Moreover, these lunar craters could be used to build next-generation telescopes that would allow astronomers to see farther than they can today.

A sequence of images of the moon's surface taken by India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft during its descent to the lunar south pole.

A small rover called Pragyan arrived on board Chandrayaan-3 and will soon deploy and commence its exploration of the exciting region, so many more fascinating images are likely to come soon. Both the rover and the lander, however, are unlikely to remain operational for more than two weeks, as ISRO doesn't expect the vehicles' batteries to make it through the two-week lunar night.

Chandrayaan-3 was India's second try at landing near the moon's south pole. The country's first attempt at a lunar touchdown, in September 2019, failed when the Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed into the moon due to a software glitch.

India's triumph comes only three days after Russia lost its Luna-25 mission, its first attempt to put a spacecraft on the moon's surface in 47 years. Luna-25, too, was aiming for the lunar south pole, but crashed into the moon instead after a botched orbital maneuver on Saturday (Aug. 19).

Opinion: India’s moon landing shines an uncomfortable light on Russia’s failures

Opinion by Leroy Chiao
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Editor’s Note: Leroy Chiao, PhD, works as a consultant, and is the CEO and co-founder of One Orbit LLC, a motivational training, education and talent management company. He served as a NASA astronaut from 1990-2005 and flew four missions into space aboard three Space Shuttles – and once as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, where he served as the commander during Expedition 10. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

There are many reasons why nations create and continue civil space programs. Some hope to advance their civilian efforts in science and technology, others seek to expand their technical workforce, and still others are seeking a way to motivate the next generation of young workers
.

Leroy Chiao - CNN

Since the dawn of the space race however, the biggest motivation by far has been enhancing the sense of national prestige, at home and internationally.

That’s a big part of what’s driving India, which on Wednesday became only the fourth nation to successfully soft-land a probe on the Moon. 

The milestone marks a huge accomplishment for its nascent space program, which has made steady progress over the years. I expect future success to follow: Delhi has shown it is committed to making significant investments in space exploration efforts.

At the dawn of the space age, the Soviet Union, which understood only too well how a successful space program could bolster its standing on the national stage, struck first with the launch of Sputnik, the first satellite in 1957.

Although it transmitted only a simple beeping signal, the implications of the launch were huge; the Soviet Union could now strike its enemies, including the United States, with nuclear missiles. Moscow followed that breakthrough with others, including the first animal in orbit (the dog Laika in 1957) and the first human in space (Yuri Gagarin in 1961).

As Russia notched success after success in space, America was in a near panic. Although the US followed with our own successes, the early impression was that we trailed the Soviets technologically. That’s why President John F. Kennedy’s call to land American astronauts on the Moon resonated so profoundly for our nation, garnering enthusiastic support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, as well as with the American public more broadly.

The race to space was seen as being almost as a war of survival, one which we could not afford to lose.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the latest in a long line of leaders to attempt to use a successful space venture to reflect his nation’s greatness. Putin had hoped this week to bask in the glow of a successful landing of the Russian Luna-25 moon lander.

For extra effect, the Russian president — badly in need of a national prestige win — timed the lunar mission to take place just days ahead of a voyage to the Moon by the rival Indian vehicle, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.

Russia won the race but lost the game: A malfunction caused Luna-25 to crash instead of soft-land on the lunar surface. Had it been successful, Luna-25 doubtless would have been touted as “proof” that Russia was still a great nation, despite its setbacks in its disastrous war in Ukraine. (This type of mission is especially difficult because the orbit change maneauvers to land at one of the poles have to be done precisely).

If these space programs are mirrors of greatness for nations, then it is interesting to more closely examine them. On the rise are the programs of Asia, most notably China and India. Both countries have developed sophisticated cryogenic rocket engines, launchers and spacecraft. Both operate several constellations of satellites for communication, Earth imaging and remote sensing, and China has its own navigation satellite constellation.

China also boasts a human spaceflight program with an operational space station, including crew and cargo transport spacecraft. India has plans to send its own astronauts into orbit in the next few years, while China has announced plans to send its astronauts to the lunar surface in the 2030s.

China’s lunar rover is still actively exploring the far side of the Moon, the only country so far to have placed a lander there.

Students hold posters as they gather in support of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in Mumbai on August 22, 2023. - Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

In the International Space Station (ISS) partnership, the US, Europe, Japan and Canada also continue to move forward with space exploration. After years of delay and cost overruns, the Artemis I mission was finally launched last year and NASA has named the Artemis II crew which includes a Canadian astronaut. NASA plans to return humans to the Moon in the coming years, something that hasn’t happened since the last Apollo landing in 1972.

These countries also continue to launch satellites and other spacecraft. NASA continues, meanwhile, to operate rovers on Mars. And one of the most exciting developments in the West are the partnerships between commercial space companies and NASA.

SpaceX has been a NASA partner for many years, sending supplies and crew to the ISS. They are also developing a lunar lander for NASA, as is a team led by billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Several smaller companies are participating in contracts to provide spacecraft and services for lunar exploration, in what is proving to be a relentless forward push into space on multiple fronts.

Russia is the one exception. Instead of expanding, its space program has been in decline for several years. The once-great program began disintegrating after the fall of the Soviet Union and the downward spiral now appears to be accelerating. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev was stranded on the Mir space station for nearly a year because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and immediate chaos that followed.

Their program was arguably saved by the US, which supported the Mir space station and brought Russia into what became the ISS program, with cash for services and contracts to produce the core modules and other equipment.

Make no mistake, Russia has also been a key partner in the ISS program. They have provided crew and cargo transportation (including for my crew during Expedition-10), while the Space Shuttle was grounded after the Columbia accident.

Until recently, Russian rockets and spacecraft were among the most safe and reliable. But now the future of Russia’s space program is in doubt, amid continuing funding cuts, allegations of corruption (for example, the scandals related to the building of the Vostochny launch complex), politicization (for instance the reign of former Roscosmos director, career-politician Dmitry Rogozin), and the lack of young professionals in their pipeline (the low-paying jobs are not attractive to prospective workers.)

In recent years, Russia has seen failures of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and launchers, including the 2018 launch abort of Soyuz MS-10 which had US astronaut Nick Hague onboard. Luna-25 is just the latest in a string of failures. Thankfully, none of these has yet resulted in any deaths or injuries.

Russia’s bedraggled space program mirrors the state of the nation itself, including the surprisingly poor performance of the Russian military in its war on Ukraine. Instead of making his nation a “great power” again, Putin has shown the world just how badly Russia is in decline.

The lamentable state of Moscow’s space program is just the latest confirmation of that.

Watch the historic moment India successfully lands on the south pole of the moon, beating the US, China, and Russia

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Marianne Guenot
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, travels after it was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo

In a historic first, India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has landed on the moon's south pole.


India's first attempt failed and Russia has also crashed a lander on the water-rich south pole.


"India is now on the moon," said Indian prime Minister Narendra Modi as engineers celebrated on Wednesday.

India on Wednesday achieved a historic feat in the history of space exploration: landing a robot on the moon's south pole.

"India is now on the moon," said Indian prime Minister Narendra Modi from South Africa, as engineers celebrated the nation's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landing on the south pole of the moon.

With the landing, India became the first country to touch down on what is thought to be the most water-rich region on the moon — a feat that has stumped Russia, which crashed its lander on the moon Saturday.

Watch the livestream of the mission in its final moments, with mission control erupting in applause and Prime Minister Narendra Modi cracking a smile as the lander touches down:


And a CGI rendering of what the landing could have looked like:

A still from a livestream shows a 3D reconstitution of India's historic moon landing on August 23. India became the first nation to land a robotic mission to the crucial south pole of the Moon.ISRO

The landing means India beat Russia, China and the US, who have all announced missions to the south pole.

Whoever can mine that water-ice and break it down into oxygen and hydrogen, will then have the resources to lead future space exploration including building crewed bases on the moon and manufacturing rocket fuel for missions to Mars and beyond.

This is "a pretty significant achievement," Robert Braun, head of the Space Exploration Center at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, told Insider.
India and Russia tried and failed

Russia was the latest nation to fumble a lunar south-pole landing.

During a maneuver to push itself into an orbit that would carry it to its descent, the Luna-25 spacecraft fired its engines for too long, Roscosmos reported.

The agency lost contact with the spacecraft on Saturday and determined that it crashed into the moon.

Luna-25 joins the wreckage of India's failed first attempt.

If first you don't succeed try, try, again

The landing attempt was India's second try.

Members of India's Bharatiya Janata Party perform Hindu rituals for the success of Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 inside a temple in Mumbai.Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo

Its space agency sent its first craft to the moon's south pole in September 2019. The Chandrayaan-2 mission dropped a lander called Vikram toward the lunar surface.

On its descent, just 1.3 miles above the moon's surface, the Vikram lander diverged from its intended path and lost communication with operators on Earth.

Later, NASA's lunar orbiter spotted the wreckage of Vikram on the moon below. India took another swing with Chandrayaan-3, and it worked.

As with any descent and landing operation, hundreds of pre-programmed actions had to go perfectly, in the correct sequence, for the spacecraft to make it to the surface intact and functioning.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan displays a model of Chandrayaan 2 orbiter and rover during a press conference at their headquarters in Bangalore, India.Aijaz Rahi/AP Photo

"Spaceflight is hard, and landing on another planetary surface is among the hardest things that we do in spaceflight. So it's the hardest of the hard," said Braun, who has worked on landing and descent teams for multiple NASA missions to Mars.

Correction August 23, 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated how many countries tried to land on the lunar south pole. Two countries have attempted this feat so far: India and Russia. Only India has succeeded. This post has also been updated to reflect the outcome of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing. It was originally published on August 22, 2023.