India, Sept. 8 -- The US has been courting India about setting up a joint lunar base. A month after Nasa's invitation to Isro, US ambassador to India Sergio Gor reiterated the intent. This is undoubtedly a recognition of both Isro's repertoire of skills across a range of space operations as well as India's growing ambitions as a space leader.

Over the decades, Isro has demonstrated superior technological and operational ability that has, at times, even surpassed Nasa's. Chandrayaan-3's remains the world's only soft landing on the lunar South Pole, a notoriously difficult and, thus, largely unexplored terrain. This seems particularly important for the US's Moon base plans given its first phase envisages robotic missions to the lunar South...