India wants to bring people to space

India wants to bring a person into space in a few years.

If successful, India is the fourth country that can take people to space. Until now only Russia, the United States and China were able to do so.

India wants to cooperate with 'friendly countries with advanced space programs. 'The country thinks it needs 100 billion rupees for such a mission, about 1.2 billion euros. That would be considerably cheaper than the manned flights from other countries. Previously, India managed to bring a dirt-cheap satellite to Mars.

In April 1961, the Soviet Union brought a human being into space for the first time, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. A month later, an American astronaut went to space for the first time, Alan Shepard. China joined in 2003 with the space travel of taikonaut Yang Liwei.