This is CBS. I'm John Bats with Bob Zimmerman who keeps the website behind the black success

on the surface of the moon. The Indian Space Program, which I remind you was early on

identified by Bob Zimmerman as his favorite big space program, has had a spectacular success

and it continues. Bob, they're on the surface of the moon and they're moving, busy. What

are they up to? Good evening, too. Good evening, John. Yes, early this week, India's

standard on the three-use Vikram land successfully landed at about 69 degrees latitude on the

Moon, South latitude. Successfully landed on a relatively flat area and very quickly it

rolled the Pragyan rover out onto the surface. The Pragyan rover has now traveled about 25

years, either way from the land, it is activated. It's two science instruments and both the

eight-and Vikram are functioning very well and this is achievement for India. This mission

is mostly an engineering test to prove they can do it and to show that they know how

to do it and to learn how to do it so they can do it better the next time and they're

basically doing that all the way down the line and so they should be proud of that.

I will once again emphasize they did not land on the South Pole as too many, unfortunately,

news organizations are reporting. They're nowhere near the north of the South Pole of the

Moon. They're at 69 degrees latitude which in the northern hemisphere of the Earth that

would be on the coast of Alaska. You wouldn't say you landed on the North Pole if you landed

in Alaska. So that's the thing here. Their goal is not to find water because there are no

apparently scattered craters anywhere near where they are. Their goal is to do some spectroscopy

of the surface. They might get some answers to the fundamental question about the detection

of hydrogen on the surface of the Moon. Hydrogen shouldn't be there. If it is there, it has

to be locked in a molecule in the water is always the first candidate but there isn't obvious

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