Space has not lost its appeal for national greatness. Rivals for great power status find it difficult to compete on military terms in a world of globalised rules, whatever rhetoric their elites may use about a 'peaceful rise' This has a special appeal in Asia where rivals jostle and demand symbols that denote equality or superiority to contemporary superpowers and past empires.
India's space agency has said it will launch its first manned mission to space in 2016.
A senior official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in Bangalore said that two astronauts would take part.
"We are preparing for the manned space flight," Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan told reporters.
"We will design and develop the space module for the manned mission in the next four years," he said.
If great powers are going to waste billions of dollars on why they are as good as the Russians or the Americans, then at least space is less fraught than the alternative: weapons of mass destruction.