India’s moon rocket Chandrayaan-1 carried NASA’s Moon Minerology Mapper, which has now reported finding evidence of thin films of water on the moon. A year ago I was very pessimistic as to whether the rocket would reach successfully, and I was happy to eat my words when it did. Because the initial US and USSR rockets had failed miserably half a century earlier, I had mistakenly assumed it likely that India’s would too, not acknowledging the technological progress in rocketry, telemetry etc in the meantime.
Subroto Roy
Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy 