India to Launch GSLV

India will launch its GSLV rocket, powered for the first time by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine. A bit of trivia from the article:

India was forced to develop its own upper-stage engine after the U.S., worried about missile proliferation, pressured Russia to withhold cryogenic-engine technology from ISRO. As compensation, the U.S. paid Russia the $400 million it had expected to gain from the technology transfer to India for services it provided to NASA during the Shuttle-Mir program that evolved into the International Space Station.

Heh - the ISS and Shuttle are the white elephants which have brought down the US Space program into the dire straits it faces now. Was it really worth all that, just to hamstring the Indians? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!