Our scientists are proving capable of keeping in tune with fast-paced developments in science applications and rubbing shoulders with the best
India’s achievement in having handled a hundred space missions goes beyond the statistical significance of Sunday’s launch of two satellites aboard PSLV-C21. To be able to compete in the international arena and launch satellites on commercially competitive terms does the nation’s space scientists proud even as it keeps India in the forefront of technology.
Investments in the space industry bring in a whole range of benefits from raising our defence capabilities, upgrading weather mapping and planning cropping patterns better, down to stimulating vast innovations that make life easier for the common man. Modern societies also need to technically evolve to a stage when they will be able to envisage handling the future, when man would have to look to the oceans surrounding his land and beyond to the far reaches of outer space for vital resources that are getting scarce on earth.
The common refrain about the need for such funds to be more gainfully employed in providing basics to the less fortunate is sometimes too simplistic, and fails to see the enormity of the sweep of technological prowess that empowers an entire nation, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh so rightly noted. India was a far poorer country when the initial investments were made in the 1960s establishing a space programme at the prompting of Satish Dhawan, father of Indian space science, whose forethought led to the launch of the experimental satellite Aryabhatta way back in 1975.
While some carping can still be heard in the so-called developed world about aid still being granted to India, which flaunts its technical wizardry to be able to plan a Mars orbiter mission that might ultimately cost $1 billion, our scientists are proving capable of keeping in tune with fast-paced developments in science applications and rubbing shoulders with the best. Not to view the Mars orbiter, scheduled for launch in 2013, as a provocative engagement with China in a costly space war reflects a maturity of thinking that is
commendable.
Our scientists, in planning rocket systems that will breathe air for fuel so as to carry more vital payloads on the launch vehicles as early as next year, are really pushing the boundaries. Maybe they will soon be able to master the launch of heavier Indian satellites too on the cryogenic engine programme that has been somewhat troublesome so far. Work on increasing the indigenous component also creates huge avenues for industry to participate, which adds to the totality of a sanguine picture on our space programme. We owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers who envisioned the idea of going to space with rockets, then satellites and now Mars orbiters. They have made ancient India a nation modern in outlook.