India’s deep space dreams

India’s deep space dreams

India’s achievement of having handled a hundred space missions goes beyond the statistical significance of Sunday’s launch of two satellites aboard PSLV-C21. The ability to compete in the international arena and to launch satellites on commercial terms does the nation’s space scientists proud, and keeps it in the forefront of technology.

Investments in the space industry bring in a whole range of benefits from raising our military capabilities, upgrading weather mapping and planning cropping patterns better, to stimulating 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 look to the oceans and into the far reaches of outer space for resources that are getting scarce on earth.

The common refrain about the need for using funds more gainfully to provide 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 rightly noted. India was a far poorer country when the initial investments were made in the 1960s establishing a space programme at the insistence of Vikram Sarabhai, the father of Indian space science, whose ideas 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 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 viewing 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. May be 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.