The Moon and Beyond; The Gaze Ahead

It will be giant leap, make no mistake, when Vikram lands on our eternal fantasy land, the Moon, between Sept 6 and 9.

Why? What’s so great in reaching out to the earth’s child when America has already got its space adventurers visit it long ago and when China and Russia have had their space footprint ingrained on the moon soil?  Why, when we already know what moon is made of and what’s available in the chilling cold out there?  What new can our Chandrayaan-2 bump into?  Why waste 978 crore rupees and thousands of manhours of the brightest scientific minds in the country?  Aren’t we just a ‘we too’ – and the last one at that – in the moon dreams?

Maybe we are the last; but there are only three before us!  That makes us a part of the ‘Fantastic Four’ club.  And, we have done it all on our own - and the lowest cost; a matter of immense pride, to start with.

And, if you thought the three before us have already found out everything that was there to be found on the moon, think again.  The three big brother leaders and of course the entire world grudgingly acknowledged the fact of discovery, when Chandrayaan-1 found water particles on the moon.  Promptly, they started looking at taking a trip to the moon again. The US will send its astronauts in 2024, China will undertake three more missions in the next ten years to explore the possibility of building a base on the moon using 3D printing technology, Russia will shoot its craft towards the white globe in 2021 – after a gap of 45 years – and will follow it up with two more in 2023 and 24.  Elon Musk’s SpaceX is thinking beyond all of them, to turn the moon into a holiday destination!

This means, the moon is not done with yet.  When the day to colonize the earth’s sibling comes, India will be right up there in the pilot’s seat; an enviable position to be in, for sure.

This has been possible thanks to the brilliant and selfless minds that are at work at ISRO and its sister organizations.  Whatever the socio-political turmoil that the country may have gone through in the last few decades, the scientific community has remained untouched by it all.  When we launched our first satellite from the Russian soil – and with the help of Russia – in 1980, nobody had imagined that we would come this far in just 4 decades timeline.   

Nobody gave a chance to India when our country was ostracized by the world and the advanced countries refused to share their knowhow on cryogenic engines – the most vital requirement to build spacecraft.  But knowledge, after all, is neither nobody’s slave nor anybody’s sole asset.  And India, having its roots in a great ancestry that was lightyears ahead of the rest of the world in all spheres of science, didn’t find it difficult to navigate the challenges and develop its own technology.

Forget the cryogenic engines; imagine implanting a satellite with an electronic brain that’s fed with all the commands that it will need when it’s left all alone in the vastness of space; imagine that brain maneuvering it perfectly towards its destination and ensuring its smooth functioning.  It’s called space autonomy.  India demonstrated it in Chandrayan-1 and, then, in Mangalyaan.  Vikram, the lander in Chandrayaan -2 and Pragyan, the rover, are also on autonomy.

If we are thinking astronomically big now, to carry out at least seven inter-planetary missions in the next decade, it’s because of the confidence and expertise of our scientists.   Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the whole spectrum of ISRO’s activities a stardom it so deserved for long.  Never before had ISRO’s accomplishments been a spectacle that the, country celebrated as one entity.  Modi, by being one with the scientists and by giving them all the credit and fanfare, has ensured it.

What India’s successful launch of Chandrayan -2 has done is that it has demonstrated to the world its failproof launching capabilities.  A 96% success record is no joke.  A fact that’s looked at in awe by even some of the most advanced countries like the USA, Canada, Germany and UK – among others – whose satellites we have launched from our facilities.  Come to think of it; we successfully launched 125 foreign satellites in 2017 alone, whereas the count was less than 50 in the preceding two decades!  50 is what we have already touched in 2018!  No wonder, then, that the Antrix Corporation, which handles commercial launches for ISRO, made a profit of about ₹ 218 crores in 2017.  There’s a lot more to come. Which means, the money that’s spent on missions like Chandrayaan or Mangalyaan are not ‘spendings’, but indeed investments and if one looks at the quantum of data that pours in.. that’s indeed a great asset!

But to look at such ventures just in terms of commercial returns would be shortsighted and plain stupid. The technology that goes into making them possible invariably lead to developing tools that makes our lives so much more comfortable and secure.  Do you know that vacuum cleaners that we so readily use now was actually invented for use in the first human-mission to the moon?  And, that the fire-resistant suits that firemen across the world use were first made for space missions?  Can we ignore the fact that all our travel, communication, and entertainment are dependent on India’s proud INSAT series of satellites?  Or that RISAT-1 has been helping us monitor and plan our crops; the IRS satellites have been tirelessly giving us a low-down every second on our weather and storms, and RISAT -2 that’s keeping a close watch on our enemies around?

The money that goes into space missions is never a waste.  If anything, the Indian scientific community is the most underpaid and under-aided among those in all the leading space nations!

More than the returns on investment, isn’t it important for us to see from outside how small we are?  This massive globe of ours is a small speck of dust in the vastness of cosmos.  One small jolt in the system, and we are gone without a trace!  Where else can we live, if not here?  The human race is looking out.  And, ours is a leading eye in the crowd!

Jai ho scientists! Jai Vigyaan!

#AnantkumarHegde