While it is true that India must have the eradication of poverty and accessible basic civic amenities to its people as its priorities, it is wrong to pan the country’s recently-launched Mars mission. It too serves an important purpose in nation-building
Whether the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Mangalyaan will find methane on the Martian atmosphere, is a moot point. The fact is that this mission has already achieved an important purpose: Exciting millions of Indians about the possibilities of space exploration.
By the time you read this, the Mangalyaan satellite to our red neighbour planet would already be halfway to the moon. Even though that will be less than a percent of the total distance of around 400 million kilometres, give or take a few million, that the Mars Orbiter Mission — or MOM, as it is officially called — will have to traverse before it reaches its destination sometime in September, 2014.
The launch of this small 500 kilogram satellite, the first that ISRO had sent beyond the orbit of our planet, set off a wave of criticism. Some of it was scientific and had some basis. G Madhavan Nair, the former chief of ISRO, questioned the scientific merits of spending Rs450 crore on a satellite which might not even achieve much. His arguments had some valid reasoning.
However, it was the other criticism that many felt was not just bizarre but had more than just a subtle hint of racism. Take the British newspapers, which (incorrectly) claimed that India was using British ‘aid money’ to launch space missions while its own people wallowed in poverty. The piddly amount of money the British have given us over the years does not even come close to the amount that the British took from the sub-continent in two centuries.
The anger of the British was possibly due to jealousy of some narrow-minded journalists. The global power of the British peaked a century ago and has since waned; while it remains a country with engineering excellence even in the sphere of space, it does not have much of space programme to talk of. The fact is, it really never has. The criticism from neighbouring China was possibly to do more with geopolitical sabre-rattling than anything else, although on the whole the Chinese media spoke highly of this mission.
But is this criticism justifiedIJ Despite the achievements of the past two decades, there is no doubt that India remains a poverty-stricken country, albeit now with pockets of immense wealth. One is likely to see a Rs5 crore Rolls-Royce Phantom drive past a man driving a thousand-rupee cycle-rickshaw; both carrying two people. It is a fact that several Indian cities continue to lack proper sewage systems and millions of Indians, particularly the urban poor continue to live in appalling conditions.
Yes, this Rs450 crore could have been spent on providing some of these people with better hygiene and better facilities. But, as far too many cynical Indians will point out, thousands and thousands of crores of rupees have been spent over the years to ostensibly lift millions of Indians out of poverty — and to some extent there has been a measure of success as illiteracy and poverty have declined. But thanks to our sheer weight of numbers, eliminating either will take a very long time.
The idea of the MOM, or for that matter any mission to space, by India is not just about grandstanding; yes, space missions are indeed a matter of pride. But just like many of today’s 30-something Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were inspired by the United States space programme, everything from the moon missions to the Space Shuttle, the fact is that programmes like the MOM can inspire a whole new generation of Indians about science and space.
India has made some amazing strides in satellite technology; the fact that today several Direct-To-Home television companies exist is due to the success of our INSAT series of communications satellites. And despite failures and Western sanctions over the years, we have developed the skill to not just build our own satellites but also to launch them.
Our greatest success, however, is in our land-scanning and weather satellites. Although weather prediction remains an imperfect science, satellites like Kalpana-1 provided information that helped plan the response to super-cyclone Phailin which hit the shores of Odisha. In 1999, when cyclone 05B hit the shores of the state 10,000 people were estimated to have died. Thanks, in no small part to information provided by satellites, the fallout from Phailin was restricted to a handful of deaths.
We have put satellites like GSAT-7 (Rukmini) into orbit that will reduce our Navy’s dependence of foreign commercial satellites. We are building the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System, where Indian satellites will provide navigation information to our people and our military. For every mission of discovery, India has launched tens of satellites which have important jobs to do — from helping our military and intelligence services to providing weather information that saves lives and also enabling entertainment signals to travel across the length and breadth of this country.
And most importantly, India has encouraged young engineers, more than most other countries, by launching several mini-satellites developed in college classrooms across the country. For instance, the small StudSat pico-satellite launched in 2010 was jointly developed by 45 students from seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Jugnu was launched in 2011 developed by IIT-Kanpur and SRMSAT was launched the same year built by teachers and students from SRM University, Chennai.
Such satellites have proven the enthusiasm that Indians have for engineering and for space. If Mangalyaan can enthuse thousands of more children, some of whom could be staying in slums into becoming scientists, then its main purpose would be achieved. These kids could go on to become the country’s next generation of scientists and engineers who will help find solutions to some of the problems that plague our country.
Space exploration is expensive, and questioning why India explores space when it can do more for millions of poor on the ground, is to some do-gooders a logical exercise. But by sending a small satellite hundreds of millions of kilometres, India possibly has done more than make a statement to the world. Possibly we have excited the minds of millions of five to 10-year olds in science and exploration.
If Rs450 crore is the price to pay for firing the imagination of the young and motivating them to undertake great tasks in the future, it is a small price to pay. It’s worth paying.