Criticism for Mangalyaan misplaced, say pioneers PUNE: Critics of Indias Mars mission, Mangalyaan, are not considering the vast strides that the countrys space programme has made nor the economic benefits, said E V Chitnis, one of the scientists on the team that launched the countrys first rocket fifty years ago from Thumba in Kerala. Those who are criticizing the Mangalyaan project for its Rs 450-crore budget are barking up the wrong tree. The fact is that Indias space programme is unique. In the US, Russia and China, space exploration is a part of their military spending. India has a completely application-based programme focused on communication, education and development of the country, Chitnis said. Had the space programme been linked to defence budgets, the funds would have flowed freely, he added. Chitnis, who was the member-secretary of the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) the forerunner of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) when the country launched the first rocket on November 21, 1963, was speaking at an event organized to commemorate its golden jubilee. The Nike Apache rocket had been supplied by the USs National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and assembled by Indian scientists at Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station, close to Thiruvananthapuram. Working with limited infrastructure, the team had to assemble the rocket in a local church, the only building nearby that was large enough. Even in 1963, when we were jubilant after the successful launch, local newspapers had carried the headline We need rice not rockets. People must bear in mind that the money was spent for the nations development, said Pramod Kale, another member of the team that pulled off the 1963 launch. Former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair is among the critics of Indias Mars mission and has dismissed it as a publicity stunt, but Chitnis said that he disagreed with Nairs views. Kale simply said, He is wrong. On being asked if the perceptions about Indias space programme were largely unchanged and the concerns about public spending on space missions remain, Kale said that it was not true that there has been no change in the past 50 years. When we were assembling the rocket, we needed an electric-spark free vehicle to transport the rocket to the launch-site. At that time the only such vehicle was a bicycle. Later, when we formulated plans to launch a satellite, a metal-free vehicle was required and this time a bullock-cart was deployed, Kale said. Explaining the odds that the team was up against, Chitnis said that the meteorologists had advised against the date of the launch and there were fears that the cameras would not be able to capture the pictures of the sodium vapour cloud to be studied to understand atmospheric winds. Crediting Vikram Sarabhai, the fathers of Indias space programme, for taking the difficult decision about the launch, Chitnis said they had beginners luck on their side. One of the four Nike Apache rockets supplied by NASA had a defect the Americans detected before the launch, but the communication did not reach the scientists on time. Fortunately, the defective rocket was not the one picked on launch day and was later replaced by NASA, he added. Vijay Thombre, who had organised the event, said it was an extraordinary feat that both Sarabhai and the fathers of Indias nuclear energy programme Homi J. Bhabha had died young, but their vision for their respective programmes had been realized.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:57:09 +0000
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