Barely a decade after its independence in 1947 preceded by nearly two centuries of colonial plunder, India, quite remarkably, began taking tentative steps toward what is now an important global hub of space sciences and spacefaring.
Chronicling India’s extraordinary journey as a country on decades-long engagement with space is the well-known science journalist and writer Dinesh Sharma
Sharma has just published his richly detailed book ‘Space: The India Story’ that offers readers a ringside view of how the country’s pursuit of space as a source of transformative science has evolved. He spoke to MCR from New Delhi.
Chronicling India’s extraordinary journey as a country on decades-long engagement with space is the well-known science journalist and writer Dinesh Sharma
Sharma has just published his richly detailed book ‘Space: The India Story’ that offers readers a ringside view of how the country’s pursuit of space as a source of transformative science has evolved. He spoke to MCR from New Delhi.
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00:00Barely a decade after its independence in 1947, preceded by nearly two centuries of
00:16colonial plunder, India quite remarkably began taking tentative steps toward what is now
00:22an important global hub of space sciences and spacefaring.
00:27Chronicling India's extraordinary journey as a country on decades-long engagement with
00:31space is the well-known science journalist and writer Dinesh Sharma.
00:36Dr. Sharma has just published his richly detailed book, Space, the India Story, that offers
00:42readers a ringside view of how the country's pursuit of space as a source of transformative
00:49science has evolved.
00:51He spoke to MCR from New Delhi.
00:53Welcome to Mayankshire Reports, Dinesh, it's a great pleasure to have you again.
00:59You know, we are just two days before the 64th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin of the erstwhile
01:08Soviet Union becoming the first person to journey into space.
01:13You, quite like me, are a child of the beginning of the space era.
01:19I was born in 1961, so I'm quite familiar with that era.
01:25What are your memories of that?
01:26You do refer to it in your book, Space, the India Story.
01:31Yeah.
01:32In fact, we are having lots of anniversaries, the series of them, I suppose, the more remembered
01:41in India was the 40 years of Rakesh Sharma going to space.
01:45Last year it was.
01:46Right.
01:47So this is the 41st year.
01:48And yes, I think 60s was a very, I would say, I mean, going a bit nostalgic, it was a good
01:56day to grow up, and it was an exciting time, I would say, because science had a lot of hope,
02:03and there was something which was unknown, okay, we are going to win our, you know, outer space,
02:09man is going to land on the moon, and it was kind of a thrill of a new field emerging.
02:16So, I mean, surprisingly, if you come to think of it, Yuri Gagarin and Tereskova and all these
02:23astronauts became household names, and that was not the era of internet or even televisions
02:30in India.
02:31So, only what we came to know about them was through newspapers and, you know, magazines,
02:39and to some extent radio, I would suppose.
02:42And one reason for, I think, the Soviet astronauts getting big play in India, now if I think of
02:48it and you would agree, was the huge kind of, I would not call it influence, but access to
02:57information from USSR, we had the Soviet land magazine, really available everywhere, and
03:03you know, that kind of a thing.
03:04So people are more tuned to, you know, that and there were graphic accounts in the magazine
03:10of how this happened and about their lives and all that, so I think that was pretty exciting
03:15time to remember, both from the point of your exploring a new horizon, a new speed opening,
03:24and there were also, I remember a number of debates whether, you know, science is a boon,
03:29you know, that kind of a small debate seems to happen that can it solve all our problems,
03:35you know, and should man be really going and winning over the outer planets?
03:40Is there life, you know, in other places?
03:43So I think there are a lot of excitement, questions, and curiosity, I think that kind
03:49of remained in the people who have grown in that era, and of course, it continued in
03:55the 70s, but that excitement, I suppose, in the 60s was really something to remember.
04:01And also it was a political thing in the sense, it was seen as an international endeavour,
04:07at least to a great extent, you know, space was, although it was a rivalry would land on
04:15first, but it was more or less seen as an international endeavour, a lot of, you know,
04:20countries were just beginning their space programs.
04:23So overall, I think it was a period, I would say.
04:29And so, yeah, those memories are there in the back of my mind.
04:33When I look back at the records, then, you know, I found that, so it's kind of a public imagination
04:39of a new science, I would say.
04:41Absolutely.
04:42In a sense, we were in the Soviet orbit in those days.
04:45So Soviet land and those things were always around, these journals.
04:49Unlike a lot of American magazines, these were easily available.
04:53And yet, Neil Armstrong became an icon in India.
04:59Yes.
05:00Yeah.
05:01You know, talk a bit about how remarkable it was for a country emerging from 200 years of
05:08colonial plunder, not to mention several centuries of invasions.
05:13India under Nehru did such an exceptional job of setting up a clutch of scientific research
05:20institutions, all of which you refer to.
05:22And they all, the work from those institutions all flowed into India's space program.
05:30I think it was, if you look back and you see that there's something remarkable about
05:36space, both space and atomic energy.
05:38And I feel more for space was for a country, as you mentioned, just out of, you know,
05:46the colonial rule and very, the kind of things which you cannot imagine today.
05:52I mean, today we take space technology for granted.
05:55We have, you know, satellite beaming television to you and you're using GPS.
06:00It's part of our life.
06:02But think of a time when there was nothing.
06:04And imagine a country which is so technologically backward.
06:08Of course, we are good in science.
06:09We had a Nobel Prize in 1929 and, you know, so we had a good tradition of science.
06:16But technology-wise, India was a legard, I would say.
06:19I mean, even basic infrastructure, basic use of technology.
06:22For example, the whole country had just a few lakhs of phones.
06:26So very rudimentary, basic infrastructure was not there.
06:31Use of technology was not there.
06:33And scientific institutions were just being built.
06:36Of course, universities had some good institutions.
06:39But this whole idea of creating national labs, organizing science, that was just beginning.
06:45And to think about space, which was again an emerging area in the 50s.
06:50You know, it's put me right up in 1957, people are talking about the possibilities of the space.
06:57So at that time, to think about science itself, forget about for a second space in atomic energy,
07:05to think that science can address some of the basic problems.
07:08That was a bold vision, I would say, of Nehru and people who surrounded him, the scientific advisors,
07:17like Bhabha, Amal, Anugwes, Bhattnagar and to redirect.
07:23Of course, scientists always wanted to do their own work, build their own new institutions and,
07:29you know, go after scientific pursuits.
07:33But to redirect that enthusiasm and energy of doing science to something which can solve your
07:41national problems was a grand vision and a bold vision which very few countries saw that.
07:46In fact, to go back and see Nehru's time, he was mocked in the parliament.
07:52He was, you know, criticized outside parliament.
07:54There were, you know, you know, cartoons and newspapers drawn that is atomic energy going to solve your
08:00problems when you're having bullet cards on roads.
08:04So despite all that, so that was a condition in which we started looking at space
08:10and science in general.
08:12And of course, the conditions to do science were again very difficult.
08:17There was a huge crunch of resources.
08:21The nation building was on, the research institutes were set up, universities were,
08:25IITs were being set up.
08:26There was a huge crunch on the available resources.
08:30So that was one of the reasons that the program became sort of international in its nature from
08:37the beginning.
08:37You had help coming from America, you had help coming from Russia, USSR.
08:43So that was also out of compulsion because we didn't, you know, have that kind of internal
08:49resource generation.
08:50So in all this, the difficult circumstances of doing science, we went for it and it was a gamble.
08:59And of course, there were a lot of hurdles which we can talk about, but the whole idea
09:06that space and science and, you know, atomic energy could solve.
09:11So that was the promise of science and many of that has been delivered.
09:25If you think of the kind of space, the contribution of space technology to various sectors in India today
09:33is tremendous, but that vision was there and that's how we began to translate that.
09:39We had taken a number of steps.
09:42Right.
09:43You know, in this specific context of space, you write about Lloyd Berkner, an American physicist
09:51who was behind the idea of the International Geophysical Year, IGY,
09:57who met Prime Minister Nehru in January 1957, barely 10 years after independence,
10:03reflecting the importance of India's participation in it.
10:08Tell me a little bit more about that.
10:10That's fascinating.
10:12Yeah, because see, if you think about, of course, Nehru had that vision and he was directly overseeing
10:19the work of the Department of Scientific Research at that Ministry of Scientific Research.
10:25He was part of education, scientific research and culture.
10:28So he was the minister in charge.
10:30And besides being the administrative head, he keenly took interest in the specifics of the program,
10:37like appointment of new directors, what are the international programs India is going to participate.
10:43Then Mahalanubis used to send him list of foreign scientists who could be invited to India to
10:49on a lecture tours, the science congress sessions, who all could become, could become.
10:54So in that context, he met the founders of the Indian International Geophysical Year.
11:01So it was seen as India's participation in a big upcoming program.
11:07Of course, nobody thought that it will ultimately lead to, you know,
11:11India becoming a part of the processes.
11:13So I think when we talk about scientific research, it's also the processes.
11:18I think that's what fascinates me as a writer on science and technology policy history in India.
11:25That, of course, we all remember 15th August 1969 as the starting date of ISRO.
11:32But the processes which went behind that, it goes back to 57 and even before that.
11:38So I think that's, that is the whole context of these meetings.
11:42I mean, there were personal letters written by Nehru to several scientists which, you know,
11:47Baba and Mahalanubis would suggest and they would write and people who used to come and
11:54the Indian Statistical Institute had a lot of foreign faculty.
11:57In fact, people would come and stay and teach because that's what Mahalanubis convinced that,
12:02you know, all my students cannot go to America or Europe.
12:06So why not bring them out here?
12:07So there was a proper program of inviting foreign scientists.
12:12So at the highest level, we had that.
12:14So I think that led to because science that time was seen as an international endeavor,
12:21lot of cooperation, people had a lot of promise that the war has ended and you know,
12:26let's cooperate and do things we can do.
12:29So in that spirit, it happened.
12:31So otherwise, we didn't have educational institutions in India who could teach,
12:35forget about space technology, we didn't even have, you know,
12:39proper teaching of basic engineering that needs to go into, you know,
12:44a program which can lead to space or atomic energy because you need machines,
12:50any kind of work you need to do, you need machines.
12:52So you dare to fabricate their own machines because they import certificates, you know,
12:56so that kind of thing.
12:57So one way to overcome these challenges was to open yourself up to,
13:03you know, foreign flow of knowledge, you know, people were sent out on UNESCO scholarships,
13:09people went to American universities.
13:11And when Sarabhai was planning to start a space research program, much before ISRO was formed,
13:19they sent out letters to Indian Embassy in America, which put out ads in newspapers
13:26and certain areas that, you know, India is going to start a space program.
13:30So Indians could apply for that.
13:32And in fact, the first lot of people came that way.
13:35They were all recruited, interviewed in, you know, the embassy by whenever Sarabhai went there.
13:42And so a lot of people recruited that.
13:44So that was a way to overcome your deficiencies, build knowledge, you know, build bridges,
13:50learn things.
13:51Then once they were here, people were sent out on fellowship to ISRO, sorry, to NASA and other places.
13:56The first lot of six, you know, engineers including Kalam went to NASA.
14:03So that kind of, to gain firsthand knowledge, I mean, nobody was transferring you technology at that
14:10time, but to at least go and see how things may function.
14:14You may not have got equipment or machine from there, but at least you saw how things happened.
14:20People saw the satellites being launched, you know, that was the experience which we gained.
14:25And that's how the human resources, I would say, were acquired.
14:33You know, attached to IGY, the International Geophysical Year is sort of the emergence of Dr.
14:39Vikram Sarabhai.
14:41I think he was the one who was sent, right?
14:43As part of that.
14:46Sorry?
14:48Wasn't Dr. Sarabhai sort of deputed as part of the IGY from India?
14:54No. So it was the International Geophysical Year for which there was an Indian committee
15:00to coordinate with that. And there were several scientists who were asked to make proposals to
15:06that committee. And they went there and attended these annual conferences. Then they started meetings
15:13on space sciences after 57. In fact, the idea that an artificial satellite should be sent out was
15:24generated at one of these scientific conferences of IGY, where India was also a participant when both
15:30America and USA started working. So yes, Sarabhai was part of the team which went ahead and participated in many of these deliberations.
15:38People from National Physical Lab were there. But remember, Sarabhai was still in PRL, which was an
15:45entity outside government. So an arrangement was worked out that he would represent a space research
15:52to become a subject of Department of Atomic Energy. There's a little, I will not say conflict over there,
15:58but see, it was also a kind of, you know, scientists close to Nehru wanted to build, you know, labs around
16:07their, you know, own networks. Like, of course, Bhatnagar was very close to Nehru. So he built several labs,
16:14but Bhatnagar died very young, 1955. So CSIR kind of slowed down. So after that, it was thought that atomic energy,
16:22Department of Atomic Energy headed by Bhabha would become the chief, you know, scientific agency.
16:29And so there was, I don't, I have not come across any tussle, but there is a hint that, you know,
16:36see atomic energy was also a subject under CSIR initiative before, you know, it became part of DAE.
16:44So that was taken away from CSIR, if you would like to put it that way. Then space, it was a new area.
16:52So who should take care of it? Whether should it be CSIR or Department of Atomic Energy?
16:58And initially it was with CSIR because NPL was the main lead agency, I would say,
17:03National Physical Laboratory headed by Dr. K. S. Krishnan, who was a collaborator of C. V. Raman
17:10in the story of Raman effect. So he was a towering personality. So in IGI, the deliberations were led by
17:19NPL, a scientist and Bhabha was part of the committee, which, you know, went ahead and participated.
17:25So he was pretty much in the negotiations, you know, scientific conference. But then after
17:31Krishnan's death, I suppose that was a very critical year in 1961. And when IGI was kind of formalized,
17:39and then it suggested that every participating country should have a national committee for scientific
17:44research. And that question was settled by Bhabha. And I think at that time, the subject sort of moved
17:52away from CSIR and moved to Department of Atomic Energy. And because PRL was not a government entity
18:00at that time. So and Sarabai was working in PRL. So it was housed in the Department of Atomic Energy and
18:09funds were transferred to PRL for space research. So it kind of was very initial stage where, you know,
18:15the subject moved from CSIR to Atomic Energy. I mean, it's an academic debate. It could be in today's
18:24context. Should it have remained with CSIR or, you know, but that's not a relevant topic today.
18:32Right, right. Yeah. Then it moved to and that committee was housed in Department of Atomic Energy
18:39and ISRO was also formed in 1969 as a unit of atomic energy. It didn't have a separate budget for a couple
18:46of years. And only after 1971, it became an independent department. Right. You know,
18:52you made a reference to Resources Crunch. There's an interesting aside to it in your book. You talk
18:58about two of Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs, which went on to become iconic. One showing a
19:07scientist, C.R. Satyu carrying a rocket cone on his bicycle, which was, I mean, I have that image in
19:18front of me. It was quite remarkable. And the other was two scientists sitting on the floor,
19:24one of whom was wearing his vest because it was so damn hot. And that happened to be Dr. APG Abdul Kalam.
19:31So Resources Crunch were manifest across the board. It looks funny now, but I'm sure it was a great
19:37challenge for them. Yes, absolutely. I think it was, as I said, the funds were flowing from Department of
19:43Atomic Energy. And there were several, you know, one of the reasons which Baba wanted to be away from
19:51Delhi and have the department, because the first government of India department to be set up outside
19:56Delhi was to be away from the bureaucracy. You know, so of course, still bureaucracy could create hurdles.
20:02So there were issues with funding. There were issues you have to justify and, you know,
20:07how to get, go ahead and, you know, things like that. And the iconic images, which we see of initial
20:15days, when they were at the Thumba Equatorial Research Station, where launch pad, they were building
20:22on these sounding rockets in the church building. That picture was taken in the church building,
20:28you know. So, yes, those were the issues. And there were a lot of kind of exciting moments also,
20:37I would say that, you know, of course, people carrying, you know, on a bicycle is one of those
20:44things was that from the place where they had to assemble these rockets and where they were made,
20:49there was a distance of two, three kilometers and that was the only way to move so that people
20:54moved on cycles. So, yeah. And there's another iconic picture, which is not there in the book,
21:01is about a satellite being carried on a Bulacca. That was in the late 70s and early 80s. But, you know,
21:10that was a deliberate kind of a test, you know. Right. See, they had to do certain tests in an
21:19electromagnetic free environment. And to create that kind of facility in India would have cost millions of
21:26dollars or to, you know, take the satellites to the facility where it would have cost much more and,
21:34you know, it would have taken a lot of time. So, this idea that the same test can be done
21:40if by carrying the satellite on a Bulacca which has rubber tires. Right. And because that environment
21:49was sort of created and data was generated. And in fact, that paper was also published that the results
21:54were going to be good. So, that refers to kind of a frugal way of doing things. Absolutely.
22:01Yeah. So, they could have thrown their hands and saying that, okay, unless we have this
22:05great facility for three million dollars, we are not going to do that. But, yeah. So,
22:11because the program was born out of, you know, from scratch and people are doing things with their
22:17own hands, you know, and, you know, getting things done in various ways, they thought of this
22:22engineer's solution after even 10-15 years of that picture being taken in Tumba. So, that frugality,
22:30I suppose, is a very important way. It is not as if they couldn't afford, it would have taken time
22:37or, you know, whatever it is. But, to think out of box, to do things that has remained ingrained in
22:44Indeed. I would say Nisro's culture. Yeah. You know, speaking of ingenuity,
22:49you also write about the launch of the satellite launch vehicle three and one of the remote controlled
22:58umbilical cords of the rocket refused to detach as planned. And the countdown was paused and as a technician
23:07suddenly climbed up the launch tower in defiance of all safety norms and somehow detached the cable
23:13in time and the launch then went. It, I mean, it's quite a, quite a picture if you look at it. So,
23:19someone climbing up and detaching the cable really facing sort of mortal danger. Yes. So, initial days,
23:27of course, all those problems were there in the sense when you're doing things for the first time,
23:33you know, you come across several hurdles and there are a lot of unknowns. Even today, space is a
23:40risky business. So, yeah, those chances were taken. But, I mean, you can't think of that today because
23:50there are a lot of safety norms, protocols and all that. But, initial days, they could do that
23:54and there was a particular context to doing that and, you know, that mission was crucial and that also
24:03shows the kind of dedication people had because to launch a complex system is a teamwork, you know,
24:11to have a mission, to design it, to design a rocket, to get it ready, get it to the launch pad and there's
24:18one another team building on the designing of the satellite, there's a third team building on, you
24:22know, the controls and navigation and, you know, avionics and things like that and then somebody
24:29is stacking. So, it involves several, several teams including hundreds and thousands of people.
24:34So, a technology like space is not a job which a scientist or technologist can sit in his own lab
24:42and do with a small team of people. It involves a lot of people. So, there are also a lot of chances
24:47of things going wrong. So, one has to be very sure. So, I think that is the process which they learned.
24:55SLV-3 was a great, see, rocket of all the components of the space technology, rocket is the most difficult
25:01and most crucial. If you don't have a rocket, you may have a satellite but you can't launch it. So, yes,
25:07satellite has its role, applications have its role, they are equally important but most crucial
25:13technology is a rocket and that's where I think ISRO spent almost 10 years from 1971 till SLV went up
25:20in 1980. They were working on satellites, Arya Bhatta was from USSR, they worked on other satellites,
25:27they worked, you know, and applications, we had the site experiment where you could receive data. So,
25:32applications we were working, satellites we were working but we took a lot of time to master the
25:37rocket technology because it involved industrial engineering, it involves a lot of integration,
25:43it involves multiple factors. So, that's where, you know, some of these initial, you know, problems arose.
25:51Of course, things went wrong later also as I described about ASLV. With every first new generation,
25:58we had that problem but that's part of the learning. That's another facet of ISRO is that they always
26:05learn from their failures, you know. Failure is, as Kalam said, is one way of learning, you know,
26:11because you are not, you are going to perfect what you are good at by learning from your failure. They
26:17have an extensive, extensive system of failure analysis, several teams, you know, you know, discuss. So,
26:23that is again a part of how ISRO works. So, apart from teamwork that they have all these systems which
26:30are in place, you know, to analyze every bit of it, you know, even a small wire, a connector,
26:36anything can go wrong and it can bring down the satellite or a mission can end in a failure.
26:42Yeah. We are in the 45th year as a space-faring nation, considering that the SLV was launched on
26:50July 18th, 1980. Tell me about the evolution of the SLV or the SLV program to the ASLV, which is augmented
27:00space satellite launch vehicle, because that meant the latter could carry bigger payload,
27:06such as bigger satellites, for instance. I mean, it's quite a leap from the SLV to the ASLV. We'll
27:12come to the first two failures after that, but first tell me about the SLV-ASLV evolution.
27:20Yeah. SLV to ASLV was an evolution, because that was a necessary step they had to do, because
27:29SLV was, as we know, as an experimental flight, experimental rocket in the sense that it could
27:34not carry heavier payloads. The capacity was very low, because if you wanted to do anything with
27:40communication or remote sensing satellite, you needed a bigger thing. So they put boosters on
27:46SLV and this was tested. But the critical part of was the mastering the liquid engine technology, you
27:57know, that was critical, which went into making of the future rockets. And that was, see, an important
28:05thing to remember with ISRO is that they were working in parallel on different rockets, you know, while
28:15SLV was underway, they were already teams thinking of, you know, the next generation. While ASLV was
28:21underway, they were already thinking of the next generation, which is the polar satellite launch vehicle,
28:25which could really make launch an operational satellite. So in parallel, these developments
28:32were going on and they were beating on each other. For example, when SLV was developed, there were
28:37already teams from India working with the French on the development of the liquid engine for which
28:44went into PSLV. So that way, so technology development went on at different level at different times. So
28:52of course, the ultimate aim was to launch operational satellites, which was achieved with the PSLV, you
29:03know? Yeah. In the 90s. Yeah. As a science journalist, you were at hand both for the ASLV-D1 as
29:11well as the ASLV-D2, which resulted in failures. In fact, you mentioned the fact that the joke was that
29:19always sea-loving vehicle. Tell me, as a journalist covering the first one and second one, I think
29:26the second one had Rajiv Gandhi at hand, right? What was your sense as you saw things take off and then
29:32they fail? No, it was, I mean, I was very young and that was one of my first assignments to
29:42go to Srieri Kota. And I mean, there was a whole trail that you reached Madras and then from there
29:49you're taken in a bus to Srieri Kota, which was 100 kilometers away. And then you are there for the
29:58launch and you're put in a control room. And of course, there are not many, you know, restrictions at
30:06that time. So we could talk to scientists who were available to comment and all. But as it happens
30:13that you are watching away from the, obviously, you're not in the control room, but there's a
30:18different place where you're seeing it on the screen to go up and you're listening to the countdown.
30:24And of course, it was pretty clear that, I mean, you go out to see from the, in the sky with the naked
30:32eye also, as soon as it is the countdown at zero, you run out and climb up the stairs and see. So
30:38that part of the exciting, but very soon we could make out that it was going down because you could
30:44see the thing coming down and, you know, it was, there was a hush silence and, and I think it was a
30:52pretty sad atmosphere because it was a new thing, you know, after there was a gap between SLV and
30:59SLV. So they thought it's going to be a very successful rocket, but something went wrong and
31:07which I described what was the problem. So, yes, that was a quite a disappointment and it was
31:13bought by the prime minister. Then he came and batted the ISRO chairman. Yeah. But yeah,
31:20the next time, of course, ISRO became slightly apprehensive of the press and we were not allowed.
31:26I know I read that. Yes. So that was a bit disappointing. Yeah. But yeah, they were also
31:33learning in the science, how to deal with the press and what are the protocols and there were a lot of,
31:39it also was driven by the person who is heading, you know, because as long as Satish Devan was there,
31:46he was quite open, I suppose. I was, I met him while he was still the director of IIS,
31:52but he had just resigned when I started covering space. I mean, the time was just over and you were
31:58already taken over. So that also reflects the personality of the person who is heading because,
32:05see, as I was talking about the failures and there were a lot of anecdotes with Chikalam and others
32:11have called that when things failed, the one took the responsibility on himself and he went out to the press
32:18and announce. But when he succeeded SLB, he put the project leader, which was Chikalam in front and he
32:25allowed him to take the limelight. So that also reflects the kind of
32:30sagacity of the leadership which we had in the scientific, you know, agency. So it also reflects
32:39the kind of equations which people had because when Chikalam was made, they were not very
32:45Muhammad because he was junior to several other scientists when he was made the project director,
32:50but still everybody cooperated. But so when he succeeded, Satish Devan put him in front and let
32:56him take all the credit which I think Chikalam has recalled in the whole incident in his autobiography.
33:03So, yeah, they were learning to live, learning to deal with press, the public image,
33:09you know, all those political fallout, you know. So for some time there's Janta government was there,
33:15so there was a kind of crunch on the program, temporarily, yeah. So they had to deal with all
33:22that, the public image of the program because of course people do criticize, then failures take this,
33:30Satish Devan was criticized in American press, you know, they mocked him, drew cartoons because
33:36the insect was sent up from the US and it failed after it was in the orbit because so there are
33:43things like that, yeah. So, you know, also trying to learn from all this, you know, experience.
33:50Soon after that space acquired, space for India acquired a somewhat different trajectory with the
33:56rise of Rakesh Sharma in 1984, becoming the first Indian cosmonaut as it were since he went through
34:04Russia, the Baikonur area. And then, of course, 13 years later, you had Kalpna Chawla and the both
34:15heroism as well as the huge tragedy of the Columbia disaster. And then you also bring in Sunita Williams.
34:23So it's the book is quite up to date. In fact, it's almost as if it was written yesterday in some ways,
34:29which is quite remarkable. Tell me about how you approach these three figures of Indian space,
34:36Rakesh Sharma, Kalpna Chawla and Sunita Williams, especially Kalpna Chawla because it was so tragic
34:42and yet so heroic. No, there is sometimes, you know, there's a feeling that should we celebrate
34:51of course, Rakesh Sharma was an Indian who went on a Soviet mission. But what about Kalpna Chawla,
35:00they were American citizens, Sunita is an American citizen and there's several others whom I talked
35:05about, Rajachari and quite a few others. And should we be celebrating their success, how Indian they are,
35:12you know, there are kind of questions. Of course, Kalpna was born in India, she was educated,
35:17she studied engineering in Punjab and went to US to do her PhD and joined an American company and then
35:24went on to NASA. So at least her parents were here and she had Indian education where Sunita was,
35:30sorry, Sunita was born there. So should we, and she's half Indian, mother is a different ethnic group. So,
35:39so should we celebrate? But so I don't feel that that question is relevant in the sense because each
35:45astronaut story is kind of an inspirational tale, I would say, because everybody had a different
35:52trajectory, like Rakesh Sharma was a jet pilot. At the age of 21, he was pilot flying sorties in the
35:591971 war and he was a train pilot right from the beginning. So his transition to becoming an astronaut was
36:06very clear. But what about Kalpna Chawla, she had the great interest in space right from her childhood
36:14and her education. But then she was, she went on to do a PhD. So she became an academic and
36:21then applied for a job. And you know, that when the applications were called for NASA to become
36:27astronaut, she did apply and she got selected. So her path is totally different. What are the motivational
36:33factors for her? Again, like the story is totally different. Again, you know, I mean, so I think
36:39each astronaut's story has something for people to get interested in science and engineering and
36:47technology and individual stories of perseverance and to pursue your goals. So I think from that point
36:54of view, whether they are Indian or half Indian or it doesn't matter, I think that's what those stories
37:00need to be told. So from that point of view, I have included these stories. So, and of course,
37:05they are connected with the larger discourse of the missions in which they went out, the geopolitics
37:11of all that, the technological development of International Space Station, how the, you know,
37:16this whole scenario has been changing. So through those, the stories of these people are trying to
37:22bring in the context, which gives a bigger picture, I would say. In any case, scientific and technological
37:30achievements are not about ethnicity or nationality or gender. It's about just the fact that they were
37:36they were achieved. That's what it's about. You know, I was struck by a particular passage where you,
37:43in the context of Kalpana Chawla, you write that it was traveling at about 12,500 miles per hour speed
37:51and was 1,192 miles from its touchdown. That's when things began to unravel. At 920, you write,
37:59the mission control declared a contingency and a loss of communication. And then the Columbia
38:05disaster happened. It was quite, in a tragic sense, it was quite a spectacle because a lot of people
38:13saw it. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's where the, you know, the story tells us
38:25something that how first mission was very successful and the second mission this happened
38:31and things were going on very well. It also points out that even a minutest thing can bring down a
38:38whole mission. For example, this particular tile which was noticed that it missed the air while it
38:45was going up the shuttle and that's what ultimately led to this big disaster that heat started, you know,
38:53penetrating the tail of the
38:58shuttle and that's how this whole thing developed. So, one cannot overlook any. Of course, it points out
39:03to the, not that it was a deliberate thing or it was, but it was a small thing which led to a big disaster. So, the risk
39:12of space missions is there again. Time and again, it's been established with the most recent with Sumida
39:19Williams story also. Of course, their life was not at risk, but you know, this whole uncertainty, there are
39:25still unknowns. I mean, we have had so many missions and 260 to 70 people have gone and lived on the space
39:33international space station and there is no threat to their life. Nobody is, you know, had the severe
39:39kind of life-threatening situations, but still, yeah, there are unknowns and risks and that's what
39:47makes space technology so challenging despite all the technological, you know, advancements we have made,
39:54the knowledge, you know, latest materials technology, the ways to monitor making the space, the modules
40:05more habitable. I mean, earlier modules, there are a lot of comparisons people have studied that
40:10how Russians used to take and how cramped they would be and, you know, in fact, Sunita also went on one of
40:16the modules and she describes our missions in her blog. So, we have made the advancement, but still
40:22there are a lot of uncertainties and unknowns. So, every mission has one runs, I suppose.
40:29Absolutely. To conclude, Dinesh, you also write extensively about the future in terms of the
40:39Gaganyan mission, the first crewed or human space flight. What's the status of that?
40:45See, it's a, it's on course in some ways because if you remember, I think it was announced in 2018
40:56that by 2022 an Indian will, India will put an Indian in space and that was supposed to be the 75th
41:05anniversary of Indian independence. So, that deadline is passed and that time it was announced that it
41:12will be 40 months, you know, we have, we can master that, but we can do that, but that has not happened
41:21and, but a lot of progress has been made in terms of training of the astronauts first in Russia and
41:28now two of them are, as we talked in US, one of them is going to go up and to International Space Station
41:36as part of the exam mission. The date has not been announced. So, an Indian from India, that goal
41:42still remains because I think there are a lot of steps we have to, you know, pass before we can
41:51really put the man rated, the GSLV Mark III is still to be tested, you know, so because the module has to
42:01have the environment and life-saving support system, we are still to do that. The training part has been
42:07done. I mean, everything you can't do here, but training has been done in Russia and now in America,
42:13but yeah, so I don't, I mean, ISRO has not given a date as when Gaganyan is going to go up within
42:21Indian, but they have laid out the path that there will be untrude missions of GSLV Mark III before
42:31that and we are still to see that. But some building blocks, they are tested like the crew escape module
42:37and you know, a few building blocks have been tested, which is a long process. In fact, if you see the
42:42whole history of the human mission has been almost 20 years, we have been talking about it from the
42:46idea till now. I mean, even if you take the 2018 deadline, we are already four years now and before
42:52that lot of work had been done. So it's a, it's something which is not to be hurried. I mean,
42:59China has done it and several others have done it, but yeah, let's not hurry. I suppose that's the
43:04sense you get from ISRO that, yeah, we'll have to go through all that. So meanwhile, of course,
43:09an Indian will go up after Rakesh Sharma, that is once to Shukla, but he's going to go up to ISS in an
43:19American satellite, American module. Yeah. So I think we still have to wait for Gaganyan to
43:25become a reality. On that note, Dinesh, I want to thank you for your time. It's always a pleasure
43:32to engage you on subjects of science. Like me, you are a nerd too. So always happy to do that.