chandrayaan
A few hours ago, ISRO put “Chandrayaan-I” into transfer orbit around the earth, heralding its “Mission to Moon”.
This is a proud moment for the team at ISRO working tirelessly for the last several months, sometimes right through the night.
It is also a proud moment for India’s indigenous space research programme and more broadly, India’s indigenous R&D efforts - the seeds of which were planted barely a few decades ago.
But questions are being asked…and doubts are being raised.
“Was this the best use of the country’s limited resources?”, “What will this mission really achieve?”, “Will it have any impact on the problems that we are facing today e.g. poverty, hunger, malnutrition?”
At a fundamental level, such questions assume that this is a zero-sum game and there is a constraint on funds for developmental projects. I do not agree with that…India’s main developmental challenge is inefficient (I would even go to the extreme of saying extremely inefficient) utilisation of resources rather than lack of funds.
Having said that, the answer to these questions is neither simple nor straightforward…
While the launch will cost money (although relatively speaking it will be a small amount: Rs 386 cr./~$80m), the benefits are more difficult to compute…How do you put a value on India’s credibility and prowess in R&D research? How do you put a value on the indirect gains that will accrue (in terms of geo-politics)?
How can you quantify the benefits and the advantages of being at the vanguard of space research and exploration? and how can you over-emphasize the importance of R&D and activities targeted at the next decade?
Many would remember that the same – and similar – questions were asked of ISRO’s focus on remote sensing satellites in the past two decades… The question – and the “answer” – was eloquently articulated in this article in the New Scientist:
But why is India, a country that still has so many development problems on the ground,
This is a proud moment for the team at ISRO working tirelessly for the last several months, sometimes right through the night.
It is also a proud moment for India’s indigenous space research programme and more broadly, India’s indigenous R&D efforts - the seeds of which were planted barely a few decades ago.
But questions are being asked…and doubts are being raised.
“Was this the best use of the country’s limited resources?”, “What will this mission really achieve?”, “Will it have any impact on the problems that we are facing today e.g. poverty, hunger, malnutrition?”
At a fundamental level, such questions assume that this is a zero-sum game and there is a constraint on funds for developmental projects. I do not agree with that…India’s main developmental challenge is inefficient (I would even go to the extreme of saying extremely inefficient) utilisation of resources rather than lack of funds.
Having said that, the answer to these questions is neither simple nor straightforward…
While the launch will cost money (although relatively speaking it will be a small amount: Rs 386 cr./~$80m), the benefits are more difficult to compute…How do you put a value on India’s credibility and prowess in R&D research? How do you put a value on the indirect gains that will accrue (in terms of geo-politics)?
How can you quantify the benefits and the advantages of being at the vanguard of space research and exploration? and how can you over-emphasize the importance of R&D and activities targeted at the next decade?
Many would remember that the same – and similar – questions were asked of ISRO’s focus on remote sensing satellites in the past two decades… The question – and the “answer” – was eloquently articulated in this article in the New Scientist:
But why is India, a country that still has so many development problems on the ground,