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India unfazed by China's space
antics
By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - The contrast could not be starker.
While the past days have seen the front pages of
newspapers across the world write about China sending
one of its own spacecraft into outer space, newspapers
in India were mainly reporting on the politics that a
section of India's viciously sectarian polity - called
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - was indulging in to
create trouble in the name of religion.
Certainly, a Hindu religious rite that VHP
supporters performed - albeit peacefully, eventually -
near the demolished Babri masjid at the north Indian
city Ayodhya was not the only news in India, and China's
space launch was not the only news to grab global
headlines.
Yet one cannot ignore the awe that
China's first manned space launch created, especially in
Asia. Although most Asians welcomed the manned space
launch, the blast off filled others with fear that the
communist giant was growing stronger - and possibly more
threatening. "That the prime minister of India will have
less time to devote to a space program today because he
will need to pay attention to the Ayodhya temple issues
[of building a Hindu temple on the disputed demolished
mosque site] speaks volumes about the priorities of our
policymakers," said one editorial in the Indian press.
Nevertheless, even as the temptation to emulate
what China has done is always irresistible, and, after
China's achievement the pressure is on India, albeit
self-imposed, will be very great. Yet, according to
space experts, India has no reason to despair. "We have
excellent space capabilities and are at par with many
space-faring nations ... I don't see any specific
advantage a manned mission to space can have over an
instrument-based launch," said G Madhavan Nair, the
chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization
(ISRO).
The Chinese space program, though, has
been a spectacular success. It has enhanced China's
international stature and given it entry into an elite
club of countries that have put humans in space that
hitherto consisted of just the United States and Russia.
Indian experts warn that it would be a disaster if the
country fell into a "me too" race. "There is simply no
need to feel defensive about our own space program,"
said Jairam Ramesh, an economist and a member of the
political opposition, the Congress party.
In its
true sense, India's space program should not even be
compared with China's. The latter has always been and
continues to be military-driven. The story of how and
why the military came to play such a pivotal role in the
country's scientific and technological development was
unraveled in Evan Feigenbaum's brilliant new book,
China's Techo-Warriors.
Like its nuclear
weapons program, as described in the classic China
Builds the Bomb by John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai,
China's space program was established against a backdrop
of the Korean War (1950-53), the Taiwan Straits crisis
(1954-55) and of unfolding events in Indochina in the
early 1950s. It received the initial impetus from the
former Soviet Union, but this assistance had ended by
1960. While Mao Zedong provided the political
leadership, it was Marshal Nie Rongzhen who is today
acknowledged as the father of China's space program.
Others, like Liu Bocheng and Peng Dehuai, also provided
the military thrust.
In contrast, when
Cambridge-educated Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai, founder of
India's space program, visualized the country's quest
for outer space in the late 1960s, he clearly specified
that the country would keep its space program restricted
to research on uses of space technology for providing
communications, meteorology and remote sensing needs.
"We should be second to none in the use of space
technology for our [India's] benefits," he said.
Politicians often say that India could have used
the Sarabhai-crafted space program for national
"prestige" or for political purposes, but decided to
focus on creating just a space research organization.
"And that's exactly what India is following; Sarabhai's
plan word by word," said Sitaramaya Krishnamurthy,
director of ISRO. The only "diversion" for ISRO came in
the mid-1980s with a joint Indo-Soviet enterprise that
put a fighter pilot, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, into
orbit. But fortunately that was only momentary and did
not cost ISRO anything.
However, in almost all
scientific and engineering aspects of satellite
technology barring the military satellite area, India is
ahead, even though the Chinese have launched more
satellites than India has (about 50 compared to 35).
Moreover, while China's space program started a good
decade and a half earlier than India's, India had very
quickly narrowed the time gap. China launched its first
satellite in 1970, while India did so in 1975. Clearly,
the momentum is still on as a slew of satellites is
scheduled to be put into orbit by India in the next few
years. These cover not just the traditional areas of
communications, broadcasting, weather forecasting and
remote sensing, but other areas like education, distance
learning, disaster management and telemedicine.
In addition, with the intention of becoming one
of the elite league of nations harnessing space for
development, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
announced on August 15 - Independence Day - that India
would send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon by 2008.
The lunar mission has been named Chandrayan-I, and is an
US$8.4 million venture.
There's another reason
for India's aversion to a manned space program. China's
space program received a significant boost from
cooperation with a Russia desperate for hard currency
following its economic collapse in the mid-1990s.
"Russian assistance could have been made available to
India too," says an ISRO official, "but a space flight
program [of that sort] would have just diverted
managerial and financial resources and attention away
from satellite design, launch and use."
Nevertheless, the question that still haunts
many Indians is whether India, a developing nation with
a successful space program of its own, should embark on
manned space flight? According to Krishnamurthy of the
ISRO, India doesn't have a budget just yet. "China
reportedly spent $3 billion on its manned space program.
India's would cost no less," says Krishnamurthy. But
right now, India's space program outlay is just $450
million a year. "Evidently, a manned space program is
not on India's radar," Krishnamurthy hastens to add.
Landmark events in India's space history
1963 - The first sounding rocket was launched on
November 21.
1965 - Space Science and Technology
Center established.
1967 - Satellite
Telecommunication Earth Station erected.
1969 -
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) created on
August 15 in the Department of Atomic Energy. Since
then, the ISRO has managed India's space research and
the uses of space for peaceful use.
1972 - The
government established the Space Commission and the
Department of Space (DOS) in June. DOS conducts the
nation's space activities for the ISRO at four space
centers across the country. DOS reports directly to the
prime minister.
1972 - The ISRO placed under DOS
on June 1.
1975 - ISRO made a government
organization on April 1.
1975 - Aryabhata, the
first Indian space satellite, launched for India on
April 19.
1979 - Bhaskara-I, an experimental
satellite for earth observation, launched on June 7.
1979 - The first experimental launch of an SLV-3
rocket on August 10 failed to place its Rohini
Technology payload satellite in orbit.
1980 -
India successfully launched its own Rohini-1 satellite
on July 18 on a Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) rocket.
1983 - The Rohini-3 communications satellite,
launched in August, had by the end of 1985 extended
nationwide television coverage from 20 percent to 70
percent of the population. Today it is about 90 percent.
1984 - The first Indian cosmonaut became the
138th man in space when he spent eight days aboard the
USSR's space station Salyut 7. Squadron Leader Rakesh
Sharma, a 35-year-old Indian Air Force pilot, was
launched into space along with two Soviet cosmonauts
aboard Soyuz T-11 on April 2. While in space, Sharma
conducted multispectral photography of the northern
region of India in preparation for construction of
hydroelectric power stations in the Himalayas. Sharma
and his backup, Wing Commander Ravish Malhotra, had
prepared in advance an elaborate series of zero-gravity
yoga exercises that Sharma carried out while aboard
Salyut 7.
1987 - The first developmental launch
of a larger Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV)
rocket on March 24 did not place its SROSS-1 satellite
in orbit. It could lift a 300 lb satellite to an orbit
250 miles above Earth.
1988 - The second
developmental launch of an ASLV in July also failed.
Later, the third and fourth attempts would be
successful.
1992 - The Indian-built INSAT-2
geostationary communications and meteorological
satellite superseded an American-built INSAT-1.
1993 - The even larger Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV) debuted in September, but failed to
attain orbit. Its individual elements were successful.
PSLV can lift a 1-ton satellite to a sun-synchronous
polar orbit.
2001 - The
first launch of a still larger Geosynchronous Satellite
Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket was successful on April 18.
GSLV can boost a 2.5-ton satellite. In addition to
placing large communications and weather satellites in
high stationary orbits, India plans to use GSLV rockets
to send probes away from Earth to explore the planets.
Missions to Mercury, Venus and Mars are under
consideration.
2003: Launch - on October 17 -
of India's eighth satellite, a Remote Sensing
Satellite Resourcesat-1 - in an 821 km-high polar sun
synchronous orbit in space. Resourcesat-1, a $17.4
million satellite, is capable of penetrating cloud
cover and darkness, besides trials of assist trails
of India's cryogenic geo-synchronous satellite
launch vehicle in the near future.
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