“We choose to go to the moon...”
These words are not a part of some motivational sermon but the beginning of an
episode in human history that culminated in arguably the greatest feat achieved
by mankind. These words are a part of the historic speech delivered on May 25,
1961 by then US President John F Kennedy to a special joint session of the US
Congress. It laid the foundation stone of the Apollo Program, the
techno-scientific project headed by National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) to put man on the moon. At that time, there was no
available technology or planned project on paper to achieve such a target and
it was still largely in the realms of science fiction. Those were the heydays
of the Cold War and just 4 years ago, in 1957, the Soviet Union had given the
Americans the Sputnik shock by sending the first ever man made satellite into
space. Quickly followed by Yuri Gagarin’s historic first human flight in space,
Americans were left reeling in humiliation and fear of space weapons and
technological supremacy by the Soviets.
However, going to the moon was
till then still considered a near impossible technological feat. That’s wherein
lies the story of the unprecedented efforts put in by a nation and a vast group
of humans that surpassed all previous feats achieved in science. Within 8
years, comprising 400,000 people involving scientists, engineers, supervisors,
managers, doctors and manufacturing workers, coupled with the greatest burst of
technological creativity ever seen in history, “a giant leap for mankind” was
achieved when astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the surface of the moon on
July 20, 1969. The project cost over US $25 billion or US $180 billion in
today’s dollars, the most for any single project ever. (it was on an average 42% of India’s total GDP in the 1960s). The
Apollo Program, till date, stands as the greatest feat in science and
technology ever achieved and the only other scientific projects that come close
in scope and size are the building of the Panama
Canal and the Manhattan Project
(the development of the first atomic bomb in the 1940s).
However, the greatest achievement
of the Apollo Program, which many experts from different fields believe was not
the lunar landings but what happened as a spin off the program. How many of us
know that the first integrated circuit, the progenitor of the entire ICT
industry which was developed by Texas Instruments was funded by the NASA Apollo
Program for use in space based computing applications? (all IT engineers in
India must thank NASA) The entire concept of the modern day artificial hearts
and cellphones is a spin-off of the Apollo era computers and communication
technologies developed by NASA and its associated scientists. A simple
technology used in millions of homes on the planet today, the microwave oven is
a sacred relic of the space program. Would you believe me if I tell you that even the modern day golf clubs and the rim of our spectacles are all vestiges of the
materials research done under the aegis of Apollo and other NASA space programs?
And, well, most of this was made possible because of one gigantic project
executed within 11 years – the Apollo. However, let me cut short this
lethargically slow history lesson and come to the point. From our washrooms to
classrooms, from banks to cinema halls and from offices to sports grounds, the
technologies that have seamlessly integrated themselves into our quotidian
existence is a direct consequence of massive capital and human investments made
in R&D. (Research and Development – sorry
if I forgot to mention its Indian translation is jugaad”). But as things
stand, the country with the single greatest potential to provide the human
capital for many coming generations of scientists and researchers, our own
“Incredible India” stands languishing in the ‘glorious’ company of Middle
Eastern and sub - Saharan African nations when it comes to scientific and
technological research and development.
Ever since the dawn of economic
liberalisation in India, the Gen X and Gen Y (frankly they sound like the names of human chromosomes that determine
the sex of an unborn child) has reaped the fruits of wealth generation with
growing incomes, better living standards, better technological adoption in
daily life and higher consumption levels (did I mention that the per capita
consumption of staple food such as wheat and rice has reduced by nearly 40% in
the lower middle and lower classes in the country). Anyways, so how was this
incredible India made possible? Surely, through taking a leaf out of the
scientific histories of USA, UK and Germany, the three beacons of scientific
development in the industrial world and investing heavily in scientific and
technological development which would have resulted in better products and services
for the majority of the populace. Hell no... We surpassed our peers in the
western world and reinvented the word ‘innovation’ itself. We opened our doors
to buying foreign technology developed in the industrial world which was then
used by our government enterprises and private sector to exploit our scarce
natural resources already acquired from the government mostly at dirt cheap
rates (read “2G spectrum and coal mines”). The burgeoning middle class, (myself included) blinded by the onslaught
of new products and having disposable incomes earned from working mostly in the
IT and financial services industries using technologies developed in the west,
has happily improved their life standards and wealth while the majority of
India (read 800 million poor Indians) bask in the ‘glory’ of Neolithic Age life
styles courtesy a complete policy paralysis to unleash indigenously developed
technology for the millions languishing in darkness almost literally.
Be it the energy or construction
sectors where most of the heavy machinery used is based on technology bought or
acquired through royalty from Germany, USA and Japan. Come to consumer based
products, form refrigerators to air conditioners, from cars to computers and
from thermometers to mobile phones, everything is based on technology developed
in a foreign land. Our institutes of higher education especially in the
technical domain continue to serve as hubs of “jugaad” with a complete lack of
an institutional framework to promote individual’s original research and
innovation. Every budding engineer and technical graduate continues to copy
everything from computer codes to engineering designs to entire model
specifications readily available on the internet. And thanks to a ‘level
playing field’ for each one of us (read Indian education system), the
consequences are better marks at the cost of a complete lack of a repertoire of
technical and scientific knowledge. (thanks
to Larry and Sergey, Google hai naa).
Well, let me stop India bashing
like the Englishmen and the Australians did on their cricket pitches and take a
bird’s eye view of the entire scene. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently
stressed on the urgent need to promote R&D in basic sciences especially in
the fields of agriculture, energy, materials, healthcare and space. After all,
the home grown and developed variety of rice, the Basmati was patented by a US firm and is now available in India at
much higher prices courtesy a fledgling system of patent applications,
assessment and grant. In fact, till 2005, a product patent regime was not even
available in the country. The PM aptly said that we need to invest heavily in
R&D in our government and industry R&D facilities but herein comes the
good old enemy in the form of economic vagaries. I remember a conversation with
the CFO of one of the biggest infrastructure firms in India in Mumbai some
months back when he said that until and unless the per capita GDP of the
country reaches a certain figure (he did not mention the figure), there is no
way we have the capacity to invest heavily in R&D because of lack of
capital and adequate funding. He may be right but the conversation ended before
I could ask that how come China has been able to gain the second rank globally
in the last decade in terms of R&D spend at US $130 billion second only to
USA’s $405 billion. We stand at a rather proud 14th or 15th
globally at $10 billion, complimenting our ranks in most of the games at the
Olympics. Except our pharmaceutical industry, which has taken some solid
strides in the R&D aspect and come out with newer molecules with increasing
frequency, Indian academia and industry continues to bite the dust at the end
while others have gone far ahead. While rural India continues to use ploughs used
since the 15th century and fertilisers developed by Indian companies
continue to deteriorate the soil fertility in the long run, millions of tonnes
of foodgrains gets rotten annually due to lack of adequately equipped food
processing and storage facilities. And all this on top of the fact that Indian
farmers use expensive seeds developed by foreign firms. And I don’t even want
to get started on the use of every single medical diagnostic and drug delivery
system developed by firms like GE.
Coming to the doyen of Indian
industry, the IT sector, when was the last time an Indian firm came up with an
Indian developed software product (sorry to Infosys but I just remembered
Finacle). Most of us are not even aware that we are not a software industry but
a software services industry. Anyways, to bring my monologue to a rather
light end, I’d use the famous dialogue by one of Hollywood’s most famous drug
addicts Dennis Hopper in one of my favourite movies Speed – “Pop quiz hotshot” and ask you - Where did one of the most
famous database software products in the world, Oracle, come from?... It was originally
conceptualised as part of a project of the CIA in which Oracle founder Larry
Ellison worked. And to all Google and Wikipedia aficionados, Bhuvan is there to give you a run for
your money. And if you don’t know what I’m blabbering about, I’m not referring
to Aamir Khan’s character in the movie Lagaan
but India’s indigenously built satellite based 3D mapping application Bhuvan, similar to Google Earth and
Wikimapia. And guess who developed it? None of the Indian IT companies sadly
but the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO).
2 comments:
Nice read. Still can't figure the title!!
"LSD Was One of The Best Things I've Done in My Life". This quote by one of the pioneers of marketable R&D emphasizes the related significance of an open bent of mind and how even Steve Jobs needed a stimulant early in his youth. Without taking the metaphor too far, a cultural change in our mindsets vis-a-vis research is required on a societal level for individuals to embrace research as an acceptable career - Money, of course is the first step; but to do this right, government would need much more or it'll be money down the drain. Looking at the record of our HRD ministry with the Sibals and Arjun Singhs, I'm actually quite apprehensive of spending the tax payer's money, given that it could very well end up in another Vedanta's deep pockets in the name of R&D. Brilliant article! This needs to reach a wider audience and a personal blog does not do justice to a clearly superior piece. The title, imo, is now unraveled!
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