My piece on US media website Modern Notion titled "Is Russia Building an Orbital Space Station with China and India?"

Dear all, below is URL, verbatim text & images of my recently published piece on US media website Modern Notion where I'm a Science Writer. This piece is on how Russia is planning to propose building a new space station with China & India once International Space Station (ISS) retires.

http://modernnotion.com/russia-building-orbital-space-station-china-india/

International Space Station (ISS); Courtesy: Gray Lensman QX & Modern Notion

Russia may propose the joint development of a manned orbital space station in low Earth orbit (LEO) with China and India in the upcoming BRICS summit in Ufa, Russia, this coming July. A document released by the Russian Military Industrial Commission, the apex body controlling all Russian weapons and defense technology development, has strongly recommended that Russia push for a manned space collaboration with China and India to forge lasting “technological alliances.”

The ISS, the 15-nation operation, launched in 1998 is meant to wrap up in 2020. While NASA has proposed extending the program another four years, political tensions are once again at a high, making the exact future of the ISS unclear.

Although Russia spends 30 percent of its defense budget on ISS, it has little returns; ISS covers only five percent of Russian territory. And since 2007, Russia has leaked bits and pieces of a possible manned orbital station for when the ISS is retired.

In 2008, the first detailed concept of a new Russian station revealed that instead of a research lab, like the current ISS, the new station would function as an assembly point for missions to the Moon and Mars. 

In 2014, Russia signed an agreement with China to work together in space technology applications, and global speculation was rife with thoughts that Russia would abandon its space initiatives with the West to solely work with China on anew orbital station. But the director of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, clarified that Russia will continue to use the ISS beyond 2020, but that its focus will shift toward cooperating with China and their space stations.

Experts have long held, however, that since modules of the Chinese space station, its rockets and even its space suits are all derived from Russian technology, Russia has little to gain from China in terms of space technology.

In December 2014, Russian space officials also confirmed that instead of a separate space station from scratch, current and future Russian modules of ISS can work as independent orbiting units and can be assembled to act as the Russian successor to ISS.

While India appears to be the surprise new piece in this puzzle, Russia’s long term strategic interests and recent developments may have compelled the move. India has been Russia’s biggest arms and space technology buyer but was never considered by Russia for big ticket space projects.

It’s very likely that Western sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s creaking economy could have precipitated this new development. Again, ties between India and US are growing in defense and space technology. China also remains wary of Russia’s competence following the 2011 aborted launch of the Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt with a Chinese micro-satellite installed on it.

Global politics can be muddy. Add in the element of space, and things get even murkier. Looks like we’ll have to wait until the July BRICS summit to see what direction the emerging space frontier in Asia and Russia is heading.

Orion - NASA spacecraft to take Humans to Mars achieves success on maiden test flight

Orion, the spacecraft aimed to carry the first humans to Mars one day, ventured beyond the skies on its maiden flight on December 05, 2014. It was an experimental test flight launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, America’s most used space launch port.

The flight has been termed near perfect as per National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s (NASA) mission control center once Orion successfully splashed down into the Pacific Ocean near California after orbiting the earth twice.

Orion taking off from Cape Canaveral on Dec 05 on board the Delta IV Heavy launch Vehicle; Courtesy - Space.com, NASA

This flight only included the crew module which is meant for housing the astronauts during deep space voyages to asteroids and Mars. The fully functional Orion will contain the crew module developed by Lockheed Martin, the service module developed by Airbus and a Launch Abort System (LAS) which will allow astronauts to detach the crew module from Orion assembly and abort mission in case of a launch failure.

The Orion made its reentry into earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 20,000 miles per hour (36,000 km per hour) and had a mass of 21,000 pounds (9530 kg). It slowed down to a speed of 300 miles per hour when the system of 11 parachutes took over to bring it safely down to 20 miles per hour and drop it in the Pacific. This first flight was called Exploration Flight Test-1 and cost $370 million. 

While it was not a red letter day in NASA’s history, the event has created some euphoria among the public for the world’s largest and most advanced space agency which has been plagued by budget constraints in last 10 years.

Initially, Orion was a part of the Constellation Program, started by President George W Bush in 2004 to take Americans back to the moon by 2020 and eventually to Mars.

But Constellation was cancelled by current President Barack Obama in 2010 on the recommendation of an expert committee that the program was not financially feasible under then NASA budgets in the near future since then global recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had put huge pressure on US government annual budgets.

Since the golden age of space exploration in the 1960s and early 70s when US & Soviet Union locked horns in a fierce space race. Soviet Union took the first humans into space while NASA took the first humans to moon on a series of Apollo spacecraft missions. But since then, it has been a downhill slide for NASA.

The last person walked on the moon in 1972 as the Apollo program was terminated post that both due to budget constraints and the cancellation of Soviet Union’s fledgling moon program.

Apollo 17 Scientific Instrument Module bay on the Service Module, seen from the Lunar Module in orbit around the Moon; Courtesy - NASA

Eugene Cernan, the last human to walk on the moon performing the last lunar excursion, December 13, 1972; Courtesy - NASA

Apollo was replaced by the Space Shuttle, a semi reusable space launch vehicle (aka rocket) that took humans back only in the low earth orbit (LEO altitude range is 160km to 2000 km above earth’s surface). The first operational flight mission of the space shuttle was in 1982 and it was retired in 2011 after 135 missions.

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The shuttle, partly similar to a plane, used to lift vertically on attached combinations of solid and liquid booster rockets and upon reentry and descent into earth’s atmosphere, used to glide down and land horizontally on a special runway partly reminiscent of landing a small plane.

The STS-133 mission, Space Shuttle Discovery touches down similar to a small plane at the Shuttle Landing Facility; Courtesy - NASA/Kim Shiflett 

The Obama administration initiated and US Congress passed legislation in 2010 mandating NASA to create a new deep space launch vehicle called Space Launch System (SLS) that can carry Americans in Orion beyond LEO and eventually to Mars. The future travel to and from LEO was targeted through the commercial crew and cargo development programs (the economics and financial aspects of US space program and the private sector aiming at Mars will be dealt with in a future Blog post)

Orion aimed at carrying 3 humans to moon under the Constellation program. Then, the new NASA Act passed by US Congress in 2010 salvaged Orion and made some modifications to enable it to carry 4 humans not just to the ISS but up to Mars using the under development SLS rocket.

Artist's rendering of Space Launch System (SLS) After Launch-20140827; Courtesy - NASA/MSFC & licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons 

Thus, the December 05 Orion’s maiden flight was launched on the Delta IV Heavy rocket belonging to the Delta family of expendable (use once & throw) launch rockets developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Delta family has been mostly used to launch US military and navigation satellites.

Only rockets carrying telescopes, satellites and landers & robotic probes to moon, Mars and other destinations in the solar system have ever crossed LEO. And this is where Orion’s flight is deemed historic.

Orion reached an altitude of 3630 miles (5790 km), over 15 times higher than any human spacecraft has reached since the last Apollo (Apollo 17) landing in 1972. The space shuttle only ever reached a maximum of 350 km in its 135 mission history. However, Orion’s flight was not aimed at breaking a four decade plus hiatus for a human spacecraft to go beyond LEO.

The primary objective of this flight was to test Orion’s heat shield upon the craft’s reentry into the earth’s atmosphere where it is engulfed by a ball of plasma attemperatures in excess of 4000 degree Fahrenheit. The space shuttle experienced temperatures up to 1500 degree Fahrenheit (º F) only.

NASA originally targeted a heat shield made of a newly developed composite material but after a lot of R&D, concluded that Avcoat, the same coating which protected the Apollo spacecrafts upon reentry over 4 decades ago,  is still the best.

Some minor changes were made in the new shield like 30 percent extra material to fit onto the larger sized Orion. The coating had not been in manufacturing for decades and it took NASA 8 months to redevelop it.

The shield consists of a fiberglass overlay with 320,000 cells which are filled with Avcoat. This fiberglass overlay is built around a titanium skeleton upon which a carbon fiber skin is fitted. The stand out property of the heat shield is that a significant percentage (20 percent in this test flight) of the Avcoat coating burns away in the extreme heat generated by the plasma ball surrounding the spacecraft during descent through the atmosphere.

But flights to moon and Mars will be an entirely different ballgame. An Orion capsule returning from the moon will hit the Earth’s atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour raising temperatures upto 5,000 º F.

If returning from Mars, it’ll make reentry at a mind boggling 33,500 miles per hour, highest speed ever for a man-made object re-entering earth’s atmosphere. The temperature of the plasma ball will be a scorching 5,500 º F.

While there’s no way to test a return from Mars reentry conditions, the test flight in 2018 is planned around the moon and will be launched on SLS. Then comes a series of LEO missions on SLS-Orion followed by the major proposed asteroid mission to be carried out by 2025.

In this, SLS is supposed to lasso an asteroid via a robotic spacecraft and put it in orbit around moon and then the first humans aim to land on the asteroid to conduct experiments and collect samples. The asteroid mission is aimed to be the final test bed for humanity’s odyssey to Mars.

The second major objective of Orion’s flight was to test the system of 11 parachutes which were deployed like a choreographed ballet sequence beginning at an altitude of 20,000 feet (around 3.8 miles or 6.1 km) when the capsule had slowed down to a speed of 300 miles per hour.

The canopy of the parachutes is made of nylon while the connecting risers and chords are made of a super high tensile strength composite material called Kevlar.

Orion Crew Module descending through the last 3.8 miles (6.1 km) after the system of parachutes were deployed in a unique sequence; Courtesy - NASA

Apart from the above major objectives, Orion crew capsule had 1200 sensors fitted on it to record flight data on critical variables like temperature, pressure, speed and radiation. The next few years will involve data analysis of values of all the variables recorded by the sensors to prepare detailed knowledge about flight conditions and make necessary changes for next test flight scheduled for 2018.

  

As Orion lay peacefully in the waters of the Pacific Ocean waiting to be captured, the officials at NASA know that this is just the beginning of next phase of a decades’ long journey. A recent Congressional committee came out with a reportstating that NASA’s SLS launch vehicle and Orion crew capsule program iswoefully underfunded and major technological challenges remain before it can ever take off to Mars – some call it a nonstarter.

On the technological front, cosmic and solar radiation remains the biggest obstacle. The amount of radiation that astronauts’ bodies are estimated to absorb on a trip to Mars with the same shielding that was used on the Apollo moon missions will prove to be lethal. Thus a radiation shielding of an entirely new structure and size is required.

One of the most oft discussed radiation shielding solutions is water. But Orion will need a water shield atleast 1 meter thick for the least time consuming trajectory to and from Mars. That largely reduces the amount of payload that can be carried to Mars which would include astronauts’ belongings, food and all landing and habitat equipment to live on Mars. Most research into other radiation shielding materials has not reached beyond lab testing.

Then there is the issue of the astronauts spending the longest ever time in micro gravity conditions experienced by any human. Micro gravity makes the muscles and bones to atrophy and there’s no experiment conducted or data available as yet that can simulate the micro gravity conditions for both the onward and return journeys.

Thus this is one small step for humanity especially NASA and it’ll take hundreds of such steps before we make the next giant leap to Mars.

ISRO's bold steps to put India in Top 5 on earth with own GPS Satellite System

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) took another step towards becoming a global force to reckon with in the space sector with the successful launch of its second navigation satellites, the IRNSS 1B, in orbit around earth on Friday, April 04. The satellite was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota (SDSC SHAR) using India’s workhorse launch vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The satellite is part of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) programme, which involves launching of seven navigation satellites by mid 2015.

IRNSS 1-B satellite in the clean room at ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sri Harikota;

Image Courtesy: ISRO

Navigation satellites, known to the general public as GPS satellites, after the official name of the system of twenty four US navigation satellites, provide positioning and tracking services for users in a plethora of fields. The IRNSS 1B was initially placed in an intermediate orbit by the PSLV version code named PSLV C-24 from where, 5 orbit raising maneuvers will be performed over next few days to place it in the intended geosynchronous circular orbit (a geosynchronous orbit is one in which a satellite takes 24 hours to revolve around the earth) at a height of 36,000 km.

An ISRO press release stated “After a flight of about 19 minutes, IRNSS-1B Satellite, weighing 1432 kg, was injected to an elliptical orbit of 283 km X 20,630 km, which is very close to the intended orbit. After injection, the solar panels of IRNSS-1B were deployed automatically. ISRO's Master Control Facility (at Hassan, Karnataka) assumed the control of the satellite.”

PSLV C24 rocket takes off from spaceport at Sri Harikota with the IRNSS-1B navigation satellite; Image Courtesy: ISRO

The IRNSS system will be a critical national asset delivering terrestrial, marine and aerial navigation services including disaster management, mapping services, vehicle tracking and visual voice navigation apart from future strategic applications like in guided missile defense systems and other military purposes. 

India already became the fifth nation after the GPS system of US, Russian GLONASS, China’s Beidou and EU’s Galileo to launch an indigenously developed navigation satellite as part of a navigation system when it launched the first in the series, the IRNSS 1A, in July 2013. IRNSS’s primary service area will stretch upto 1500 km beyond the nation’s borders. The design and technology involved has scope for enhancing the coverage area by adding four satellites beyond the seven but ISRO has stated that this would be considered only if future need arises. 

IRNSS-1A, India's first 'GPS' satellite, integrated with PSLV C22 rocket at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sri Harikota before launch in July 2013; Image Courtesy: ISRO

The genesis of IRNSS programme occurred ten years ago with the aim of creating a system entirely in control of the Indian government to provide accurate real time positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services for both civilian and military purposes. It was approved by the Indian government in June 2006 and the project has an estimated cost of Rs.1420 crore with each satellite costing around Rs.125 crore and the ground based infrastructure valued at Rs.300 crore.

A navigation satellite emits microwave signals periodically which contain the exact time when a signal leaves the satellite. Any receiver on the ground, like in a mobile phone, picks up the signal and then based on the time difference between the transmission and reception of the signal, measures the distance of the satellite from the receiver. Thus, as in case of GPS, a receiver gets signals from four satellites and is thereby able to calculate its own precise location.

Thus one critical element in satellite navigation is time measurement upto the smallest possible fraction of a second. Each IRNSS satellite contains 3 rubidium atomic clocks, which keep time upto a few tenths of a trillionth of a second in an hour. Currently, ISRO is importing these clocks but work is on to develop these clocks within the country. Since the accuracy of these clocks gets affected by vibrations, electrical interference and if their temperature goes 1 degree Celsius either way beyond their optimum operating temperature, ISRO designed the satellites accordingly from scratch.

With regards to ground based control and management, the ISRO release added “A number of ground stations responsible for the generation and transmission of navigation parameters, satellite control, satellite ranging and monitoring, etc., have been established in as many as 15 locations across the country”.

The IRNSS is estimated to provide position accuracy within 10 metres on the Indian landmass and position accuracy within 20 metres in the ocean and area within 1500 km of the borders. The position accuracy of US GPS receivers is about 15 metres for civilian purposes. However, civilian use of IRNSS will require separate receivers which the standard GPS receivers cannot meet. ISRO ‘s Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad is already in advanced stages of development for appropriate IRNSS receivers.

 

The third and fourth satellites are slated to be launched by the end of this year while the remaining three are targeted for launch in March 2015. The IRNSS 1B launch was the twenty fifth consecutive successful launch of PSLV. The PSLV configuration that was used for this mission is the ‘XL’ version which had been used in the past to launch 5 missions, including India’s maiden moon (Chandrayaan 1) and Mars (Mangalyaan) missions.

Mars Orbiter Mission - One of many seeds that'll grow to serve Humankind

Posterity, perhaps, will judge the first 2 decades of the 21^st century for either one of 2 reasons. It will either reaffirm the unwritten unsaid faith of a vast majority of realists and almost every pessimist that this is yet another decade when the disparities between the haves and have-nots will widen further and the Earth, for most of its inhabitants, would become an even tougher place to survive. Courtesy an ever increasing income chasm between the rich and the poor especially in the developing world coupled with an ever increasing mercury of the planet, these 20 years might just prove to the pivotal point for humanity towards an apocalyptic world we got glimpses of in the recent Matt Daemon flick Elysium.

However, the second reason might just come true if only the pivot, or in fact the pivots, are placed at the right location and the right time. And one such pivot might be how the 2 most populous nations on Earth are sowing the first seeds of the largest industry in the future of human civilization. For, China & India’s recent small steps to take their own giant leaps into capturing the final frontier might just prove to be the critical links towards humankind’s march to becoming a multi-planetary species (and perhaps interstellar species?)

Video Link: Mars Orbiter Mission Launch; Courtesy: Euronews & DD News

While India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) raged first ever truly public debates in independent India’s history over a science and technology project, China, in its own diplomatically pompous manner, launched its first ever moon rover mission, the Chang’e 3 on December 2, 2013. Since expression of dissent against any state policy/project is a mild synonym for treason in China, there was an almost unanimous applause within the People’s Republic for crossing another cosmic milestone and, as has been the norm in the last decade, the applause was echoed around the world. But India’s MOM, while largely receiving positive views among the scientific community across the globe, has been lambasted in many significant media outlets and by prominent intellectuals from various fields both within and outside the country. But the real Pandora’s Box here is the myopic viewpoint.

Video Link: China's Chang'e 3 Lunar Lander Launch on Long March 3B Rocket; Courtesy: CCTV America

Before questioning the motive, relevance or usefulness of such a mission for a nation consisting of the world’s largest number of poor, we must first define the context under which such questions are raised. And this is where many, both for and against India’s MOM, miss the point. First of all, the context here is that the current level of scientific and technological knowledge coupled with economic potential has enabled both India and China to take bigger and bolder steps in space exploration and space science since the turn of the century. Secondly, there is a massive and indisputable body of evidence in favor of offshoots and derivations from space technology having found applications in day to day life for masses across the globe (refer to my blog post last year dated July 06, 2012 - “The Indian LSD Deficiency Syndrome").

Products from everyday cellphone communication and water filters to services like TV broadcasting, weather monitoring and remote sensing are all possible due to direct application or indirect spin offs of technologies developed for space missions. But, then, a very relevant and obvious question is – Why are we not focused on only launching better and diverse satellites which directly aim at improving the lives of the poor in India instead of wasting Rs.460 crore (US$73 million in terms of average dollar to rupee exchange rate in last 6 months) gazing at Martian red dust?

That’s where most miss the critical pieces in this jigsaw puzzle. Those pieces are categorically 2 in number. First one is the mastering of certain critical technologies that will go a long way in launching heavier payloads, both diverse satellites as well as future complex scientific payloads. ISRO’s launch vehicle which carried Mangalyaan, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), positions payloads upto 1900kg either in the Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) or the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (these orbits are used by earth observation and weather satellites) raised the bar many notches with MOM.

PSLV has, for the first time, mastered a much longer 4 stage ignition lasting 43 minutes than the usual nearly 18 minutes to put a remote sensing satellite in orbit (roughly put, every launch vehicle has multiple stages in terms of fuel containing boosters in each stage which are fired at the right time, right position and right orientation of a spacecraft to place it in the right orbit or to raise the orbit) to place Mangalyaan in the appropriate orbit around Earth from where the spacecraft's own engine took over.

From there, Mangalyaan’s own propulsion system, were fired in 6 maneuvers to provide it the requisite velocity to leave Earth’s Sphere of Influence (SOI) (sphere of influence is roughly a huge sphere around earth in which Earth’s gravity is more than that of the sun. There are similar SOIs for every planet and moons) and follow a trajectory towards Mars. This process of igniting the 440 Newton engine of the spacecraft to make it leave Earth orbit and slowly move out of Earth’s SOI is called TransMars Injection (TMI) and India is only the 5^th nation apart from US, Russia, EU and Japan to have achieved that.

Mars Orbiter Mission Infographic; Courtesy & Source: The Hindu (http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/mars-orbiter-mission-those-five-minutes-are-crucial/article5314630.ece)

The second and perhaps the standout technological achievement for ISRO will be the 3 levels of autonomy provided to Mangalyaan once they work effectively throughout the duration of the mission. When Mangalyaan is at Mars, any signal will take a little above 20 minutes to travel from Earth to Mangalyaan and vice-versa. Thus there’s a 42 minute delay in a command from earth to reach back Mangalyaan after Mangalyaan sends any signal about any glitch or change required in maneuvering the craft when it is near Mars or in Mars orbit. Thus the 3 level autonomy has ensured that all necessary mission tasks at various stages be completed by Mangalyaan itself once it is at substantially huge distances from Earth without needing commands from Earth especially when the craft is close to Mars or in Mars orbit.

   

Now, achieving the above technological capabilities in carrying out complex navigation in deep space, orbital raising/lowering maneuvers and system autonomy achieved by PSLV during MOM will be critical assets for India to be a major player in the emerging global space industry which is the 2^nd piece in the jigsaw puzzle justifying the credibility of MOM and similar deep space missions for India. And herein lies the real motive behind this mission. In 2012, the global space economy size was $304 billion, a growth of 5% while the global satellite industry grew 7% clocking $190 billion in sales. Satellite launch industry revenues, which reflect revenues through launches made in an year, grew 35% year-on-year (yoy) from 2011 to 2012 with US revenues alone reaching $2.2 billion from $1.4 billion. Within the space industry, satellite manufacturing revenues, again portraying in-year satellites launched, rose 23% to $14.6 billion.

Since ISRO, has already made over 100 launches since its inception around 50 years ago, this is like missing out on the Great California Gold Rush despite being very close to the gold mines. ISRO has over 400 registered companies providing components and small parts to be used in various space based and ground level systems used in various missions and ground settlements of the agency. However, successive governments are still stuck in the socialist era mindset of restraining to unleash the commercial potential lying idle under the ‘pious’ aim of working for nation building and providing better life standards to the common people. As usual, our policymakers forget that huge productive assets have been created which can add massive value both in terms of India's own communication, earth observation and weather monitoring satellites and also providing massive services to other countries in areas like satellite launch/manufacturing and other space based services.

Until now, ISRO’s major workhorse, the Geo Synchronous Launch vehicle (GSLV) has developed its first variant, the GSLV Mk1 (a), (b) & (c) with Mk 1(a) & (b) having maximum load carrying capacities of 1500 kg and1900 kg respectively to Geosynchronous Orbit (this is the orbit in which communication satellites are placed). The first ever successful flight of GSLV took place in 2001 and it has had some success with 2 successful launches, one partial success and 2 failures. The second variant, GSLV Mk2, able to carry upto 2500 kg took 10 years to develop till 2010 for its first test flight but hasn’t had a successful commercial flight yet. The 3^rd and latest variant GSLV Mk3, targeted to carry in excess of 4000-5000 kg is in development stages as of now. But, the GSLV Mk1 & Mk2 cannot place heavier communication satellites generally used across the globe. However that’s not the case with PSLV.

GSLV MkIII mock-up; Courtesy: ISRO

As per a Euroconsult report in 2009, a Paris based research & analyst firm, over 76% of all communication satellites (not other categories of satellites) to be launched in the period 2012-2018 weigh over 3500 kg which means India still doesn’t possess the proven launch capability to cater to that market but can target the remaining 24% with its GSLV Mk 1 variants. But, as per Euroconsult, there would have been 951 satellites (earth, weather observation, navigation etc.) in the sub-1900kg category to be launched in the period 2009-2018 as per declared private and government programs. All these can be carried by PSLV which has already had 23 successful launches till date in the sub-1900 kg category.

To what extent have we lost because of our government & policymakers’ innate desire to rarely look beyond the 2-3 year election cycles (since major states’ elections happen almost every 2 years) can be gauged from the fact that average satellite costs for this decade (2010-2019) is estimated at $99 million with average launch price at $51 million. 5 years have passed in that 10 year time period. So, around half of that market might be already captured by now and remaining would soon be gone. 

I will dedicate an entirely separate blog post to the total commercial opportunity available in global space industry in future and how India and China fit into the picture and to what extent India has lost its way to the space goldmines despite being so close in last few years. But, as far as MOM is concerned, just like innumerable spinoff space technologies became ubiquitous in our daily lives, in what unfathomable ways will deep space navigation and system autonomy capabilities going to find applications in various fields where the masses will benefit remain undiscovered.

And that's where the issues of relevance and usefulness which I mentioned in the early part of this article gain ground. But until we take those small steps, we’ll never get to take the giant leap. But to wait to bask in the glory of an elusive utopian state where the state will first provide toilets, drinking water and power to every head in the soon to be most populous nation on earth and then to think about investing in new age science and technology is nothing but a self defeatist ideology.

We have had atomic energy, space technology, mobile phones, internet and biotechnology which have served the entire population in bettering their lives some way or the other but we still haven’t provided toilets, drinking water and power to 40% of population. Simply because there is no accountability in the system to ensure where the allotted money for every field is going and not because $73 million has been robbed off from a ‘forever poor’ Indian’s would be toilets and packed in bags to orbit around Mars.  

The Indian LSD Deficiency Syndrome

“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 14^th or 15^th 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 15^th 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).

And please somebody try to unravel the secret behind the title of my article above...