INCOSPAR

A Gadfly’s Perspective on Human Spaceflight

The question about benefits is rhetorical but an instance of holding missions concerned with sending humans to space up to the same scrutiny reserved for other, often less prestigious, expeditions.

Late last year, the Government of India sanctioned Rs 10,000 crore for the country’s first human spaceflight programme, to be fulfilled by 2022. Under this project, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to send three Indian astronauts to low-Earth orbit for a little less than a week and return them safely.

Colloquially called Gaganyaan, the project is part of India’s efforts to portray itself as a global space power or at least place itself at par with China.

Politicians that typically balk when asked to invest in climate-change mitigation or fundamental research jump at the chance to release the purse strings for spaceflight – even if they are of dubious relevance. Case in point: the ‘space command’, which India, China and the US are currently setting up. Indeed, as a result of such showmanship and megalomania, the leaders of these countries are militarising space in earnest. If taken to its logical conclusion, this will further wreck a world already divided along religious, racial, class and caste lines.

Such space projects are useful when demagogues are looking for something to blow their trumpets over, at the expense of asking whether there are any real science outcomes. This is why – especially when governments announce new space initiatives – we need to raise uncomfortable questions about their overall guiding logic and benefits.

One such question is of priorities: is it worth investing in a programme that may not be able to produce any concrete social benefits?

Any large technological programme with massive investment is highly likely to produce marginal benefits, sometimes called spin-offs. Oft-quoted examples include the development of the World Wide Web and the synchrotron — both at CERN, the European lab for research in nuclear physics. Satellite-based space missions have gone beyond that, however, having changed the way we communicate and observe the natural universe in revolutionary ways. ISRO has also made commendable contributions, particularly in light of its humble yet entrepreneurial beginnings in Thumba, a small hamlet near Thiruvananthapuram, in 1963.

Also read: ISRO Doesn’t Have a Satisfactory Answer to Why It Wants to Put Indians in Space

But the potential benefits that could accrue from human spaceflight are not very clear, at least not immediately. Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator of NASA, wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year:

NASA remains one of the most revered and valuable brands in the world, and the agency is at its best when given a purpose. But the public doesn’t understand the purpose of spending massive amounts of money to send a few astronauts to the moon or Mars. Are we in another race, and if so, is this the most valuable display of our scientific and technological leadership? If science is the rationale, we can send robots for pennies on the dollar.

The celebrated physicist Steven Weinberg is also a well-known science communicator. His latest book, Third Thoughts (2018), includes an article he wrote in 2013 in the journal Space Policy. In the article, he rebuts a paper entitled ‘The essential role of human space flight’ published in the same journal. The paper reads:

… should the US and nations at large pursue a human spaceflight program (and if so, why)? I offer an unwavering positive answer … Space exploration is a human activity that is intrinsically forward-looking, and as such, has positive potential. Both national and international space programs can galvanize the population, inspire the youth, foster job-creation, and motivate the existing workforce. The nature of the enterprises involved—their scale, novelty, and complexity—requires a steady and continuous upward progression toward greater societal, scientific and technological development. That is, in order to overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, progress is required. More to the point, the survival of humanity depends on expanding beyond the confines of our planet. Human spaceflight, in short, presents us with an opportunity to significantly advance the nation and the global community.

In his article, Weinberg refutes the key arguments in favour of human spaceflight, saying that space-based observatories like the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have broadened our understanding of the universe. More recent breakthroughs on the origin and evolution of the universe have all been derived from data generated by these observatories.

The Hubble space telescope also belongs in this league, and its mantle as the most significant space-based observatory will soon be passed on to the James Webb Space Telescope. Additionally, robotic missions – like the Curiosity rover on Mars, the Yutu rover on the Moon, JUNO around Jupiter and the Hayabusa 2 probe at the Ryugu asteroid (not his examples but just as relevant) – are expanding our horizons. Weinberg then asks the same question of human spaceflight: What are its benefits?

Some have said that astronauts’ experiences can inspire others and generates a “certain potential for greatness for the present and future generations”. But Weinberg is dismissive of this aspect: “Manned spaceflight is a spectator sport, which can be exciting for spectators, but this is not the sort of excitement that seems to lead to anything serious.”

The question about benefits is not asked rhetorically but as an instance of holding missions concerned with sending humans to space up to the same scrutiny reserved for other, often less prestigious, expeditions.

In addition, we must also ask what the priorities of our publicly funded space science and technology initiatives are. Sending humans to space without an overarching vision that answers such questions will cost us dearly as a nation.

Consider the US National Academy of Sciences’ decadal strategy for Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS). Such peer-reviewed surveys are notable for sampling the aspirations of the scientific community, enabling larger bodies to build a prioritised programme of science goals that can play a major role in the US. For example, ESAS 2017 declared that NASA should prioritise the study of the global hydrological cycle; the distribution and movement of mass between oceans, ice sheets, groundwater and the atmosphere; and changes in surface biology and geology.

Also read: If ‘Chandrayaan 2 Was a 90-95% Success’ Is the Answer, What’s the Question?

India already has satellites that assist monitor Earth dynamics, including earthquakes, landslides, large-scale groundwater extraction, atmospheric moisture and winds, sea conditions, and its scientists collaborate with agencies that use satellites to study ice-sheets and glaciers. Such observations provide inputs to develop hazard mitigation programmes.

ISRO should focus on such applications, and the science thereof, in a more purposeful manner and fix targets to develop comprehensive Earth observation systems; and on building linkages to higher education centres in the country that could then conduct research based on the data obtained from Earth and planetary observation systems. And it should locate these projects within a list of priorities and a broader scientific agenda that has been justified to the government. It makes more sense to leave human spaceflight, at least when we know a mission-critical part of the 21st century is just beginning, to those with fewer goals on their hands.

C.P. Rajendran is a professor of geodynamics at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru.

The Uncertainty and Obsolescence Vikram Sarabhai Saw in India’s Future

“I believe that the present is particularly threatening to those like you who embark on a professional career for the first time,” Sarabhai said in a talk to the students of IIT Madras in 1965.

Today marks the birth centenary of Vikram Sarabhai, the celebrated industrialist and innovator popularly considered to be the father of the Indian space programme.

Sarabhai founded the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad in 1947. Three years later, the Government of India set up the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the aegis of Homi J. Bhabha. The two organisations subsequently undertook research on atmospheric and space science and spaceflight as well as supported similar efforts around the country. In 1962, Sarabhai set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) with Bhabha’s support. INCOSPAR assumed responsibility for space-related studies and activities that the DAE had until then overseen. Seven years later, it was supplanted by a larger institution called the Indian Space Research Organisation, marking the start of India’s formalised spaceflight programme.

Apart from shaping ISRO in its formative years, he also established the Indian Institute of Management, a community science centre and, with his wife Mrinalini, the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, all in Ahmedabad. Sarabhai was famously committed to pressing the applications of science and technology to the needs of the nation, and contributed to national efforts in nuclear power generation, industrial organisation, market research and physical science research as well. He passed away on December 30, 1971.

By way of commemoration, the text of Sarabhai’s convocation address delivered at IIT Madras on August 1, 1965, is presented in full below.

Things have changed a great deal during the last five years. Jawaharlal Nehru, Kennedy and Khrushchev are gone from the international scene. Nations already armed to the teeth have continued to engage in a spiralling arm s race and bombs rain every day from the skies over North and South Vietnam. Violence is rampant the world over. There is disenchantment with aid and with military alliances. Manned exploration of the moon and, in this country, the pursuit of engineering studies do not have the same glamour as before. Political life in Red China, in the United States and in India is chaotic and social goals perceived with cynicism. What is happening around us? Has the uncertain world come to stay with us?

The affliction is not peculiar to us; rich nations and poor ones, large and small, powerful and weak, those in military alliances, the nonaligned and the neutral, all manifest the same symptoms. The scenario is different, in France, in the United States, in Poland, in Japan and in India. And so are the methods by which societies try to deal with these problems. But a common thread runs through all these. I wish today to share with you some of my thinking, for, I believe that the present is particularly threatening to those like you who embark on a professional career for the first time.

Everyone here is undoubtedly familiar with the expression ‘three raised to the power of eighteen’. It is a large number: 38,74,20,489, thirty-eight crore, seventy-four lakh, twenty thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine. What it means in dynamic terms is quite dramatic. If a person spreads gossip to just three others and the same is passed on by each of them to three others, and so on in succession, in just eighteen steps almost the entire population of India would share the spicy story. Note that if each step takes one hour, 90% of the people hear the gossip for the first time only during the seventeenth and the eighteenth hours. Indeed, during the whole of the first 80% of the time, the process affects merely 11% of the population. Even though each individual is partaking in the chain reaction exactly like all the others, who preceded him, that is, he receives information from one person and passes it on to three others, the social impact at a late stage of development hits like an avalanche.

Villa Sarabhai in Ahmedabad, 1951-1955

When we have a new infection, initially it is barely perceptible, but as a biological organism multiplies through successive generations, at a certain moment it suddenly permeates through the whole system. You can observe this fascinating phenomenon in making dahi or yoghurt, or thayir as you call it here. In the same way, information, knowledge, innovation, people and things diverge rapidly and their collective effects appear suddenly even though the basic process in each case has proceeded over a long time span.

When considering the social implications of technological change, one usually mentions the effects of the machine age on society through automation and imposed conformity. But these are trivial compared to the wider social implications of innovative man, who with curiosity, ingenuity and ambition, tries to reach out from his natural environment, and starts divergent processes. In nature, left to itself, control is maintained through an ecological balance. Order is not imposed from above, but arises through the interaction of each unit with its environment in a dynamic equilibrium. On the other hand, inherent in a programme of accelerated development, there is a suppression of some of the natural constraints which prevent divergence. And as the rate of innovation, of discovery and of everything else in the world gets faster and faster, so does the obsolescence of people and things become ever more acute. In contrast, biological development continues at its own pace. The child still requires nine months to develop in the womb. His life cycle of learning, of adolescence, as a house-holder and as an elder, who lays down the law, remains essentially unchanged.

Also read: A Wreath of White Roses Over the Ruins of Mehrangir, Homi Bhabha’s Home

The situation is aggravated because of the increase in the life span of the human being. The contradiction between desired longevity and a world of increasing change is obvious. An inevitable result of all this is the disillusionment of the young concerning the understanding and behaviour of the middle aged and the old. Equally serious is the inability of those who wield power and influence over world affairs to adopt values and behaviour, inherent in an order where accelerating change, rather than stability, is dominant. I suggest that today we witness a crisis of obsolescence.

An undated photograph of Vikram and Mrinalini Sarabhai with their son Karthikeya. Credit: Mid-Day

The qualitative change which has occurred in the last decade with the development of atomic energy, with the exploration and use of space, with the advent of electronics and computer sciences, is a manifestation of the divergent human function which has suddenly overtaken the world. What we have witnessed so far, dramatic as it is, is probably pedestrian compared to what we can expect in the future.

We have heard of the feasibility of areas of Earth’s surface illuminated during the night with sunlight through giant reflectors attached to satellites. We have also heard of weather modification, by increasing precipitation of rain in certain regions through artificially seeding clouds. There has been a suggestion of putting into orbit a belt of dust particles over the equator such that it would change the distribution of solar energy penetrating to different regions of the earth. It is claimed that such a belt could reduce the heat in the tropics and scatter more to high latitudes, providing a temperate climate even in the polar regions. This has many frightening possibilities because the level of the oceans would rise and submerge many inhabited areas.

New leads in biology and genetics pursued relentlessly are creating situations with implications few have thought through. Population control using the pill has tied up into knots theologists, wishing to interpret the sayings of the holy books in terms of current needs of society and new concepts of life. Just as doctors are faced with the problem of determining what death is before spare parts surgery would be justified, international lawyers rack their brains to determine an objective criterion for identifying where air space ends and outer space begins in which national sovereignty does not exist.

Affairs in the 1960s are largely in the hands of those who were already grown up when the Second World War broke out. Their learning experience and their theoretical knowledge relates principally to a period when the world was qualitatively different. The concepts of national sovereignty, of international spheres of influence, and power politics of the classical type have hardly changed even though we are constantly watched from satellites in outer space above us, and our security is threatened not merely by hostile neighbours, but by the actions and indiscretions of distant powers. What is the relevance of foreign bases in the context of long range missiles and nuclear submarines lurking unseen and silent on ocean floors? Is the Indian Ocean Indian any longer? How shall we preserve democratic states where the media of mass communications provide means of instantly reaching downwards from centres of authority, but, short of public agitation, there is no authorised channel for the reverse feedback for controlling the political system between elections?

ISRO chief K. Sivan during an event to mark Vikram Sarabhai’s birth centenary. Credit: PTI

What should be the goals of education in a world of obsolescence? We find ourselves largely unprepared to meet the new situation. In real life, it makes a lot of difference how we view these occurrences. We have the situation in India, in comm on with many other countries, of students challenging the authority of universities and of the establishment. Those who assume that the students are indisciplined and wayward suggest that getting them involved in some activity such as the NCC would set matters right. On the other hand, if one regards protests of students at Columbia, at the Sorbonne and at Banaras as manifestations of a deeper malaise of society, the powers that be would introspect rather than preach. There is no easy solution.

Also read: Are ISRO and India Willing to Do What It Takes to Make It in Space?

But there is, I believe, much that we can learn from an analogue that we find in the peaceful applications of atomic energy more precisely, in the technique of extracting energy liberated in the fission of uranium. As is well-known, when an atom of the [uranium-235 isotope] is hit by neutrons, it has a tendency to split into two lighter atoms, the combined weight of the splinters being less than the weight of the original atom. In the process of fission, not only is the difference of m ass liberated as energy, but additional neutrons are released. When these neutrons hit other fissile atoms, a chain reaction occurs and the process can continue like the divergent spread of gossip.

We require a critical mass of uranium before the chain can be self-sustaining and indeed, when there is no other control device, the mass explodes through the sudden liberation of a large amount of energy on reaching criticality. This is what constitutes an atom bomb based on fission. When we wish to extract useful power out of the self-sustaining chain reaction of fission, we have to prevent the divergent release of neutrons, and of energy in the mass of the system.

This needs the establishment of a large number of control loops which constantly and simultaneously sample the level of the reaction at various points of the reacting volume and sensitively adjust the position of neutron absorbers, strategically placed at various positions in the core of the reactor. Divergent trends are almost instantly compensated. An operator can shut down the reactor by pushing neutron absorbers into the core. But no reactor can be maintained in a steady state of self-sustained activity, necessary for providing useful energy, on the basis of exclusive reliance on gross controls operated with imperfect feedback loops. Indeed, the control of potentially divergent systems relies on sensitive information loops which operate quickly in response to minute changes of activity.

Vikram Sarabhai was featured on a commemorative stamp the Government of India issued in 1972. Credit: India Post

What can we learn from this analogue in the social context? That control of the divergent human function cannot be maintained through the macro system of a super government. We need a system which perm its an infinite number of micro control loops spread through the fabric of society. An authoritative regime can inhibit the divergent human function, but only at the cost of inhibiting development itself. Ironically, free societies are the ones which are most prone to the social impact of run away divergencies. It is in such free societies that the power of the super state, the super authority in education and for developmental tasks, is most difficult to sustain.

I am intrigued by how closely this line of thinking brings us to Vinaobaji’s and Jayaprakash’s ideas on social and political organisation. We are faced with the problem of the divergent human function manifesting itself on the world scene, while in India we are still trying to shake ourselves free from poverty. We have, I believe, to create a social system and a pattern of development which is based not on monolithic organisations operating impersonally at an all-India level or even at the level of the states but in units where the feedback loop has high fidelity communication and a quick response.

Also read: U.R. Rao, ISRO Chairman Who Helped India’s Space Programme Settle Down

I am convinced, for instance, that our education system would immeasurably benefit if it were liberated from the monopolistic privileges under which universities take hold of all educational matters at a certain level in allotted territories. There is no way in which a University Grants Commission or an affiliating university can ensure educational standards. In the ultimate analysis, it is only the teacher in the classroom that can do anything in the matter. He has to be provided the freedom to innovate in education in a changing world and, for this innovation, he has to receive the trust of those who back him up. I would suggest that the most effective development of education can take place only when the teacher, the student, his parents and the outside environment can interact with one another, in a series of feedback loops, free from regimentation and irrelevant theories and principles preached from the top.

U.R. Rao inaugurates a bust of Vikram Sarabhai at Antariksh Bhavan, the ISRO HQ, New Delhi, 2004. Credit: ISRO

Engineers look forward to play a meaningful role in society. We are nationally poised to formulate a new Five Year Plan for development. Economists in the past have been prone to equate investments in hard facilities as necessary for economic growth. This is often true, but in the present context, it is largely fallacious. Twenty years after independence, w e find ourselves with a broad infra-structure of plants and facilities in the engineering industries which are largely under-utilised. We also find a number of well-established laboratories, without clear-cut developmental tasks which are meaningful in terms of national priorities. What is needed now is a major investment in design and developmental effort directed at indigenous capability for carefully chosen tasks, which are important to us.

As an example, I might cite a good transportation system: providing an inexpensive scooter or a cheap car; a mass communication system which brings television to every village in a decade; inexpensive power through the countryside based on optimisation of grids, with a combination of hydroelectric, atomic and thermal units; a defence system based largely on hardware related to our own strategic needs rather than one which is reliant on what our friends overseas choose to sell us, gift to us or help produce under their know-how. We can identify subsystems under each of these major tasks and we can create design and development groups which can operate with a wide measure of autonomy. They will require trust to be able to innovate.

All this is not a pipe dream. I hope we have the good fortune of realising these programmes before divergent functions in our society blow asunder all that we cherish.

ISRO Doesn’t Have a Satisfactory Answer to Why It Wants to Put Indians in Space

ISRO has come a long way in 50 years and needs new goals – but it isn’t freed from the responsibility to define a new vision to go with those goals. Gaganyaan lacks that.

In December 2018, the Government of India okayed the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO’s) human spaceflight mission at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore – and India went ballistic. Many ISRO scientists and engineers are undoubtedly looking forward to the challenge of preparing its launch vehicle for human flight, creating a human-rated capsule and perfecting de-orbiting, ballistic reentry and capsule recovery systems – to name only a few of the critical technologies.

However, these are technical considerations. The question of whether ISRO is up to the technological challenge has been answered many times over with a resounding ‘yes’. The more important question is this: what is the ultimate purpose of India’s human spaceflight mission?

When the late Vikram Sarabhai introduced space activities in India, he had said:

There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society (emphases added).

In modern management jargon, these words were a vision statement. Sarabhai followed them up with what could have been the mission statement:

Our national goals involve leapfrogging from a state of economic backwardness and social disabilities attempting to achieve in a few decades a change which has incidentally taken centuries in other countries and in other lands. This involves innovation at all levels.

Communications, meteorology and navigation

What could one such innovation have been? His example:

A national programme which would provide television to about 80% of India’s population during the next ten years would be of great significance to national integration, for implementing schemes of economic and social development and for the stimulation and promotion of electronic industry. It is of particular significance for population living in isolated rural communities.

So with help from NASA, one of the first innovations that Sarabhai launched was the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE). The technological challenge here was to develop, deploy and maintain direct reception satellite receivers in 2,400 villages across six states.

Why would ISRO want to do this? The idea was to reach the unreached with developmental video programmes for schools and adults in their local languages. They would be broadcast by Indian Earth stations via the ATS-6 satellite loaned to us by NASA for one year.

At the time, ISRO was also working on the INSAT series, the world’s first multifunction satellites. They combined communications, broadcasting and meteorological observations on one bus. The INSAT enabled the explosion of TV coverage in India – from four metropolitan cities to 90% of the country using technology pioneered in SITE, called limited rebroadcasting. Today, INSAT supports DTH, telecommunications, emergency communications and meteorological observations.

Also read: U.R. Rao, ISRO Chairman Who Helped India’s Space Programme Settle Down

In 1969, 50 years ago, at the end of the first UN Conference on the peaceful uses of outer space, Sarabhai said:

When we came to Vienna, we thought that the areas of most immediate practical applications would be communications, meteorology and navigation, in that order. But one of the most striking things to emerge has been appreciation of the great potentiality of remote sensing devices, capable of providing large-scale practical benefits.

Today, India has one of the worlds biggest civilian remote-sensing programmes in the world through its network of Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites.

So, with two such leading programmes and the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) – renamed NAVIC – addressing the last of the triad of communications, meteorology and navigation, has Sarabhai’s vision of ISRO been completed?

ISRO seems to think so.

Until recently, Sarabhai’s visionary quote was up on the ISRO website but has since been relegated to the page on Sarabhai as its first chairman. Its place has been taken by the following vision statement: “Harness space technology for national development, while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration”.

This new statement reiterates the original vision of Sarabhai in terms of “space based applications for societal development”. As expected, it also reiterates its commitment to the programmes of launchers and communications, remote sensing-and navigation satellite systems. But then it also adds “space science research and planetary exploration”, areas that Sarabhai had excluded in his 1969 statement.

The early-mover advantage

At this point, it is pertinent to remember two aspects of the way ISRO works. The first is that since SITE, ISRO has built an ecosystem of end-user agencies. The idea is that this ecosystem will institutionalise applications of space technology and so achieve the goals of socio-economic development.

Within SITE, Doordarshan was an equal partner producing programmes to be broadcast through satellites. INSAT is overseen by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Department of Telecommunications and the India Meteorology Department. IRS has a similar ecosystem of industries, state and central government departments and academia.

The second aspect is that India has been an early-mover in the application of space technologies, with ISRO as a catalyst. Thus, innovations in both technology and applications marked ISRO’s progress. India’s importance in these endeavours can be gauged by the fact that the very first UN Conference on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE) held in 1968 had Sarabhai, then chairman of the Indian National Committee on Space Research, as its vice-president and scientific chairman.

The second UNISPACE held in 1982 counted Yash Pal as its secretary general, and the third, held in 1999, had U.R. Rao as its president.

Also read: Say ISRO Sends an Indian to Space on an Indian Rocket. What Happens After?

Circling back to Sarabhai’s 1969 statement: while ISRO has been making and flying science satellites, including our first, Aryabhata, our excursions to the Moon, then Mars and now Gaganyaan appear to break from ISRO’s 1969 vision. This is certainly not a problem because, in the last half century, there have been significant advances in space applications for development, and ISRO needs new goals. However, these goals have to be unique and should put ISRO in a lead position – the way its use of space applications for development did.

Given the frugal approach that ISRO follows, Chandrayaan I and the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) did put ISRO ahead of its peers on the technology front, but what of their contribution to science?

Most space scientists are cagey, and go off the record, when asked about what we learnt that we can now share with others and claim pride of place in planetary exploration. Frankly, as an also-ran in this field, ISRO has lost the first-mover advantage like it had in communications and remote-sensing. It now faces a major uphill task to be able to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with. And it is not clear if the cost is worth it.

Gaganyaan has the same issues as Chandrayaan and MOM. While the technology development is a big challenge in the given time-frame, what do we hope to achieve after we have waved the Indian flag from orbit? We did that years ago with Rakesh Sharma and closely missed doing it once again with the loss of the US Space Shuttle Challenger. Moreover, it is moot as to why India did not join the International Space Station programme if it was also committed to an ‘Indian in space’ programme.

Continuity of purpose

While there exists a fledgling ecosystem for data analysis in the space sciences and, therefore, presumably for planetary exploration, there does not appear to be a similar ecosystem for human spaceflight to build on the mission itself. And the issue with building such an ecosystem lies in the one-off approach that ISRO has adopted to both planetary exploration and ‘humans in space’. There is no vision that spells out our long-term goals the way Sarabhai had in 1969, when ISRO was born.

When India set up its first Antarctic station, there was an unstated goal in the minds of those involved that if and when the Antarctic Treaty lapsed India – by virtue of its continued presence – will have a claim to the region’s resources. As a result, Dakshin Gangotri was followed by Dakshin Gangotri 2. There is also an Antarctic Centre in Goa to oversee the research as well as India’s continued presence on the continent.

India needs to define a similar continuity of purpose for its planetary exploration and human spaceflight programmes.

The docudrama Mars, aired recently on National Geographic, showed that colonising the red planet has to be a global, intergovernmental effort backed by deep pockets and close industry participation. The film highlights the pitfalls of such an effort. So could this be an area where India – through its humans in space – could establish a lead role?

It is possible. But without a vision and longer term thinking, Gaganyaan is just a flag-waving exercise and goes directly against ISRO’s ethos, at least as Sarabhai defined them half a century ago.

Arup Dasgupta is the managing editor of Geospatial World and former deputy director of the Space Applications Centre, ISRO.