When a moonshot is no more a metaphor

When a moonshot is no more a metaphor

Much to do beyond celebrating Chandrayaan 2.

Chandrayaan 2 is more than rocket science. It serves to demonstrate India’s capability in an array of technologies that have to be marshalled to land an explorer on the moon, as well as sustained political commitment to utilising space for national development, from the setting up of the Indian National Committee for Space Research (Incospar) in 1962, to acquiring the capability to launch multitonne payloads and produce equipment that can collect data on extraterrestrial bodies while orbiting them and relay it back to Indian scientists for analysis. Some of these technologies overlap with what is required to manufacture sophisticated missiles.

It is not just technology and strategic intent that Chandrayaan 2 demonstrates. The mission director and the project director of this most ambitious task of India’s space programme so far are women. This should inspire a whole lot of girls and young women to break the stereotype that makes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines the natural domain of men, and venture into the world of research and technical careers. The US and western Europe struggle to interest women in STEM streams in higher education and career choice, eastern Europe under erstwhile Soviet control being the only place where women outnumber men in these areas. With the right kind of encouragement, India could persuade young girls to not just learn, but learn rocket science, too, and become scientists, engineers and technologists.

The Chandrayaan missions and, before that, the Mars Orbiter mission, are the world’s lowest-cost achievements of their kind. That this could be managed by a public sector outfit, the Indian Space Research Organisation, has its own message on public sector capability, that contradicts the proposition of inherent public sector inefficiency peddled by some self-styled experts. Strategic capacity that is vital for the nation and beyond the capability of the private sector must be built up using the public sector, whether in telecom technology, cyber security or quantum communications.