Tag: NewSpace India

Checking the validity of a ‘valid’ ISRO question

The question of whether resources directed to space programmes are a diversion from pressing development needs, however, is a valid one. As an answer, one can uphold the importance of these programmes in material and scientific terms. The knowledge gleaned from these missions will contribute to human progress, and ISRO’s demonstration of its ability to launch satellites at relatively low costs can attract business and revenue from private players.

This passage appears in an opinion article by Rahul Menon, an associate professor at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, O.P. Jindal Global University, published in The Hindu on August 28. The overall point of the article, with which I agree, is that state intervention can also lead to positive outcomes. This said, I strongly disagree with this passage. What Menon has called a valid question is, in my view, not valid at all.

First, it presumes that space programmes can’t be part of “pressing development needs”, which is false. For example, a space programme with an indigenous capacity to build satellites and rockets and to launch them is a prerequisite for easing access to long-distance communications. This is an important reason why television is such a highly penetrative media in India, and has helped achieve many cultural and social transformations.

Second, Menon’s statement also presumes that a space programme subtracts from “pressing development needs”. This is true – insofar as we also agree that the resources we have allocated for the “needs” are limited. I don’t: the simple reason is that the budget estimate for the Department of Space in 2023-2024 is 0.27% of the total estimate for the same period. Even if “pressing development needs” constitute a (arbitrarily) highly conservative 10% of the remainder, the claim that India’s space programme stresses it by reducing it to 9.73% strains belief. In addition, development needs are also met by state governments and often with some help from the private sector.

The real problem here is that the national government has not allocated enough to the “needs”, leading to a conservative fiscal imagination that perceives the space programme to be wasteful.

These are the two points of disagreement vis-à-vis the first sentence of the excerpted portion. The third point has to do with the third sentence: the Department of Space has done well to separate ISRO’s scientific programmes from commercial ventures; NewSpace India, Ltd. exists for the latter. This is important so as to not valorise ISRO’s ability to launch satellites at low cost, which is harmful because, in the spaceflight sector specifically, a) reducing the manufacturing and launch costs to maintain a market advantage is a terrible trade-off, given the safety implications, and b) we don’t yet know the difference that access to cheaper labour in India makes to the difference in costs between ISRO and other space agencies.

In sum, “the question of whether resources directed to space programmes are a diversion from pressing development needs” is a strawman.

Being on the NSI podcast

Narayan Prasad, the CEO of SatSearch, hosts a popular podcast called NewSpace India. Every episode, he hosts one person and they talk about something related to the Indian and international space programmes. I was the guest for the episode published January 17, available to listen here (on transistor.fm), in which NP and I discussed India’s space journalism scene and ISRO’s public outreach policies.

Addendum: Where I’m talking about the comparisons between Jonathan McDowell and T.S. Kelso in the West and members of the ISRO subreddit, I repeatedly come back to the ‘not enough information’ bit. But later, I realised I should’ve added that McDowell and Kelso, and others, were probably encouraged to pursue their hobbies by access to knowledge and freely available information whereas India’s space-sleuths, so to speak, seem to be prompted more by the lack of information and knowledge about the national spaceflight programme.

So the former is a productive exercise whereas the latter is compensatory, and whose members’ efforts can be spared – or put to better use in other directions – if only ISRO spoke up more.

Another thing is that I may have overstated the extent to which I’m willing to forgive ISRO its PR fumbles because it’s an outreach noob. I meant to say that if ISRO can be cut any kind of slack, it would have to be on this front alone – but even then not much, and certainly not to any extent that would cede enough room for it to engage in the sort of coverup exercise it did with the CY-2 fiasco in September 2019.

NP is among the most knowledgable members of India’s space science and spaceflight communities, and has consulted for ISRO as well as a number of private companies on policy, strategy and business. I regularly follow his articles and his podcast, and I recommend you do too if you want to get a handle on the ins and outs of India’s modern spaceflight endeavour. The podcast is also available on Apple, Spotify and other platforms.