Tag: Satish Dhawan

Farce and friction over an Indian astronaut

When we met Mr [Morarji] Desai, he was totally relaxed even after the long journey from Delhi. Squatting on a carpet in the Kremlin and spinning his favourite charka, he received us very gracefully and congratulated us on the impressive achievement [the launch of Bhaskara-I on June 7, 1979]. He then proceeded to express his own view against sending an Indian astronaut on a Soviet mission saying, “How will it help the country if an Indian astronaut goes up into space and comes down?” He was extremely pleased to note that our views coincided with his own and jokingly told Prof. Dhawan, “Why don’t you convince Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, our foreign minister sitting in the next room, who is keen on sending an Indian into space?” Even more interesting was that he turned to me saying, “This is in line with what Vikram believed, isn’t it?”

– UR Rao, India’s Rise as a Space Power (2014)

But then times did change after Desai’s term ended and Indira Gandhi, who was more enthusiastic about Leonid Brezhnev’s offer to fly an Indian astronaut on a Soviet mission, assumed power in 1980. Thus, Rakesh Sharma’s flight happened in 1984 – although not without the Indian bureaucracy raising its ridiculous head…

When H.J. Bhabha wrote the extraordinary one-page constitution of the Atomic Energy Commission, which was later adopted by the Department of Space, he had specifically invested the commission with appropriate powers to avoid ‘the needlessly inelastic bureaucratic rules of the Government’. About a year prior to thr actual flight of Sq Ldr Rakesh Sharma, who was finally selected as the prime candidate for the joined manned mission with Mr [Ravish] Malhotra being designated as the standby, Ministry of Defence came up with two trivial bureaucratic objections. The first was whether both of these officers who were undergoing training on ground at the Star City were eligible to receive a flying allowance of Rs 500 a month. The second was whether the announced reward of a modest amount of Rs 25,000 should be given to both the candidates or restricted only to the astronaut who finally goes to space. Mr R Venkataraman, who was the then Minister of Defence and who later became the President of India, invited Prof. Dhawan and me to discuss the above two issues. Both Prof. Dhawan and myself told the defence minister that it is regrettable that silly suggestions such as stopping the flying allowance and not extending the honorarium to both the chosen candidates were brought up for discussion at the highest level. Fortunately, Mr Venkataraman after listening to our righteous indignation not only agreed with our view but also pulled up the bureaucracy for bringing up such outrageous issues, resulting in both the chosen astronaut candidates continuing to receive the flying allowance and becoming eligible for receiving the honorarium.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of course, the tables have turned somewhat, with the enthusiastic support of his office for the ambitious Gaganyaan mission allowing work to proceed as smoothly as possible. Bhabha’s and Sarabhai’s visions for the Indian space programme fundamentally included ease access to the upper echelons of decision-making in the nascent new national government, with avid reciprocation by the prime ministers of their time (especially Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi). But as these barriers no longer exist for the space programme and the national government is using the programme as a way to project its own power and vision, it is time to insert some ‘friction’ between ISRO and the government, more so since its missions are now becoming more sophisticated and expensive, and nudge it to the levels of accountability expected of other public-sector institutions.

A useful book to have around

14oeb_Space_jpg_1719808fIndia’s Rise as a Space Power is a book by Prof. Udupi Ramachandra Rao, former Chairman, ISRO (1988-1994), that provides some useful historical context of the space research organization from a scientist’s perspective, not an administrator’s.

Through it, Prof. Rao talks about how our space program was carefully crafted with a series of satellites and launch vehicles, and how each one of them has contributed to where the organization, as such, is today: an immutable symbol of power in the Third World and India’s pride. He starts with the foundation of ISRO, goes on to the visions of Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan, then introduces the story of Aryabhata, our first satellite, followed by Bhaskara I and II, the IRS series, the INSAT program, the ASLV, PSLV and GSLV, and finally, the contributions of all these instruments to the Indian economy. The period in which Prof. Rao served as Chairman coincided with an acceleration of innovations at ISRO – when he assumed the helm, the IRS was being developed; when he left, development of the cryogenic engine was underway.

However, India’s Rise… leaves out that aspect of his work that he was most well-positioned to discuss all along: politics. The Indian polity is heavily invested in ISRO, and constantly looks to it for solutions to a diverse array of problems, from telecommunications to meteorology. While ISRO may never have struggled to receive government funding, its run-ins with the 11 governments in its 45-year tenure will have made for a telling story on the Indian government’s association with on of its most successful scientific/technological bodies. Where Prof. Rao makes comments, it is usually on one of two things: either to say discuss why scientists are better leaders of organizations like ISRO than administrators, or how foreign governments floated or sank technology-transfer deals with India.

… Mr. T.N. Seshan, who was the Additional Secretary in the Department of Space, a senior member of the negotiation team deputed under my leadership, made this trip [to Glavkosmos, a Soviet company that was to equip and provide the launcher for the first-generation Indian Remote Sensing satellites] unpleasant by throwing up tantrums just because he was not the leader of the Indian delegation. Subsequently, Prof. Dhawan had to tell him in no uncertain terms that any high-level delegation such as the above would only be led by a scientist and not an administrator, a healthy practice followed in [the Dept. of Space] form the very beginning. (pp. 124)

This aspect notwithstanding, India’s Rise… is a useful book to have around now, when ISRO seems poised to enter its next era: that of the successful use of its cryogenic engines to lift heavier payloads into higher orbits. It contains a lot of interesting information about different programs and the attention to detail is distributed evenly, if sometimes unnecessarily. There is also an accompanying collection of possibly rare photographs; my favorite shows a rocket’s nose-cone being transported by bicycle to the launchpad. Overall, the book makes for excellent reference, and thanks to Prof. Rao’s scientific background, there is a sound representation of technical concepts devoid of misrepresentation. Here’s my review of it for The Hindu.