Remember Remember the 5th of November

For me, its been an emotionally nerve wracking week. For five days now, I've held this rant inside me and that's something what I call, a self imposed form of mental constipation. I know, its kind of a grotesque start. But well, I'd have to say its much less of a bullshit story than that by the media and the so called "social scientists", whining about India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM).

At a personal level, I've held astronomy close to my heart from the time I was a child. In fact I still prize the "Earth, space and the universe" paperback quiz books my mother bought me a long time ago. I believe it was only natural to feel a very real sense of crackling excitement to have heard ISRO's ambitious plans and finally, to have seen PSLV-XL take India's maiden interplanetary satellite into space. But then of course happiness is an evanescent thing. That vicious question repeated yet again; and again and again. "Is India really justified on spending so much ?" 

I am not really interested in specifying "spending on what" because as a matter of fact, to the assailants, if I may take the liberty of calling them so, it does not matter. Not one bit! As long as the BBC can show a photograph of a rag picking girl from a garbage dump, any expenditure that is not directly linked to feeding a destitute is unethical. I cannot agree enough that a large number of people in India live in ruthless poverty. I cannot stress enough that empathy and action from the state and from each citizen towards such grossly underprivileged people is of paramount importance. But it needs to be understood- India is not merely a monochromatic, painfully romantic BBC photograph.

And what numbers are we talking about..?! Taking into account the complexity of such a mission, I think the project is quite literally, a complete bargain. At a cost of INR  450Cr (c. USD 73 million)  the mission is a meager 0.02% of India's 2013 budget. An interesting comparison would be an Indian family hatchback which takes roughly the same amount to develop. Speaking of cars, a friend of mine posted this a few days back for the mileage obsessed Indian: "The orbiter is slated to travel a distance of roughly 780 million km on its journey to Mars which works out to be less than 7 Rs/km." That is in fact cheaper than a god damn auto rickshaw in Bangalore although I think actually anything is cheaper than an auto ride in Bangalore. Even if you smoked a few less cigarettes during the course of the project, you would have contributed to a better probably a little more useful form of fire and smoke. Apart from the fact that it is genuinely low-cost, I wonder the critics know how much space missions generally cost. The Curiosity rover project was developed at a cost of $2 billion. That's twice the amount of India's entire annual budget on space research. Agreed, the size of the project is much smaller. But even on a comparable project, the US would spend close to ten times of what ISRO has managed to do it in. And given the extremely tight schedule of 15 months, its a no brainer that the effort is by any yardstick, a commendable one.

Here's another thing that really baffled me. This tweet aired on a BBC telecast said, "I think they do not want our aid money anymore" Unfortunately, that's the bane that follows the position and title of being a fast growing yet 'developing' nation. From personal experience, for many Europeans, India is typically a place with a lot of slums and a lot of call centers - both of which, take away tax-payer money in the form of aid and take away jobs in the form of back office services. The tweet reflects a very human tendency to prescribe to a rather sanctimonious ideology of relegating beneficiaries to servile yes men. In an interesting turn of events nonetheless, India has pledged to contribute $10b to Europe's aid as a part of the IMF 'firewall' against further economic crises. I'm not too sure India is really telling the IMF or beneficiary  countries what to do or not to do with their own tax payers' money and I think the gesture needs to be mutual. And speaking of foreign aid by the way, India is the largest donor towards polio eradication, having contributed a total sum on $2 billion. This is from a WHO report - Not Indian propaganda. Aid is charity, a sign of solidarity and most of all the epitome of benevolent human relationship. Its never a license to dictate.

For the record, detractors are not just outside. There is a large breed of home grown critics as well. For obvious reasons, they are the ones that irk me the most. First of all allow me to say this - "Get a life !" Having said that, allow me also to give you reasons so as to why they should get a life. The primary objection is very closely linked to expenses. About expenses, noted journalist and social activist Praful Bidwai, for example, is of the opinion, "Completely disproportionate in quantity". He says that while a multitude is living in poverty, spending 450Cr on a space mission is totally disreputable. Now, lets take some stats into account. India, in 2013-14 will spend Rs. 27250Cr on the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan alone, Rs 37330Cr on Family Welfare, Rs. 33000Cr on Rural employment and a whopping Rs 125,000Cr (estimated) on the Food Security Bill. By any standards, these are really, really large numbers. For a moment, I'd have to agree with Mr. Bidwai that the expense on the MOM is disproportionate, albeit only in the diminutiveness of its financial backing.  So the argument that India doesn't have its priorities sorted out with regard to social welfare begs to be thrown out of the window. And for God's sake, Mumbai alone spent 600 crores on crackers on Diwali night - by the way some of which were rockets too. Instead of pinning the blame on a handful of scientists and engineers who've made the most out of the bare minimum offered, probably people such as Mr. Bidwai may better serve the nation using their journalistic skills and 'activist' clout to help figure out where these enormous funds go.

But then of course, you might ask, what's the point of it all? Why do it in the first place? Let me start with the less important financial part. From Aryabhata to Mangalyaan, there have been 72 Indian satellites sent into space. When Aryabhata was launched in 1975 we were completely dependent on the Russians and the Europeans with 60% of the first 25 satellites being put into orbit by a foreign launch vehicle. Today that figure is down to 16%. In fact, India launches satellites for developed nations such as Japan, Israel, Germany, France among others. To be exact with figures, ISRO has helped launch a total of 35 such satellites. With the cost of launching a satellite being anywhere between 50 and 400 million USD, I can't comprehend how someone is unable to see the savings and the potential income ISRO's missions entail. And by the way who are these people employed at ISRO? Indians. Who builds most of the infrastructure? Indian companies. That's home grown employment from home grown revenue generating work. Last time I checked, that's the most robust way to a society's economic evolution. Did I miss a meeting..? Antrix, ISRO's marketing wing reported a net income of 1.5 billion Indian rupees in 2008. Do I need to say more on how space exploration is profitable.. or that if it is of any use at all ?!!

So much for the present and the future. Take a peek into the past too. Cyclone Paradeep made landfall on the shores of Orissa on 28 October, 1999. By the time the storm had subsided, over 10,000 people had lost their lives. Our main handicap was the lack of advanced remote sensing satellites and Doppler radars. In stark contrast, Cyclone Phailin's death toll was 45. Are you listening ? 45..! Among other things, a direct result of investment in satellite technology. Can you put a price tag on the expenditure on technologies such as these that have helped save countless lives..? One should probably google the Cospas Sarsat system to know how space technology has direct impact on lives here- close to the ground. And where do you think GPS and your SatNav comes from? And what about national pride..? Where did that go..? Has it come to mean nothing! Does Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel prize for literature have no meaning because it has no substantial economic merit. Does the fact that one can't put to use the contents of Gitanjali onto an assembly line and churn out low quality so called 'blockbuster' bollywood movies make it irrelevant to national pride.

All this so vividly brings Oscar Wilde to mind who defined so accurately saying, "A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." No country has succeeded on its maiden attempt to Mars, more than half of all Mars missions have failed. Can one not foresee the challenge, the immense national pride if we are to nail it or even the courage to have attempted something as audacious as this? I hope we understand the role this will play on the young minds to whom the older generation will bequeath the role of carrying India's technology and status to greater heights. Somewhere in the last 10 years, an ever growing number of young Indian engineers have gone from I want to join NASA to I want to work for ISRO. I'm not convinced the critics actually appreciate the gravity of a shift or even the beginning of such a shift that's taking hold of India's enormous youth. I so wish they could stand from my viewpoint and watch the vista - a view that has infinite hope, boisterous energy, a calm assured confidence and deep down inside, a sense of innocent pride.

And hey, the ISRO guys seem to have a decent sense of humor too. Especially with regard to the subtlety in timing. So, the title of this piece in their honor.