In close to three decades of its existence, ISRO had never attempted anything as ambitious. It has so far built a dozen of sophisticated satellites for communications, weather prediction and mapping natural resources. Though ISRO is one of the very few Governmental Organisations which has proved itself in the global context, still has limited technological capabilities, budgetary constraints and in the time frame of just six years it has managed to fulfil its dream. The organisation has clearly outwitted a modest first launch. They may have not landed a man on the moon, but aren’t far either. What has emerged as the best option is a lunar orbiter bristling with an array of sophisticated cameras and measuring instruments that would circle the moon for several years and conduct a series of experiments.
At 3,84,467 km from the earth, the moon is the closest celestial body to us; still about 10 times further than any distance that ISRO has attempted. Thus for a developing country like India, it surely has its merits. For a mission such grand, apart from building hitech craft, ISRO would have to augment its rocketry and master the intricate and difficult task of navigating a probe over such a great distance and controlling it for several years. Although the moon
appears like a giant football in the sky, getting a spacecraft to rendezvous with it is likened to
hitting a one rupee coin placed at a distance of 25 km with a bullet of a rifle!
Still the very nature of India’s quest has already ignited fierce debates in technical circles.
Especially for the fact that the Soviet Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to “hit” on the surface of the moon in 1959 and after that there have been numerous missions conducted in the past several decades which have already mapped almost 97% of the moon surface.
Countries like US stopped moon missions back in 1976, by then close to 382Kg of moon rock had been brought back to earth by various Apollo and Luna mission, giving
mankind ample evidence to research upon.“Are we reinventing the wheel?” That’s the doubt being claimed by certain section of scientist around the world. For this reason, Professor
H.S. Mukunda, Chairman, Aerospace Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, quoted a few years back: "It is the stupidest thing to do. What others did 30 years
ago; we are trying to do now. It won't bring the country any technical benefit."

Chandrayaan-1 is one first space craft in the long series of lunar missions which India intends to take. The remote sensing satellite weighs 1,308 kilograms and carries high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. Over a two-year period, it is intended to survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its
chemical characteristics and 3- dimensional topography. The Polar Regions are of special interest, as they might contain water ice. What makes the orbiter still a feasible option is the cost. At 366 Crores, it may look like a huge cost to an average citizen, but surprisingly that’s half the cost of a Boeing-747 and fraction of the cost of a Su-30MKI air superiority fighter. This makes sense. If we can afford to buy more than 500 planes for military and civil, at about same cost we can manage a mission to moon, that too after various trials. Peculiarly, we are not alone. Since 1990’s after the Japanese “Hiten Orbiter”, there has been an increased interest in moon once again. After 2007, Japan, followed by China has already sent their respective space orbiters to moon, and India joined the league as well. In the near future, both USA and Russia are preparing themselves to land again on the moon by 2020-
2025 time frame. In fact in 2009, USA’s “Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter” is schedule to be launched performing similar operations as Chandrayaan-1. India has even gone a step ahead and is already building Chandrayaan-2 which will carry out
a soft landing of a rover on the surface of moon somewhere in 2011.
So what’s the catch? For an organisation like ISRO, it’s an essential stride in the direction of
projecting its technological prowess to the world and on the other hand builds up the pedestal for future ambitious projects. No one will believe you that you can reach Mars, when you haven’t been to moon yet! But for USA, the moon serves a different purpose altogether, for one as a permanent launch base for reaching far distances.
Critics have long advised India to stay away from over striving projects, especially in regard to space, which may suck out a lot of cash. They do have a point. Although ISRO already has six communications
satellites orbiting the earth, the 80 transponders they provide form only half of the projected demand. Many private agencies regard the mission to moon as an "unwise" distraction. Realising that its lunar plans were bound to raise controversies, ISRO scientists in the past years have been working quietly to build support for it. But it is a sure fact that the spinoff technology is enormous. A Lunar mission will not only enhance India’s capability in space but also in military and commercial technology alike. A convergence of India’s technological might may be the only thing we need to assess. The world will always be indebted to Apollo and Lunar missions which contributed various hi-tech goodies in different fields which in
effect helped the common man. From miniature computers to light weight batteries to composite materials which strengthen tennis rackets, the list is endless. Still in the recent past there have been discoveries which have led to added interest in the moon once again. For instance in 1998, Lunar Prospector revealed the presence of water-ice in some of the moon caters. Though the findings have still a long way to be useful, research probes like Chandryaan-1 will go a long way in probing deeper. There have been other discoveries on the surface of moon which have kindled specific interest, like the presence of an abundance of helium. With progress in technology, this holds a lucrative potential for earthlings to harness and develop the methods to generate electricity.Thus apart from US, Russia and
EU everybody is eager to share the pie.
ISRO’s up next endeavour is to land a probe on the surface on moon by 2011, a manned space flight by 2014, a rover to Mars somewhere in between and landing a man on moon by 2020. This schedule today may look much more far stretched than an average Indian mind set. But to support the time line we should have a comparative look at the ISRO’s past’s projects and similar projects undertaken by NASA. It’s an evident fact the ISRO has far better success rates and in terms of the Indian context have been on schedule. In fact similar to “Astronauts” and “Cosmonauts” the Indian term for space fliers have already been coined as “Gaganauts”; seems absurd? Just wait for a few more years! But that won’t come easy. Work would have to be done to make a module good enough to support life by reducing the noise and vibration levels. More importantly, India would have to set up a centre to train astronauts to withstand the tremendous strain in space. All these would jack up costs considerably putting it out of reach for the country's space researchers. This comes at a time when India has still not been able to develop a commercial aircraft indigenously, lagging much behind in military equipment too.
In terms of Science, the moon still holds many mysteries. But for a country whose part of the population still remains under the poverty line, it’s a hard way to get on the top. Whether the vision seen by few political leaders and scientists will help India to achieve its tryst with destiny or not, only time will tell!

Rahul Devnath
BA (Journalism, Psychology &
English)