The Need for space explorations
When you are running a country of a billion people, appropriation of the funds is the most important task in front of any government. When it spends money on the things that some people don’t agree with they tend to criticize the government for it. I have done it too, when it comes to erecting monuments before developing infrastructure.
One of these things is space exploration. Although most people are joyous and proud of the Chandrayaan-3 Lunar landing, that was successful an hour ago, there have been many that have been questioning our space exploration endeavours and overall money being spent on ISRO.
Although, this criticism of space exploration is not just Indian phenomenon. If we look back in history, US government has been criticised for it’s massive spending on NASA right from the time of its space race with USSR.
So why is it so important for a country like India to continue our endeavours in space?
We are good at it
From the conception of ISRO till now, they have been proving that India has a special talent for qualities most important for space exploration: Science, Maths and Technology.
ISRO has achieved what most countries couldn’t, and in fewer attempts than those who did.
We launched space missions in a budget smaller than a Hollywood movie about space!!
With previous Chandrayan missions ISRO was the first space research organization that discovered the evidence for existence of water on the Moon. If India does more and more space explorations, it is likely to unravel many more mysteries of the universe. This will mean that in future India will lead the world in navigating the space.
It’s a good business
ISRO has not only been achieving success in launching our own satellites, in fact the cost effective practices employed by ISRO has attracted interest from other countries as well.
India has so far launched 431 satellites for 34 countries as of 30 July 2023 and that includes countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the USA!!
Successes in missions like Chandrayaan-3 will definitely inspire in more and more countries to commission ISRO to launch their satellites, which will in effect mean more revenue generated in India.
It inspires new technologies
Throughout the history many scientific inventions happened solely due to some specific requirement in space explorations, which later found a use case in our day to day lives as well. Inventions like Smoke detectors, lightweight materials, and water purification systems, have also had a positive impact on our lives on Earth.
Space exploration was the major reason for the development of satellite navigation that we now use so effortlessly without realising where it came from.
Influencing future generations
Now, kids in India don’t need any more encouragement than already available to study STEM, but we could definitely do better in inspiring them to research, develop and manufacture in India instead of providing service and support or leaving the country.
Development of our own technologies and other countries coming to us for a better solution is definitely a great picture for the population and all the credit goes to ISRO.
Today is a very special day in story of India and of space explorations in general.
Congratulations India!!
Originally published at https://manaskocharekar.com on August 23, 2023.
