Major Shaitan Singh
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n January 2009, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) indicated that it could undertake a human Moon mission by 2020. Now, there appears to be some change this stated position. During first week of September, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr. V. Narayanasamy, mentioned there are no immediate plans for such a mission, although India remains interested in human spaceflight to low Earth orbit.
In a nutshell, a human Moon mission is a financially affordable, technologically feasible, and globally and regionally respectable proposal for India. Definitely, it would involve various challenges, but that is why it would be worth attempting. However, still India has dropped the idea of undertaking such a mission. What could be the reasons behind such a decision? In this regard, the following paragraphs raise some questions and attempt to find answers to them to understand why India appears to have altered its earlier decision to undertake a human Moon mission.
The 21st century is the showcase for “realism”. In this era, states are more self-centered and normally undertake cost-benefit analyses for their actions. Is the Indian decision based on any such analysis? For any such analysis the term “cost” should not be viewed only through an economic prism. The costs could be economical, scientific, political, and strategic.
In present times, it’s not obligatory that various scientific achievements would be viewed in a dramatic sense as they were viewed during the Cold War era. The discovery of the Higgs Boson is not credited to any one country. Today, investments for research in the space area are increasingly done as multilateral ventures and International State Station (ISS) is its best example. India finding water on the Moon was actually an outcome of joint Indo-US experimentation. Hence, it is generally understood that even though various scientific discoveries have a nationalist flavor, the international component of it could not be missed.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2157/1
In a nutshell, a human Moon mission is a financially affordable, technologically feasible, and globally and regionally respectable proposal for India. Definitely, it would involve various challenges, but that is why it would be worth attempting. However, still India has dropped the idea of undertaking such a mission. What could be the reasons behind such a decision? In this regard, the following paragraphs raise some questions and attempt to find answers to them to understand why India appears to have altered its earlier decision to undertake a human Moon mission.
The 21st century is the showcase for “realism”. In this era, states are more self-centered and normally undertake cost-benefit analyses for their actions. Is the Indian decision based on any such analysis? For any such analysis the term “cost” should not be viewed only through an economic prism. The costs could be economical, scientific, political, and strategic.
In present times, it’s not obligatory that various scientific achievements would be viewed in a dramatic sense as they were viewed during the Cold War era. The discovery of the Higgs Boson is not credited to any one country. Today, investments for research in the space area are increasingly done as multilateral ventures and International State Station (ISS) is its best example. India finding water on the Moon was actually an outcome of joint Indo-US experimentation. Hence, it is generally understood that even though various scientific discoveries have a nationalist flavor, the international component of it could not be missed.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2157/1
