Bangalore. Why does India, a poor country, want to explore the moon instead of using that money to alleviate poverty?

That was the question raised six years ago when India’s space agency ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) asked the government for $65 million to build and launch an unmanned scientific spacecraft to circle the moon.

The government ultimately sanctioned the funds - the mission is all set to take place early 2008 - but only after critics were appeased by protracted public debates and several seminars.

The scenario has changed considerably since then.

Nov 6, 2006, witnessed a dramatic twist when a cross section of the scientific community assembled in the southern Indian city of Bangalore to unanimously endorse ISRO’s most ambitious and expensive project to date - a manned space flight - without batting an eyelid. The project, yet to be formally cleared by the government, will cost $2.2 billion in the first phase to put an Indian in orbit by 2014, and at least twice as much in the second phase to land him or her on the moon by 2020 - four years ahead of China.

If approved - which is a certainty given India’s scientist-President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s backing - India will join the select club of US, Russia and China that run manned space missions.

The decision marks a reversal of ISRO’s proclaimed policy enunciated four decades ago by Vikram Sarabhai, father of India’s space programme, who had said: “India does not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the explorations of the moon or planets or manned space flights.”

Towing that policy, ISRO had all along maintained that manned missions do not justify the cost and used Sarabhai’s statement to adorn the agency’s annual reports and home page of its website until recently. The statement is not there now.

What caused the change?

“There are two reasons for this,” ISRO chairperson Gopalan Madhavan Nair told this reporter. “We have set planetary exploration as our next long-term goal and human presence in space is essential for this effort.”

Secondly, with India’s economy booming, costs that used to be a problem before should not be of concern now. Nair’s predecessor, Udipi Ramachandra Rao, a key advocate of manned missions, agreed.

“Sarabhai’s words are not relevant today as planetary exploration beckons future mankind. Even if India wants to build solar power stations in space to meet its energy needs, you need humans there to assemble the solar panels.”

A third reason, not aired publicly, is a feeling in ISRO that it is losing ground to its neighbour China ? which in 2003 sent an astronaut into space ? and therefore should catch up.

If planetary exploration is ISRO’s longterm goal and manned space flights are a prerequisite for this, why not team up with Russia or the US rather than go it alone?

Rao doubts if collaboration would work in the area of human space flights given the constantly shifting geopolitical equations and the fact that manned activities in space do have a commercial angle.

“We have to develop our own capability like the Chinese have done.”

Self-reliance, in fact, has been the hallmark of ISRO, especially after the US and Europe banned the export of space technologies to India following its first nuclear test in 1974.

This turned out to be a blessing in the long run as it drove ISRO to reinvent technologies it could no longer buy, said Nair.

For instance, in 1993, ISRO decided to develop its own cryogenic engine after Russia reneged on transferring the technology.

Oct 28, 2006, was a memorable day in ISRO’s calendar when the homemade cryostage passed the “hot test”. It will power ISRO’s heaviest rocket GSLV (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) scheduled for launch in 2007.

In fact, ISRO embarked on developing the GSLV ignoring advice that Indians would find it cheaper to get their satellites launched by western rockets than developing the launchers themselves.

“I am glad we invested in developing our own launcher,” said Rao. ?But for that, we would not be talking today about manned mission.?

ISRO’s quest for self-reliance has extended to other areas as well. This year, it began setting up a $320 million navigation satellite system to reduce the country’s dependence on US owned Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.

But the real jewel in ISRO’s crown is its constellation of seven remote-sensing satellites - two will be added next year - the world’s largest.

Sale of its images worldwide generates $7 million in revenue to Antrix Corporation, ISRO’s commercial arm. Within India, scientists have used the satellite pictures to combat deforestation, monitor desertification, and predict crop yields and to locate groundwater and increase fish catch.

Thanks to the INSAT network of nine communication satellites - the biggest in the Asia-Pacific region - 90 percent of Indians can watch television, get daily weather forecasts and disaster warnings.

The “super-cyclone” that hit India’s eastern coast on Oct 29, 1999, could have killed thousands but for an INSAT satellite that tracked its course every half hour identifying areas that needed to be evacuated.

According to Nair, ISRO is keen to share the benefits of remote sensing with other developing nations. It will build and launch in 2009 the TWSAT (Third World Satellite) that will beam imageries for use by select developing countries.

In 2004, ISRO pulled off a world first, launching Edusat, a ‘teacher in the sky’ that now connects 2,300 classrooms in the country. And what started in 2001 as a pilot telemedicine project - bringing health care to the rural areas via satellite - now links 165 smaller hospitals across the nation to 33 speciality hospitals in major cities. This means the patient in a village can get the best medical advice without travelling huge distances.

And with production lines for two types of rockets - PSLV and GSLV - India has also carved a place in the launch business.

It has launched small satellites for Belgium, Germany and South Korea and has payloads of European Union, Argentina, Israel, Singapore, Indonesia, Canada and France awaiting launch by 2008 end. The commissioning of the $95 million second launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state last year was in anticipation of the boost in launch business, says ISRO.

On the same lines, the growing need for domestic satellites - six for the INSAT system, three remote sensing and one astronomy satellite in the next five years - has led ISRO to build a new production facility in Bangalore that can handle six satellites at a time.

ISRO says its reliance on foreign launchers for the INSAT satellites will also end once the Mark-3 version of GSLV, that can lift four tonnes, comes out in 2008. A launch on GSLV-Mark 3 should cost half the rate charged by Europe’s Ariane. Nair said ISRO is looking ahead in terms of newer technologies like reusable rockets to further reduce launch costs.

Remarkably, ISRO has been able to do all this with an annual budget of $660 million - three percent of what the US space agency NASA spends in a year.

From the firing of three-inch thick ?toy’ rockets in 1963, to the 414-tonne GSLV today, ISRO’s journey has been a saga of dedication and determination - but a journey that has not always been smooth.

Out of 21 launches there were five failures ? the latest on July 18 this year when its GSLV crashed along with a $20 million satellite.

But such failures, common in the space business, have not diminished ISRO’s credibility globalthat Hyde Act could take away whatever gains India might have wrested through the 123 accord, analysts point to Article 16.4 stating "This Agreement shall be implemented in good faith and in accordance with the principles of international law".

To make matters still plainer Article 14.3 "says that no breach of the accord would be considered 'material' unless it meets the test of the Vienna Convention" - under which "A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty."

The 123 agreement which must be approved by the US Congress thus meets all of India's concerns -insistence on assurances of fuel supply, right to reprocess spent fuel and its sovereign right to test - without running foul of the Hyde Act.

But then to the critics of the deal from the left or the right any stick is good enough, be it fair or "fowl" (reference to 'headless chicken'), as a wag put it.     (IANS)