The Hindu Business Line : When will an Indian walk on the Moon?

Chennai, Oct. 21 “There were oceans down there, deep and wide, but I could see completely across them now and they seemed so small. However deep, however wide, the sea has a shore and a bottom. Out where I was dashing through space, I was wrapped in infinity. There is no end.

I’m not an overly religious person, but I certainly am a believer. Someone, some being, some power placed our little world, our sun, and our moon where they are in the dark void, and the scheme defies any attempt at logic. It is just too perfect and beautiful to have happened by accident.”

--Eugene Cernan, the last man who walked on the Moon, in 1972.

How fascinating! As Chandrayaan-1 rushes to keep its lunar date, no one can help wondering “when will an Indian walk on the Moon”.

Of the several possible answers, one is certainly true: Not anytime in the near future. India will have to wait at least a generation to be able to achieve the feat, for the task is so daunting.

We neither have the money nor the technology for it.

The Apollo programme that sent up a dozen satellites, six of which landed on the Moon, cost $25 billion, which works out to $135 billion (Rs 65,000 crore) at 2005 prices.

That is about one-third of the total budget for infrastructure for the Eleventh Plan, and hence, would be a major indulgence for a country that ranks 127th in the Human Development Index.

Even if you could find the money, there is the big hurdle of technology.

Saturn V, the rocket that carried Neil Armstrong and Edward Aldrin, the first men to walk on the Moon, stood 110 metres tall and weighed 3,038 tonnes. The best rocket we have today, the GSLV, is 49 metres tall and weighs around 400 tonnes.

At start, Saturn V’s engines produced a thrust of 34,280 kiloNewtons. The GSLV’s starting thrust is about 4,270 kN.

India, then, needs to learn to build much bigger rockets, which is not out of grasp, but is prohibitively expensive. In any case, before we think of putting an Indian on the Moon, we must first put one in the space.

The Chinese did it in 2003, when the Long March 2F carried the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft with Yang Liwei. Last month, Col. Zhai Zhigang, stepped out of his Shenzhou-7 spacecraft and spent sometime in the space. China wants to put a Chinese on the Moon by 2020 and mastering the space walk and docking technology is a necessary pre-step.

India has to traverse the same path, which too is costly. Officially, the Chinese say that the Shenzhou mission cost $110 million, but Western experts don’t believe. They say it would have been at least thrice as much.

Above all, what purpose does putting an Indian on the Moon serve other than reinforcing national pride? What man can do, the machines can do better and it is much cheaper to send machines (robots) anywhere.

More Stories on : Science & Technology | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page