As a Keralite going to high school in a class filled with students from across India, it was really difficult for me to deflect all the jokes about Malayalis being everywhere. I mean, it is not my fault that everyone wants to hire us. But now, I have received vindication of sorts — Prashanth Nair, the first Indian astronaut announced in decades, is a Malayali who studied at the same college as my father. But more important than my feelings as a Malayali are my feelings as an Indian. We are finally doing it. We have taken the biggest step yet towards being a country with the capability to take humans to space independently. Only the United States, Russia, and China have either public and/or commercial human spaceflight programs and India could soon be fourth on the list. And the moment was a long time coming. Our neighbours to the East sent their first crewed mission in 2003. In the more than two decades since then, India has surpassed China in terms of population but we have always been a step behind in space exploration. China had its first soft-landing on the Moon in 2013. Chandrayaan-3 only landed on the Moon almost a decade later. Not only did China soft-land on the Moon before India, but it also retrieved a lunar sample with its Chang’e 5 mission in 2020. Chandrayaan-4 is only expected to do the same in 2028. And of course, when it comes to crewed moon missions, we are not even in the competition, yet. Currently, China’s Tiangong space station is in orbit and it is fully-functioning with astronauts on board. Gaganyaan will take three astronauts to orbit and bring them back after three days. But it is unlikely that will happen any time before 2025. But all of that is put into context if you look at the difference in size between the two countries’ economies. The World Bank’s latest public figures for GDP per capita puts China at $12,720 while India is at just $2,410. While that is much better than Pakistan at $1,588, it is still slightly behind Bangladesh at $2,688. In fact, the Ivory Coast, Honduras and Bolivia have a higher GDP per capita than India. But you know what those countries do not have? A lander on the Moon. This simply goes to show what an exemplary organisation the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is. The fact that it can stand toe-to-toe with heavyweights like the European Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency is a marvellous feat. And the start of India’s human spaceflight program with Gaganyaan is just the beginning of ISRO’s ambitions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2023 spelt out some targets for the space agency — to set up an Indian space station by 2035 and to take the first Indian to the Moon. You won’t need an expert to say that that is quite ambitious indeed but it is not all that different from the target the United States set for itself before it put Armstrong and co on the Moon. The Gaganyaan mission will take a spacecraft with three astronauts to a low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometres above the planet’s surface. Similar to the orbit of the International Space Station. But all is not well on the ISS. The ageing space station has been having recurring leaks, especially in the Russian section. Officials from the country’s space agency Roscosmos say that it “poses no threat” to astronauts but there is no denying that it is going to take more and more effort to keep the veteran orbiting outpost in working conditions. And when NASA finally retires it at the end of its lifespan in 2030, there is a chance that China will be the only country in the world with an outpost in low-Earth orbit. Unlike Tiangong, ISS is a remarkable example of collaboration between many different countries that put politics aside.
