Author: Surya Gangadharan

Imagine cities in Space, factories manufacturing in zero gravity, 3-D printing and a whole range of other processes all happening far above the earth. Japan and the US are two countries that are working on how such activities, complicated enough on earth, can be moved into Space with resultant gains in quality and efficiency. https://youtu.be/zqQBDierRpo India, too, has embarked on such cutting-edge research at IIT Madras, where a small group of scientists and researchers have got together to incubate, over time, a startup that will work on these frontier areas of Science and Space. Prof Sathyan Subbiah, a mechanical engineer…

https://youtu.be/jWwDWtKcvvs There was a time in India when the entire gamut of Space-related activities was the responsibility of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). That ranged from building and launching satellites to their use. The Space Policy, now over a year old, set out the government’s intention to liberalise this sector taking industry as the “core traveller”. “This is something similar to what India has done in the field of infrastructure and communication,” Dr Subba Rao, founder of Ananth , technologies, told Interstellar on the sidelines of a Space event in New Delhi. Dr Rao is a former space scientist who…

“Space needs to inspire,” ISRO Chairman Dr S Somnath remarked a trifle philosophically, at the 3rd edition of the Indian Space Congress in Delhi, “It should give hope that humanity will not go extinct. Yet it must be commercially sustainable, so R&D is required.” The point he was making is that space is not just about business, alluding to space and planetary exploration, even space tourism that have a romance of their own and kindled man’s fascination and interest through the centuries. But as he underscored, a lot of the current space science-related activity whether in India or elsewhere, is…

When the Chinese decided to disrupt the technology landscape, it was based on a close study of how the West had gone about gaming the system. It boiled down to charging low prices for raw materials from poor countries and high prices for the technologies developed by the West. “China went on the offensive, setting a deadline to take leadership in multiple areas and to take an example, spent $29 billion to promote the TV industry. It was the kind of commitment put in by the Chinese government working in tandem with industry,” said Jaijit Bhattacharya, head of the Centre…

“Peaceful applications of atomic energy with the help of nuclear explosions was a part of peaceful exploration at that time, even internationallyring pe. There were conferences, meetings being organized, different countries were presenting their activities, what they think about it.” In other words, when India conducted a Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) under the Pokhran sands on May 18, 1974, it was doing so keeping in mind a wide range of potential applications. https://youtu.be/E5JlV2XgqTY “So far as atomic energy is concerned research was being pursued with the broadest possible approach,” confirmed Dr Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, speaking…