GOODLUCK PEANUTS

                                               

In NASA, when a space mission is successful, the involved scientists distribute peanuts among themselves an wish ‘Goodluck Peanuts’ to each other. Similarly, the ISRO had the fortune of wishing ‘Mangal-Mangal’ on last Tuesday (Nov 5) when its maiden Mars Orbiter Mission was successfully launched at 2.38 PM. Thus it was a red- letter day for India associated with this red planet.

So far there have been 51 missions to Mars by different countries out of which only 21 proved successful. If the Indin mission is fruitful, it would be 52 nd. Japan tried its luck in 2003 which prematurely plunged into the ocean before entering into  the earth orbit. Similarly even China lost the race in 2012. So far only NASA (USA), ESA (European Space Agency) and ROSCOSMOS (Russia) have sent their spacecrafts to this red planet and if the Mars Orbiter Mission achieves its objective, India will be the fourth member to join this exclusive club.

There are two deficiencies in the Orbiter project. The GSLV rocket launcher is more powerful to catapult the spacecraft straight to its destination. However, due to some technical reasons in GSLV, the ISRO scientists had to try PSLV rocket launcher. Moreover, due to the same limitation, the orbiter has carried a lighter payload of research machineries weighing only about 15 KG. The question arises, why this haste if the said limitations were there. If India failed to take this opportunity, it would have to wait for another three year when there will be an equally suitable planetary condition. For covering a distance of 35 crore KM, it will take some 300 days of journey. Over and above that, it is only between Sept and Nov that the Mars is nearest to the earth. The orbiter, therefore, will be orbiting earth till Nov end and leave for the Mars on Dec1 so that it could enter into Martian orbit on next Sept 24.

There has been a mixed reaction on this mission. By and large the people have hailed it as mission bringing glory to Indian scientific acumen. Some have decried it telling that a country which is not giving food and water to a large chunk of population, should not have gone for such unproductive extravaganza. These are the people who had criticized Rajiv Gandhi for paving way for unemployment through computerization. Some decry that the amount of 450 crore is huge which could have been invested in developmental programmes. Do they know the amount squandered on ‘Dalit Prerna Sthal’ by Mayavwati, defalcation of public funds in fodder scam by Lalu, CWG scam of Kalmadi, 2G Spectrum by Raja, Coalgate by still bigger individuals, rail scam by P.K. Bansal so on and so forth? In comparison with these, the ISRO amount is just a peanut.

We wish that India is recognized for its interplanetary travel capability. The world is already mesmerized. God willing, on Sept 24,2014, the ISRO scientists will also wish ‘Lucky Peanuts’ to their Mars Orbit Mission colleagues.