What are the prospects in indian space research?
Answers
India’s space program is several decades old and has been focused primarily on peaceful uses, with a number of scientific and technological applications including telemedicine, tele-education, disaster warning, search and rescue operations, mobile communications, and remote sensing and weather. Given that India is a country with huge developmental challenges, it is always tough to make an argument justifying allocations for space missions that do not have a direct bearing on development. That said, while military functions were not a focus of India’s space program until about a decade ago, they have always been at the back of decision-makers’ minds. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-independence prime minister, and Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program, understood the relevance of space to India in the national security domain from the program’s inception. Nevertheless, India did not focus much on the security applications of outer space until 2007.