The next step involves sending humans to space and responding to the changing dynamics of global space business
WHEN THE much-awaited second Indian mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, is launched in a few months from now, it will carry a lander that will soft land on the lunar surface at a predetermined location and deploy a rover. The mission will not only be a technological milestone in India’s journey of space exploration but will also be a humble tribute by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to its founder Vikram Sarabhai as the lender has been named after him. In a way, missions like Chandrayaan-2 go beyond fulfilling the dreams of Sarabhai, who initiated India into the space age on November 21, 1963, with the launch of the first sounding rocket from the fishing village of Thumba in Kerala.
The bandwidth India has developed in the space sector in the past half a century is impressive—different types of satellites (ranging from Earth observation to strategic surveillance), rockets capable of placing satellites in different types of orbits, space telescope, deep space and planetary missions, recently even space warfare (in collaboration with the defence research agency) and finally the human space flight in a couple of years from now. Every mission is a technological challenge and has been achieved with a very high degree of self-reliance and capability developed under stiff international technology embargoes.
Esta historia es de la edición May 01, 2019 de Down To Earth.
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INVISIBLE THREAT
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Feeding off each other
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India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents
URBAN DISCOMFORT
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BLAZING SUN IS ON
Rising temperatures are testing the limits of human tolerance to heat. With their predominantly built-up landscape, urban areas offer no respite. A study by the Centre for Science and Environment on the morphology and heat patterns of nine Indian cities over the past decade shows how these urban centres are turning into heat islands with a potentially serious impact on human health. An analysis by Rajneesh Sareen, Mitashi Singh and Nimish Gupta, with Shagun in Haryana and Kiran Pandey
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A PSYCHEDELIC HIGH
Driven by surge in global trials and low success rate of current medications in treating mental health problems, researchers call for home-grown clinical trials of psychedelic drugs
Locked out
Two years after becoming the only state to be excluded from the Centre's ruralemployment guarantee scheme, villages in West Bengal grapple with distress migration and debt traps
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The Supreme Court of India, on April 5, recognised that citizens have a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change, saying it is intertwined with the fundamental rights to life and equality. Here are the key arguments articulated by the three-judge bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra in their judgement
Weaving dreams
Tribal communities in West Bengal slowly embrace traditional weaving to ensure sustainable livelihood
