BENGALURU: What is the significance of Mangalyaan? What does it truly mean for ISRO and India? For the layman, excitement reaches fever pitch when Curiosity tweets Mangalyaan. For scientists, however, this mission celebrates India ‘s achievements in a number of fields, from Astronomy to engineering to materials science. Most importantly, this is not a milestone bequeathed to history. Mangalyaan is just the beginning.
Dr S. Chatterjee, a recently retired scientist from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and Dr Ravinder Kumar Banyal, also a research scientist at IIA, talked about what this achievement means to India and its scientists. “Young people will be inspired to do research now, because of the sort of publicity Mangalyaan has received,” said Dr Banyal. “People need heroes, they need inspiration, and this is the platform they require.” We have reached a point, they believe, where technology drives science. “This is not a scientific project so much as a technological mission,” said Dr Chatterjee. “But a lot of science needs to be worked out to make it happen. There are a lot of factors that need to be worked out for a mission like this, which requires people with expertise from various scientific fields.
This is not a field to be intimidated by, what young people really need to know is that there is room for everybody.”
“Isro has acquired the capacity to launch inter-planetary missions. Next, they will send instruments out as well,” said Dr. Banyal, encouraged at the prospects for astronomy and astrophysics. “Even if the mission had failed, and there was every chance of that happening, it doesn’t mean we dismiss it altogether,” said Dr Chatterjee. “The milestones that we have reached now are the most important part.”
