India’s space programme is limited only by the ambition of its people, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told NDTV Friday, in a free-wheeling interview that began with American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore’s return from a nine-month stay in space.
Mr Tyson – who also spoke about the government-to-private enterprise shift in the space sector – referred to India landing a spacecraft near the Moon’s South Pole in 2023.
India then became only the fourth country to successfully land on the lunar surface.
This was achieved at a cost of $75 million – a fraction of what NASA’s missions cost.
“India was able to land at the south pole (on the Moon) for a fraction of the money the US spent… more power to you,” he said, praising the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, for the level of streamlining and efficiency in R&D and in building the rocket itself.
On the costs of a space programme, Mr Tyson pointed out the money India allots to ISRO, as a percentage of overall government funding, is almost the same amount as NASA gets in the US.
The discussion on India’s space ambitions came out of a question about Elon Musk and the SpaceX rocket that brought Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore home. Mr Tyson was asked about the what role the private sector – in the US or India – could have in space exploration.
There is a role, Mr Tyson said, explaining that the private sector’s involvement is necessary and natural, and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken to him about this.
READ | “No Sympathy For Sunita Williams Because…”: Neil deGrasse Tyson
“… what SpaceX has done is more of what NASA has already done. NASA built the space station on the back of a space shuttle, literally. NASA took cargo and astronauts… and now SpaceX, and other possibly competing companies, can take cargo and astronauts too.”
“That is great. That is how it should be. The real value of private enterprises is that once they see what needs to be done… they have the latitude to go out there and do it for less or more efficiently,” he said.
READ | “Private Players Will Make Space More Accessible”: ISRO
There is more streamlining in private enterprise and this is expected because, “if the government is doing it first, then you don’t even know how to streamline it because nobody has ever done this before”.
“And I know this,” he said, “because I spent some time with your Prime Minister. We chatted briefly during his trip to New York about future of space exploration in India, and he expressed strong interest in bringing private enterprises into that sector. He sees that this will be a natural evolution.”
On India’s space dreams, Mr Tyson would not be drawn beyond saying, “I think what matters are your ambitions and then, depending on your resources, you can achieve it slowly or quickly.”
He did, however, offer China as an example.
“When China was not allowed to participate in the ISS (this was after the US objected to technology transfer), they said, ‘okay, we will go into space on our own’.”
“They had a growing economy and money, so they said, ‘we want to send our first astronauts’. And they did that. They said, ‘we want to put a rover on the Moon’. And they did that. They said, ‘we want to build our space station’. And they are doing that…”
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