The mission that was 110% successful
Caution: Satire. On October 2, Kailash S., the chairman of the Indian Wonderful Research Organisation (IWRO), announced that the Moonyaan mission had become a 110% success. At an impromptu press conf…
ISRO
37 posts
The alleged politicisation of science
"Don't politicise X" has become the defence of choice for a class of scientists and public intellectuals in India whose class and caste privilege utterly blinds them to various inequitie…
Chandrayaan 2 and the Left
Since after September 7, when the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan 2 mission failed to touchdown on the lunar surface, many writers and thinkers on the political left have been adopting a stance of th…
The fight over ISRO
My report about ISRO's '90-95%' success claim vis-à-vis Chandrayaan 2 had precisely three kinds of response, split 49%, 49% and 2%. One 49% group went like this: The other 49% went like…
The PM's Chandrayaan group-hug
https://twitter.com/BDUTT/status/1170243147626008576 I understand Dutt’s interpretation of the moment in question but with reservations about what it signals for the nation’s many oppressed. For star…
Moon, mission and Modi
Should Prime Minister Narendra Modi not have been in the control room during the autonomous descent phase of Chandrayaan 2? Did his presence exert unnecessary pressure on the ISRO scientists? I don’t…
Review: 'Mission Mangal' (2019)
This review assumes Tanul Thakur’s review as a preamble. There's the argument that ISRO isn't doing much by way of public outreach and trust in the media is at a low, and for many people – mo…
Discovering Vikram Sarabhai
I just read through a collection of Vikram Sarabhai's important speeches and papers compiled by members of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, to pick a suitable portion to excerpt…
An award that isn't
ISRO just put out a call for a one-time space journalism award, named for Vikram Sarabhai, with a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. Here's the doc with all the details. Pay attention to (4), where it says…
Why covering ISRO is a pain
The following is a bulleted list of reasons why covering developments on the Indian spaceflight programme can be nerve-wracking. * ISRO does not have a media engagement policy that lays out when it…
Why are we going to the Moon again?
At 2:51 am on July 15, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its Chandrayaan 2 mission on board a GSLV Mk III rocket from its spaceport in Sriharikota. The rocket will place its pa…
Finding trash in the dumpster
Just as there's no merit in writing a piece that is confused and incomplete, there's no merit in digging through a dumpster and complaining that there's trash. However, that doesn't me…