Abstract
NASA’s cooperation with India began with the establishment of satellite tracking stations and space science. Cognizant of the contributions made by Indian scientists in the field of astronomy and meteorology, a scientific tradition that stretched back several decades, NASA outlined a cooperative program that focused on mutual exploration of the tropical space for scientific data. The cooperation started in the early 1960s with the loan of sounding rockets, launchers, and the training of Indian scientists and engineers at selected NASA facilities dedicated to astronomical and meteorological research. This initial collaboration gradually expanded and more advanced space application projects brought the two democratic countries, in spite of some misgivings, closer together in the common cause of using space sciences and technologies for developing and modernizing India. In the process NASA ended up coproducing a space program that articulated the sentiments of the postcolonial scientific and political elite of India. Conversely, the experience with India imparted a new meaning and architecture of what a space program should be in developing countries in Asia and Latin America.
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Notes
For other studies on India, see Angathevar Baskaran, “Competence Building in Complex Systems in the Developing Countries: The Case of Satellite Building in India,” Technovation 21:2 (2001), 109–121; “Technology Accumulation in the Ground Systems of India’s Space Program: The Contribution of Foreign and Indigenous Inputs,” Technology in Society 23:2 (2001), 195–216; “From Science to Commerce: The Evolution of Space Development Policy and Technology Accumulation in India,” Technology in Society 27:2 (2005), 155–179;
Gopal Raj, Reach for the Stars: The Evolution of India’s Rocket Programme (New Delhi: Viking, 2000);
Amrita Shah, Vikram Sarabhai, a Life (New Delhi: Penguin, 2007);
U. Sankar, The Economics of India’s Space Programme: An Exploratory Analysis (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007);
Raman Srinivasan, “No Free Launch: Designing the Indian National Satellite,” in Andrew J. Butrica (ed.), Beyond the Ionosphere: Fifty Years of Satellite Communication (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4217, 1997). Recent work by Asif Siddiqi has indicated new ways of studying the evolution of space programs in emerging space powers. His attempts at integrating the corpus of postcolonial studies—pioneering work by Arjun Appadurai, Warwick Anderson, Gyan Prakash, Itty Abraham, and others—has offered new insights to delineate an alternative framework for understanding postcolonial technoscience in “developing” countries. See
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For a detailed analysis of modernization efforts by the United States in developing countries, see George Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Societies: Agents of Change in South Asia, 1950–1970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985);
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Nicole Sackley, “Passage to Modernity: American Social Scientists, India, and the Pursuit of Development, 1945–1961,” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2004.
For a recent biographical work on Homi J. Bhabha, see Indira Chowdhury and Ananya Dasgupta, A Masterful Spirit: Homi J. Bhabha, 1909–1966 (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2010).
See, for instance, Homi J. Bhabha and W. Heitler, “The Passage of Fast Electrons and Theory of Cosmic Ray Showers,” Proceedings of the Royal Society 159 A (1937);
Homi J. Bhabha, “On Penetrating Component of Cosmic Radiation,” Proceedings of the Royal Society 164 A (1938). Vikram Sarabhai worked in the field of cosmic ray variations and set up a group, which was undoubtedly the best in this field and which achieved recognition in international science. He was for some years secretary of the internationally instituted subcommittee on cosmic ray intensity variations and was also a member of the cosmic ray commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. While Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was the cradle of the Indian atomic energy program, Vikram Sarabhai made the PRL the cradle of the Indian space program. His first scientific contribution, “Time Distribution of Cosmic Rays,” was published in the Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Science in 1942. During this period at Cambridge he also carried out an accurate measurement of the cross-section for the photo fission of 238 U by 6.2 mev r-rays obtained from the 19F (p, r) reaction. This work also formed a part of his PhD thesis. See
S. P. Pandya, “The Physicist,” in Padmanabh K. Joshi (ed.), Vikram Sarabhai: The Man and the Vision (New Delhi: Mapin, 1992), 52–57.
For a detailed account of Bhabha’s work on cosmic rays in Bangalore, see Jahnavi Phalkey, “Science, State-Formation and Development: The Organization of Nuclear Research in India, 1938–1959,” PhD dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007, 157–161.
Gyan Prakash, Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 196; emphasis added.
For more on the role of science and technology in national identity, see Carol E. Harrison and Ann Johnson, “Introduction: Science and National Identity,” Osiris 24 (2009), 1–14.
Kamla Choudhary, Vikram Sarabhai: Science Policy and National Development (Delhi: Macmillan 1974), 24.
For a closer historical sociology on the establishment of tracking stations in India, see Teasel Muir Harmony, “Tracking Diplomacy: The International Geophysical Year and American Scientific and Technical Exchange with East Asia,” in Roger D. Launius, James R. Fleming, and David H. DeVorkin (eds.), Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the International Polar and Geophysical Years (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Due to a recent division of Uttar Pradesh in the year 2000 Nainital is now brought under the state of Uttarakhand. The data collected from Nainital was analyzed by SAO and it provided the world science community with precise knowledge about the configuration of the earth and of its gravitational field. Because of the critical location Nainital was connected to the Smithsonian Standard Ellipsoid system—a world system—along with the other 14 stations. The geodetic Cartesian coordinates of all these stations with respect to the same SAO ellipsoid center were made available with a positional standard deviation of 10–15 meters. In order to give an impetus to applications of satellite to geodesy in India, the ISRO set up a satellite geodesy unit. This ISRO unit worked in collaboration with other Indian interests in geodesy such as the Geodetic Branch of Survey of India. For more information on this, see
Vikram Sarabhai, P. D. Bhavsar, E. V. Chitnis, and P. R. Pisharoty, Application of Space Technology to Development, a study prepared for the United Nations (Unpublished), December 1970, 1.73.
In the 1940s, the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bangalore, the Bose Institute in Calcutta, and the Muslim University at Aligarh were effectively conducting cosmic ray research. Teams of scientists—e.g., Max Milliken and his colleagues, a group headed by Homi Bhabha at IISC, and another team under A. P. Thattee at TIFR— conducted cosmic ray experiments using rubber balloons. Vikram Sarabhai and K. R. Ramanathan started research into space sciences, which led to the establishment of PRL in 1947. By the mid-1950s Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) had become an international center for cosmic ray research. Meanwhile, TIFR established a basic infrastructure, including radio interferometers, large radio telescopes, and a facility for making plastic balloons. From 1959, Indian and foreign scientists within groups from PRL, and the US Air Force used the balloon facility for experiments. In 1961, a realtime satellite telemetry station was established at PRL in collaboration with NASA. For more on the development of scientific institutions in India, see R. S. Anderson, Building Scientific Institutions in India: Saha and Bhabha, Occasional Paper Series, No. 11 (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1975), 31; Joshi, ed., Vikram Sarabhai, 112; Baskaran, “From Science to Commerce,” 155–179.
E. V. Chitnis, the then secretary of INCOSPAR along with R. D. John of the Atomic Energy Establishment proceeded to Thumba on January 14, 1963, for site selection. See R. D. John, “Some Reminiscences on Space Construction Programme,” Forerunner (June 1989), 1–6.
Arnold W. Frutkin, Progress in International Cooperation in Space Research, News Release, May 23, 1963, 5.
Arnold W. Frutkin, “The United States Space Program and its International Significance,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 366 (July 1966), 89–98.
Kerala was one of the most pro-Soviet states in India during that time period. One could easily spot shops in busy city streets stacked with books published by Soviet press. And students hail ing from Kerala always won top prices in Russian-language contests. For more on Kerala’s communist sentiments, see Vladimir Gubarev, Aryabhata The Space Temple (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1976), 13–14.
See Arnold Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 62.
The wind patterns of the monsoons in the Indian Ocean merit close study, not only because they give striking evidence of interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere but also because of the possible influence of the sun’s particulate radiation on the earth’s weather as noted in Victor K. McElheny, “India’s Nascent Space Program,” Science 149 (September 1965), 1487–1489.
Vikram Sarabhai et al., Application of Space Technology to Development (a study pre-pared for the UN, 1970), 1.42.
Vikram Sarahbai, Science Policy and National Development, edited by Kamla Chowdhry (Delhi: Macmillan, 1974), 25.
For more on the importance of Vienna Congress for developing countries, see Vladimir Gubarev, Aryabhata The Space Temple (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1976).
See Carl Q. Christol, “Space Joint Ventures: The United States and Developing Nations,” University of Akron Law Reviews 8 (1975), 398–415.
For a critical view of the “profile,” see Ashok Parthasarathi, Technology at the Core Science and Technology with Indira Gandhi (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2008).
For a historical account of the origins and development of Landsat, see Pamela Mack, Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).
It was used to identify the lost courses of the Saraswati river in the great Indian desert. See Bimal Ghose, Amal Kar, and Zahid Husain, “The Lost Courses of the Saraswati River in the Great Indian Desert: New Evidence from Landsat Imagery,” The Geographical Journal 145:3 (November 1979), 446–451.
For a brief historical overview of remote sensing in India, see Shubhada Savant and Santhosh Seelan, “India’s Remote Sensing Programme,” Spaceflight 48:8 (August 2006), 308–314.
P. D. Bhavsar, “Remote Sensing Program In India,” Current Science 15:2 (September 1985), 15–35.
For an excellent study on the origins and evolution of remote sensing in India, see A. R. Dasgupta and S. Chandrashekar, Indigenous Innovation and IT-enabled Exports: A Case Study of the Development of Data Processing Software for Indian Remote Sensing Satellites, a study for the UPIASI Research Project on the Context of Innovation in India: The Case of the Information Technology Industry, Submitted to University of Pennsylvania, Institute for the Advanced Study of India, New Delhi, September 30, 2000.
C. Dakshinamurti et al., “Remote Sensing for Coconut Wilt,” Proceedings of the International Symposium of Remote Sensing Environment (1971), Vol. 1.
There is a real dearth of materials on Soviet-India space relations. Whatever material that is available is very superficial, Brian Harvey, “Russia: The Indian Connection,” JBIS 54 (2001), 47–54;
Jerome M. Conley, Indo-Russian Military and Nuclear Cooperation: Lessons and Options for U.S. Policy in South Asia (New York: Lexington Books, 2001);
U. R. Rao and K. Kasturirangan, The Aryabhata Project (Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences, 1979);
Mikhail Barabanov, “Russian-Indian Cooperation in Space,” Moscow Defense Brief 1:3 (2005), 27–31.
Gary Milhollin, “India’s Missiles—With a Little Help from Our Friends,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (November 1989), 311–315. Most of the scholarship on India’s missile and space program often mention Milhollin’s piece to state that SLV-3 was built using Scout blueprints. In testimony before the House Committee on Science on June 25, 1998, Milhollin stated that “in 1965, The Indian Government asked NASA for design information about the Scout … NASA obligingly supplied the information. Kalam then proceeded to build India’s first rocket, the SLV-3, which was an exact copy of the Scout.” See http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/congress/1998_h/980625-milhollin.htm (accessed December 12, 2009).
The first sounding rocket RH-75 fueled by a Cordite mixture (a mixture of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose) was launched on November 20, 1967, following which a series of indigenously developed sounding rockets were developed RH-100, RH-125, RH-125s, Menaka I and II, RH-300, RH-300 MK-II, RH-560 (RH denotes Rohini), all using solid fuels. For more on ISRO’s sounding rockets, see V. Sudhakar, Sounding Rockets of Isro (Bangalore: Indian Space Research Organisation, 1976).
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Arun Tiwari, Wings of Fire: An Autobiography (Hyderabad: Universities Press, 1999), 38. Kalam has been credited for the introduction of project management techniques in the Indian space program and worked on a number of projects before being assigned as the project manager for the SLV-3 project by Sarabhai.
J. N. Goswami and M. Annadurai, “Chandrayan-1: India’s First Planetary Science Mission to the Moon,” Current Science 96:4 (February 25, 2009): 486–491.
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© 2013 John Krige, Angelina Long Callahan, and Ashok Maharaj
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Krige, J., Callahan, A.L., Maharaj, A. (2013). An Overview of NASA-India Relations. In: NASA in the World. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340931_11
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