The debates

Why should a poor country go to space?

Sarabhai himself conceded that some questioned the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. The doubt has never fully gone away. In 2019 former ISRO scientist Arup Dasgupta called the crewed Gaganyaan mission a possible “flag-waving exercise”. He said it broke with Sarabhai’s development ethos.

His answer was that India had no “fantasy of competing” with rich nations in exploring the moon or in crewed flight. Space would serve real problems at home. SITE later reached more than 2,400 villages. R. Aravamudan’s memoir argues that without him India’s programme might have stalled as Pakistan’s did.

The Wire Science: Arup Dasgupta on ISRO and crewed flight (4 March 2019) · Business Standard: Who is Vikram Sarabhai · Current Science: Pramod Kale, Vikram Sarabhai – Visionary motivator (25 April 2020) · Wikipedia: Satellite Instructional Television Experiment · Swarajya: Review of R. Aravamudan’s ISRO: A Personal History (4 April 2017)

Succeeding Bhabha and the bomb question

After China’s 1964 test Homi Bhabha publicly called for nuclear explosives. He said atomic weapons gave a state deterrent power against a stronger one. Sarabhai took over the Atomic Energy Commission after Bhabha’s death in 1966. Design work continued under Raja Ramanna and the 1974 test came under his successor Homi Sethna.

Accounts of the programme describe a deliberate turn. Shaped by his Gandhian beliefs he directed it towards peaceful purposes rather than military development. He put resources into reactors, electronics and space. He presided over the IAEA General Conference in 1970.

Wikipedia: Homi J. Bhabha · Wikipedia: Smiling Buddha · Wikipedia: Vikram Sarabhai

The theories about his death

He died suddenly at 52 with no known illness. He was cremated without an autopsy. Conspiracy theorists link his death to Bhabha’s air crash five years earlier as evidence of foreign involvement.

The recorded cause is cardiac arrest in his sleep after a long day at Thumba. The best-known CIA claim about Bhabha comes from a 2013 book by Gregory Douglas, described as a forger, and lacks any independent source.

Wikipedia: Homi J. Bhabha · Wikipedia: Vikram Sarabhai · Scroll.in: The Vikram Sarabhai years, from Ever Upwards: ISRO in Images (18 November 2019) · Business Standard: Who is Vikram Sarabhai

Too many hats: the scientist-manager

From 1966 he ran the Atomic Energy Commission and the space programme together. He also headed the Space Applications Centre. Some of his plans ran late or never happened. The launch goals of his 1970 decade profile slipped and his agro-industrial complex never came about.

Pramod Kale who worked with him at PRL says he built institutions around people. He delegated authority to match responsibility and trusted his staff. He handed IIMA to its first full-time director Ravi Matthai in 1965. His vision carried on under Satish Dhawan, U. R. Rao and K. Kasturirangan.

Wikipedia: Vikram Sarabhai · Current Science: Pramod Kale, Vikram Sarabhai – Visionary motivator (25 April 2020) · IIM Ahmedabad Archives: Vikram Sarabhai · Swarajya: Review of R. Aravamudan’s ISRO: A Personal History (4 April 2017)

Credit and the people of Thumba

The label father of the space programme can hide others. Some accounts credit Homi Bhabha with forming INCOSPAR and with setting up the Thumba range alongside him. The Latin Catholic fishing families of Thumba gave up their church and homes for the site. In 2023 the archdiocese asked that the space museum be renamed after Bishop Peter Bernard Pereira.

Nehru set up INCOSPAR on Sarabhai’s recommendation. He chose Thumba for its place on the magnetic equator and recruited and trained the team. Kalam’s own account gives the bishop and his congregation full credit for saying yes. President Kovind called him the father of the Indian space programme in 2020.

Scroll.in: The Vikram Sarabhai years, from Ever Upwards: ISRO in Images (18 November 2019) · Business Standard: Who is Vikram Sarabhai · South First: Spare a thought for Bishop Peter Bernard Pereira (25 November 2023) · Wikipedia: Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station · Wikipedia: Indian Space Research Organisation · The Better India: Transported on a bicycle, launched from a church (8 November 2016) · President of India: Address at the valedictory of the Sarabhai centenary (25 September 2020)

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