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Chandrayaan, RTI, RIP

Anoop Kohli, 09 September 2009, 10:44 AM IST

They’ve done it, guys. India’s first moon craft, launched in Oct 2008, with a packed agenda of delivering overall six payloads in space, and then to move on to impact the moon surface on Nov 14, ’08, planting the Indian Flag (the fourth nation so far) and further conducting a rather meticulous bistatic radar experiment by the already stationed NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This was dicey with the two craft being a few dozen km apart, traveling at about 1.6 km/sec, mapping an area of around 80 sq km to confirm the presence of ‘water ice’. The exclusive component of this manoeuvre being to pick up the sonar pulse at an angle, rather than a straight rebound done earlier, by a single craft. That was Aug 20, 09, The data is still to be analysed. If there is indeed water, future astronauts may actually not have to carry their Bisleri

The sad part is, that with a failed crucial Star Sensor essential for navigation, there were problems of overheating every now and then, kept in abeyance by use of innovative methods as solar sensing. Aug 29 was the last tweet heard from the module. No further contacts. It’s gone deaf and dumb, or perhaps having closed into about 100km from the moon surface for some time, it was time to say goodbye to earth! No one knows if a craft brought so close to the lunar surface for so long, may actually start acquiring lunatic tendencies.

The moon’s atmosphere was quite heated they say, 100ºC as compared to 75ºC as estimated. So is there a lunar meltdown too, with so many craft zooming in orbit by burning space-ially unacceptable rocket fuel. They could have parked it for a while on the dark side of the moon during its 3000 odd orbits. Would have made musical and poetic sense. The centigrades would have converted to fahrenheits, and maybe a few more months of honeymoon if not the entire tenure. But as they say, the first time is really not all that good.

Still a great first effort by any standards! With the declaration that 95% of the objective is achieved! Some day, the remaining 5% would be to make it land right on the trailer, on dot, as the Republic Day parade moves on. Hold your breaths MJ fans. They’re just about done with the fabrication of a ‘moon rover’, which should ideally be named ‘moonwalker’. That shall be the core of mission for Chandrayaan II. I take the liberty for these laconic remarks, because our scientists really are brilliant and keep their sense of humor intact. They are the best, and other problems of the country aside, the space program should continue to lead at a scorching pace.

Now, the sixpence. My friend, with the the irrespressible ‘Saxena’ in him, actually wants to put a ten rupee note and file an RTI. Not fair, not practical, I told him. He first wanted a ‘stay order’ from the Lucknow Bench of The Allahabad High court (having figured in the Guiness Book for the maximum such orders in a calendar year) to stop the mission on the basis of advisability of such expenses considering the budget deficit. I coaxed him to try for one when they are about to release a movie with the background as a set. It worked.

About the RTI I am not very sure, but my reasoning is that the applicability of the Act becomes rarefied as you rise higher up in ranks, and occupy high, somewhat permanent chairs. Beyond the stratosphere, we are not sure of the jurisdiction of which Court it comes under. Beyond the Ozone Layer, perhaps we are bound by International Treaties. No use making further holes in it! In fact we more or less have made a golf course out there over our skies, and no chance of ‘Birdies’ whatsoever. If you can convince a particular charismatic liquor baron, we may have the ‘First Cosmic Indian Open’ there within the next ten years.

Chandrayaan I, I know you are floating there. You won’t respond. The script and language of the moon-lovers is not the same as what they taught you in the lab. They’ll still come searching for your remains, for the photographs you refused to transmit. Maybe they’ll get them, but they shall never get your soul, because they see the moon in a much different context, than what you began to realize when you got those thousands of photographs of the Earth, and realized what they had done to it! RIP.

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Rahul says:

September 09,2009 at 12:19 PM IST

good one :)
I loved the lighter side to it..

Dilip Kumar says:

September 09,2009 at 02:47 PM IST

ChandrayaanI is a great show by Indian Scientists, no doubts. The greatest thing of the Mission is it's cost effeciveness - just some Rs 400 crore odd ( this is the cost of may be one KM of Metro Railway tracks that are being built for Indian Cities ).
I see some reports in Media questioning the success of the mission (saying it has just completed half of it's life time - before conclusion). First of all it is our first mission to some celestial body and given the cost constraints we just can't imagine a foolproof system.
Chandrayaan has definitely done it's part. It proved the world the strength of Indian minds. Our scientists now have enough data to plan a fool proof chandrayaan II. Actually ISRO can now boast of having information about moon which no other country have.
Before questioning the ISRO's missions in courts and getting stays one should think of satellite TVs(so the media should be careful before questioning ISRO :) ) Remote sensing(India has the largest collection of remote sensing satellites) ,....
Offlate ISRO also done it's part to trace out the ill fated Chopper Crash site

VB says:

September 09,2009 at 06:22 PM IST

Chandrayaan-I is no doubt a significant and laudable achievement by ISRO. By the way, the "rather meticulous bistatic radar experiment" conducted along with NASA's Lunar Orbiter didn't pan out, according to recent reports.

I understand you were trying to write a humorous blog, but you could still have avoided the numerous unfortunate scientific bloomers by doing a little checking first. As it is, I must tell you that there's a great deal of UNINTENDED humour in your blog. The moon has essentially no atmosphere, to start with. The tenuous amount of gas present isn't enough to give it a stable and sustained atmospheric temperature. So it gets very hot (over 100C, for sure) on the sun-side, and very cold (below -150C) on the dark side. And this happens very abruptly. You have also suggested that ISRO could have "parked [Chandrayaan] on the dark side for bit" during its 3000-odd orbits. That's pretty hilarious when you think about it, as any Std. VI child will tell you. In a country with so much scientific disinformation among the public, the last thing one needs is to add to it.

Rakesh Bhalla says:

September 09,2009 at 06:49 PM IST

We feel very proud. ISRO is doing a good job for India. Instead of citisizing the ISRO We should be thankful to the staff of ISRO. They have done a remarkable job for the country.
We salute them.

VB says:

September 10,2009 at 10:38 AM IST

Chandrayaan-I is undoubtedly a great achievement by ISRO. Unfortunately, I don't think your rambling blog is particularly humorous, unless you count the unintended humour in it. The moon has no atmosphere to speak of. The tenuous gas isn't enough to sustain a stable temperature. As a result, it gets very hot (over 100C, definitely) under the sun, and very cold in the dark (below -150C). As for "they could have parked it [Chandrayaan] for a bit in the dark side of the moon during its 3000 odd orbits", that's truly hilarious, as any Std. VI student will tell you. So also the nonsense about the centigrades converting to fahrenheits. In a country with so much ignorance and disinformation about science even among the educated, the last thing we need is more confusion in the name of (feeble) humour. By the way, the radar experiment done in concert with the Lunar Orbiter didn't actually pan out, as recent reports have pointed out.

Prakash Deshmukh says:

September 11,2009 at 08:13 AM IST

This is great job done by scientists. I must congratulate them what ever is the result now. It s not a wastege of money like what our politicians are doing. exporting sugar and then importing with double rates. this is wastege of public money and politicins have done a irr resoponsible job not the scientist. This was very succesfull evet with low cost.

Nitesh says:

September 11,2009 at 11:46 AM IST

For just it's humor, it's a good article.

But as far as Chandrayan-| goes it is one of the most successful mission ever taken by India. The challenge of sending a satellite to moon 100% swadeshi without a tinge of help from advanced space Powers on a watertight budget. But ISRO is one of the rare organization which lives, eats, drinks and sleeps by its mission and likes to "walk the talk" or even better first walk then talk literally "Talk the walk".
I know there is a part of media which question the feasibility and need of a moon mission. But what could we have done with another of those 400 crores. We could have spent it on NREGA & other like schemes so that a major chunk would have been pocketed by corrupt beurocratic officials.

Another option is to have distributed the sum in those overhyped cricketers and scantily clad cheerleaders and started another league say CPL "Chandrayan Premier League" in its memory.
A third option is to have invested in Share markets to see evaporation of that money faster than water in nuclear chambers.
People questioning the Chandrayan mission can take a pick.

S C Vaid says:

September 12,2009 at 04:36 PM IST

When we have to climb a ladder, first step has to be taken. There may be pitfalls between the steps which are overcome by utilizing previous experience and applying course corrections. This should not deter us from conducting future missions. ISRO must carry on towards moon and beyond.