Title: ISRO: A Personal History Publisher: Harper Collins India Author: R. Aravamudan with Gita Aravamudan A delightful personal account of India’s space program from the very beginning. With personal memories from an era that otherwise would be lost. This is an important historical record of events that will in a few years be lost entirely […]
Public Event. Anglo Indian Stephen Smith – India’s forgotten Rocketeer
What: A public talk on Anglo Indian Stephen Smith. His life and achievements. Where: The Larkhill Centre, Thorley Lane, Timperley, WA15 7AZ (about 3 miles from Manchester International Airport) When: 19:30 – 20:15 Tuesday 21st March 2017 The event is organised by the India Study Circle for Philately. During the 1920s Stephen Smith founded the Calcutta […]
Episode 71 – TATA Institute for Fundamental Research
The Indian Space Program was initiated by a brilliant nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha who pretty much immediately handed over the space program to Vikram Sarabhai. Bhabha himself pursued the goal of bringing institutionalised fundamental research to India. At the time he saw that as essential for the new emerging independent India.
Book Review – India’s Rise as a Space Power
Title: India’s Rise as a Space Power Publisher: Cambridge University Press, India Pvt Ltd Author: U.R Rao ISBN-10: 9382993487 ISBN-13: 978-9382993483 In the April of 1971, the USSR approached India and offered to launch an Indian satellite. Vikram Sarabhai asked UR Rao to develop and lead the program. In December 1971 Sarabhai died. Perhaps it […]
Episode 68: Stephen H Smith – India’s forgotten rocketeer
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Contribution of Stephen H Smith to development of rocketry and the Anglo Indian community in India of which he is a member.
Episode 66: Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre
November 21st 2013 was the 50th anniversary of a rocket launched from India in to space. The launch itself was an all Indian affair but with lots of international support. The rocket was American, carried a French Sodium Vapour payload with assisted by a computer and a helicopter from the Soviet Union. From this meagre […]
Episode 65: ISRO – The early years
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The Indian Space Research Organisation formally came in to being in 1972. By then, India had been developing its space program for almost a decade. The first launch to space from Indian soil was a two stage Nike-Apache rocket supplied by USA with a sodium payload from France. The rocket delivered a vertical trail of sodium […]
Episode 62 – Vikram Sarabhai
Vikram Sarabhai is unanimously accepted across India as the “father” of its space program. Not really known well outside India, he died suddenly and prematurely at age of 52 in 1971. He had studied cosmic ray physics and gained his PHD from Cambridge in 1947 the same year India became an independent nation. He spent […]
Book Review: Vikram Sarabhai – A life
Title:Vikram Sarabhai: A Life Hardcover: 264 pages Publisher: Viking (India) ISBN-10: 0670999512 ISBN-13: 978-0670999514 Although, any national space programme relies on thousands of individuals, history has a tendency to single out one man (and it usually is a man) as an originator above all others. Sergei Korolev and perhaps Wernher von Braun served that […]
India and Space
November 21st 2013 marks 50 years of the Indian space program. From humble beginnings devoid of infrastructure, experience or trained engineers, India today has an established track record of designing, building and launching satellites for its own national needs and commercially for others. The next few podcast offer a glimpse of the people and achievements […]
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