Need for cost-effective travel to space: Ex-ISRO chief

He said that space tourism could become of great importance to humans

Former ISRO chairman and Rajya Sabha MP Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan tonight stressed on the need to have cost-effective transportation system for space travel missions of the country in the future.

Kasturirangan, a member of the Planning Commission and chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, was speaking at the fifth Dr Satish C Seth Memorial Futurology Lecture Series organised by the Indian Council of Management & Future on "India in Space-a conceptual framework for the 21st Century".

We need a cost wise cheap space transportation system to increase the frequency of such missions, he said.

On potential developments in space science, Kasturirangan said scientists were mulling to create a "space ladder or elevator" which would extend from the Earth's surface to an altitude of 36,000 km in the space for the purpose of carrying masses to outer space.

He said five to six decades from now countries can have a "hypersonic aircraft" taking off from the ground to space, delivering the load and come back and land on an air string.

But there are significant technological challenges which need to be overcome to achieve this configuration and would require another 30-40 years to achieve, he added.

Noting that space tourism could become of great importance to humans, Kasturirangan said a lot of development is going on in this regard and people are already spending $15-20 million to travel for a week to outer space.

He said India has gone ahead with using its satellites and regional navigation system with the same precision as the US and Europe.

India will have a global positioning system of its own in the coming two to three years, he said, adding the country is trying to be an active part of the global community of exploration of a solar system, robotic missions among others.

The space scientist said different government departments like education, medical, agriculture, industry, communications are demanding satellites to cater to their specific needs and efforts are on to fulfil them.

Dr Syeda Hameed, a women rights activist and member of the Planning Commission, and Padma Sethi, director of ICMF, were also present at the function.