January 2007 was the month for contemplating exciting possibilities in outer space. On January 10, ISRO launched the Space Capsule Recovery Equipment (SRE-1) on board the indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C7. For the first time, ISRO put four satellites into orbit simultaneously. Twelve days later, ISRO guided the SRE-I back and recovered it from the Bay of Bengal. However, India needs to articulate a space policy in the context of national defence, taking into account security and control of space assets and access to space and celestial bodies including the moon.

What does this mean, exactly? One, that India is now technologically capable of putting indigenous, reliable, low cost, reusable launch vehicles into orbit and returning them to earth. This technology is cardinal for the success of the 2008 Chandrayan-I Moon Mission, 2012 manned space flight and 2020 Moon Landing. Two, that ISRO has catapulted us into the niche league of space powers capable of orbiting platforms for performing experiments in micro gravity conditions.

These achievements have been earned despite US denial of our request to participate in the International Space Station in 2005 and the cancellation of the agreement to provide India cryogenic technology by USSR in 1992. India is now set for critical applications in outer space on its own strength.

Viewed in the context of Chandrayaan-I, which will carry an instrumental payload to survey the moon’s surface and the December 2006 statement by K.N. Shankara, director of the ISRO Satellite Centre, that one of the prime objectives of Chandrayaan I is to study the quantum of Helium 3 available on the moon and to find ways of bringing it to earth in order to convert it into energy through fusion technology, these capabilities suggest that India intends to engage in exploring and exploiting natural resources of the moon. If so, India will run the Moon Race alongside the US, EU, Russia, China and Japan who have all taken initiatives in that direction.

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