The Indian Space Programme: India’s incredible journey from the Third World towards the First
About this audiobook
Fifty years in the making, India's Space Programme is fulfilling the vision of its founders and delivering services from space that touch the lives of 1.3 billion people every day. In addition to operating a collection of satellites for weather, Earth observation, navigation and communication today, India has a spacecraft orbiting Mars and a space telescope in Earth orbit.
This book provides the big picture of India's long association with science, from historical figures like Aryabhata and Bhaskara to Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, the key architects of its space program. It covers the scientific contribution of Indian scientists during the European Enlightenment and industrial revolution. It traces the technological development of Tipu Sultan's use of rockets for war in the 1780s; the all-but-forgotten contribution of Stephen H Smith's use of rockets as a means of transport in 1935 in northern India; and the emergence of Sriharikota – India's spaceport, the heart of India's modern Space Programme.
• A detailed account of how a fishing village in Kerala was transformed into a space centre and used to launch India's first rocket into space on 21 November 1963.
• A detailed summary of India's space infrastructure – launch vehicles, deep space network, Telemetry, Tracking and Command and space assets in orbit.
• Description of how the ordinary people of India benefit from the services delivered by the space programme
• Why India chose to go to the Moon and Mars and how it got there.
• The prospects for India's ambitions in space for human spaceflight, national security and scientific exploration
• An analysis of how India's Space Programme may play out on the global stage. Will it compete or collaborate with China, USA and Russia in space?
About the author
Gurbir Singh is a UK-based space writer. He holds a science and an arts degree. Once keen on aviation, he has a private pilot's licence for UK, USA and Australia. He was one of 13,000 unsuccessful applicants responding to the 1989 advert “Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary” to become the first British astronaut, for which Helen Sharman was eventually selected and flew on the Soviet space station MIR in 1991. Once keen on flying, Gurbir holds a private pilot’s licence for the UK, USA and Australia.
He is also the author of
Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester in paperback and ebook published in 2011
India's Forgotten Rocketeer in paperback and ebook published in 2017.
