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Thursday, Nov 25, 2004

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Kalam's vision on lunar mission

By Our Special Correspondent

UDAIPUR, NOV. 24. The physicist-astronomer inner self of the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, was on a rare display here on Tuesday when he called for using the moon as a research platform and a base site for inter-planetary exploration. He was making a compurterised slide presentation during an international conference on the earth's only satellite.

"The moon belongs to the humanity and the research on it must be carried out through international cooperation," Dr. Kalam said while delivering a 35-minute freewheeling inaugural address in the presence of a galaxy of space scientists at the sixth international conference on "Exploration and utilisation of moon" in the Durbar Hall of the historic City Palace here.

Dr. Kalam, explaining the nuances of research on the moon undertaken by numerous lunar missions, said the Indian Space Research Organisation was working full steam on the project to launch India's first lunar exploration vehicle, "Chandrayan-I", by 2007-08 and hoped that the space venture would bring immense benefits to the nation.

The scientist President, illustrating the flight of his vision, said the absence of atmosphere on moon rendered it an ideal location for a variety of low gravity experiments in various sectors. "There is one-million tonne of helium on the surface of moon. If we are able to bring only 25 tonnes of helium to earth, it can provide electricity for one year," he said.

Dr. Kalam expressed the hope that space manufacturing would be a reality by 2020 and "we will have space habitat by 2050". He called upon the astronomers to create a data bank of scientific experiments to help design new ventures and take up future lunar missions with international cooperation.

The five-day conference has been organised by the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad - a research institution of ISRO - in association with the International Lunar Exploration Working Group and the European Space Agency. It is being attended by about 170 space scientists from 16 countries, including Japan, China, Australia, Russia and the U.S.

Among others, the Chairman of the Indian Space Commission, G. Madhavan Nair, noted scientists U.R. Rao and Narendra Bhandari, and the Rajasthan Governor, Pratibha Patil, addressed the inaugural session.

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