How to think/write about ISRO (Part 2)

AK’s reaction: https://plus.google.com/100173736531427553919/posts

I am going to ignore the ad hominem, unavoidably uncouth, part of AK’s rejoinder and focus on an appropriate way to think and write about ISRO by dealing with AK’s complaints.
No details

AK accuses Othisaivu Ramasami of praising ISRO without giving any details. OR’s praise was aligned iwth a context, namely, the successful launch of GSAT6 with a version GSLV that carried the indigenously developed cryogenic stage. A remarkable achievement that’s taken a long time to attain. The event got a decent amount of coverage in the print and television media in India. Anyone interested in further information on what makes the event so special can look up the details on the ISRO website. But how does AK conclude that it is empty bragging or that OR doesn’t know what he is talking about? How does he use that as an excuse to pour scorn on ISRO as a gossipy organization that neither understands nor shares its failures? He is wrong on both counts, of course.

Strangely, AK holds up “MSK” without even bothering to expand the acronym (Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in mid-town Manhattan, by the way) as the ideal cancer treatment/research facility that India should set up immediately without explaining why, backed by details. Ha ha, he should rant against himself, perhaps. I rest my case.

If AK wants to know details about ISRO that are available only from someone intimately familiar with its workings, such as organisational culture, collaborative working between different centres, programme planning methodology or failure analysis, he should ask nicely instead of giving vent to his baseless prejudice. After all, inquiry into what one doesn’t know demands humility.

ISRO should be compared to NASA rather than Boeing!

First OR did not make the mistake of randomly comparing two distinct organisations. He only said that some engineers in ISRO are comparable in calibre to those who work in Boeing. This has been long established. People from ISRO have gone on to occupy leadership positions in other premier tech organisations both within and outside India. They have contributed in many ways. For instance, the Tsunami Early Warning Centre at the INCOIS campus in Hyderabad was set up in record time by an ISRO hand and his team.

However, there is indeed a basis for comparing Boeing and ISRO, since both are in the market as providers of commercial launch services, but this is only a limited comparison.

But comparison with NASA, especially in the present day, would be totally absurd. NASA has never been a provider of commercial launch services or satellites. It only provides launch facilities and mission ops support as required. ISRO does both. ISRO also makes a variety of satellites for navigation and remote sensing applications, launches them and manages them in orbit. US has separate organisations – NOAA, DoD, etc. – for implementing such projects. NASA focuses entirely on space exploration projects, with the support of many other organisations and institutions including Caltech, et al. Even if we ignore the difference in contexts, NASA remains a very different organisation from ISRO. AK is just hand-waving, I am afraid. His grip on ISRO or NASA is weak to non-existent.

Then, what should we compare ISRO to? Answer: nothing. ISRO has its own user context, resource constraints, methodologies, ethos and most importantly, philosophy/ideology. It is doing miraculously well in a very difficult situation, particularly since the advent of the neo-liberal era in India. So, leave it the fcsk alone.

I was also shocked at the reference to NASA as ISRO’s competition. What rubbish! These are two publicly funded organisations which are directed by their respective governments. How on earth can they be competitors unless either of these governments has made a declaration to such an effect, as was made during the Cold War era in respect of the Soviets? AK’s is worse than a layman’s perspective.

Lecturing India from abroad

Right from the days of SITE I have been witness to many projects involving diffusion and induction of advanced technology in India, several led/supported by foreign agencies or Indians abroad. The goal has always been to find the broadest user base, to harvest the maximum public good. Given our limited resources, that seems to be the most ethical strategy for everyone to adopt and ISRO has remained true to this ethic. I have never seen any of the collaborating foreigners/NRIs behave like supercilious racists out to condemn a whole society for not being a match for the global elite.

If I do some across any such, I can only tell them to get out of my face. Not only am I thin-skinned, I am also sensible like that ;)

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