Last evening – 23rd August 2023 – I was on the ISRO website, watching in awe that turned to delight as Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander gently settled on the South Pole of the Moon, 386,000 km away from us.

And now, even while I write this, the little robotic Pragyan buggy is wandering about that incredibly bleak and cold plain like a cautious and patient beetle on wheels, setting up and testing its instruments to conduct an array of scientific experiments which will be live-streamed back to ISRO and Earth as lunar dawn breaks over the Pole…a dawn that will almost instantly become daylight of a brilliance that we Earthings cannot imagine, even though the Sun will hover just above the lunar horizon. And this coming lunar day will last 14 Earth days, and raise the temperature of the flatlands around Vikram and Pragyan from (-) 100 degrees C to a broiling (+) 50 degrees C….even while the permanently shadowed regions below tall mountains and in the depths of craters will remain a metal-cracking (-) 200 degrees C.

I read a lot of science fiction in my time. This unfolding reality on the Moon awakens so many memories: of the timeless, often prescient stories of H G Wells, Isaac Asimov, Walter M Miller; ofArthur C Clarke’s ‘A fall of moondust’ and ‘2001: a space odyssey’…

It also brings memories of an op-ed article I wrote just over 20 years ago (Jan 2003), in response to an Indian Express editorial on the mathematician Ramanujan; an editorial that, I felt, exhibited the shallow – almost fashionable – cynicism with which much of Indian media regarded (and, alas, continue to regard) any scientific achievements by Indians. Here it is:

Signs of good science

http://archive.indianexpress.com/oldStory/16583/

The editorial ‘Remember Ramanujan?’ (IE, January 5) observes that there is ‘very little happening in Indian science and technology’. Actually, the women and men who have designed and launched our weather and communication satellites, found new ways to store N-wastes, sequenced the rice genome, developed Bt cabbage and biodiesel… they, and others like them, are doing world-class, original science.

Our own lack of scientific temper makes us reluctant to acknowledge Indian work until its worth is ‘certified’ by some western agency, a perilous tendency in today’s fiercely competitive world. G.H. Hardy, who discovered the genius of Ramanujan, was not the first mathematician to be sent Ramanujan’s manuscripts. As C.P. Snow reveals, there had been two before him, men who ‘do not emerge out of the story with credit.’ Both were English mathematicians, both of the highest professional standards; yet each returned Ramanujan’s manuscripts without comment… and this was in 1913!

Recently, a team of scientists headed by N.C. Wickramasinghe conducted a series of balloon experiments and discovered that viable living cells are falling to Earth from outer space at the rate of a few tonnes per day. The evidence confirms the theory proposed by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe in 1981 that all life on Earth has sprung from living cells stored for aeons in frozen interstellar gas-clouds, and that these cells constantly travel to Earth via comets on the pressure of solar radiation.

‘‘Genes are to be regarded as cosmic,’’ they wrote. ‘‘They arrive at the Earth as DNA or RNA, either as full-fledged cells, or as viruses, viroids, or simply as separated fragments of genetic material. The genes are ready to function when they arrive… The problem for terrestrial biology is not therefore to originate the genes, but to assemble them into whatever functioning biosystems the environment of the Earth will permit…’’

The implications are staggering. This effectively scotches the idea that life developed from some kind of ‘primordial soup’; Darwinian ‘natural selection’ is reduced to a mere fine-tuning mechanism that develops variety within living species! Among Wickramasinghe’s team were two Indian scientists Jayant V. Narlikar and P. Rajaratnam.

Yet how little attention we have paid to their work; how quickly we have forgotten them.

Indeed, there is need for more funding for R&D, for research institutions to be freed from the stifling, enervating clutches of babudom. But we too must understand that technology spins off from long-term missions; that progress in science, as in sports, comes only from hard work and perseverance; that far more important than applauding success, is consistent support and encouragement in times of failure.

We need to talk and write more about science in mainstream media. And especially, we must shed our habit of greeting every new idea with withering contempt. Not long ago, Dr Kalam’s idea of a Moon mission was met with widespread opposition, even derision. Yet today, we bemoan the fact that China has stolen ahead in the race by launching its first space launch vehicle.

[P.S.: Isn’t it wonderful how India has not just caught up but forged ahead in this race…hats and topis off to ISRO and the multitude of organizations and industries and academic institutes and individuals, young and old, that have striven through these decades to make Chandrayaan-3 and other space missions reality…more power to them, in the space laps that lie ahead! ]