Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'A job well begun is half done!' that was published in Newsband

A job well begun is half done!

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle has left home and is on its way to Mars on the first leg of a voyage of scientific discovery. It performed its task with impeccable ease. A job well begun is half done!

A long and difficult trek now lies ahead of the spacecraft. It is on a journey of 680 million kilometres that will take almost 300 days to complete.

So far only the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Europe have succeeded in getting spacecraft to the fourth planet from the Sun. Japan also had made an attempt but failed. China also had tried but in vain. If India does triumph with its Mars mission, it will have stolen a march on its Asian rivals.

The Mars Mission draws attention of the country to the tremendous and successful efforts of our scientists in Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) which has made the launch successful. When advanced countries spend millions and billions to realize any space mission, whereas India with very less amount of resources has tried to go ahead in its mission to help the world to explore the unknown secrets in Mars.  That’s remarkable!

Every scientific development and initiative has a deep rooted benefit to the society. Knowledge is power. Our youth need not go overseas to learn and work with advanced space technology. India needs to horn its skills and knowledge to face the future challenges. Events like this will inspire all the Indians to unitedly work for the development of the nation.

Prime aim behind Red Planet Mission is to know whether there is Methane in space there. This will let us know whether there was life over there once upon a time. This is because Methane is formed out of presence of some bacteria on surface. If we succeed in proving that the element is present there we will know the reasons behind how the life ended over there and thus we can prevent that happening in our planet which is the earth. These facts could not be traced by US Rovers on Mar's surface. So if India does it we will have scored a kind of victory over the US.  

Some people are wondering if a poor country like India should invest in space activities. India has already benefited by the information provided by its satellites. The Mars exploration will surely help to nurture talent, help talented scientists within the country and use to our advantage the data gathered from the probe.

India should not hesitate in doing still further space research simply because it has a swelling cadre of scientific personnel with the know-how comparable to US and Russia in the aerospace research. Our government has an obligation to give useful employment to this people. Otherwise, these people will be frustrated and will slowly leave for greener pastures in US and Russia! Hopefully, this Mars mission will be successful, unlike the ones of Japanese and Chinese, which will bring enormous prestige to India's scientists. We need to wait for about 10 months to know this.

What America accomplished with 2808 crores, we have done with 450 crores. Once again hats off to all who worked behind the Mars Orbiter Mission and let the 300 day wait be a fruitful one.