New Delhi: K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific advisor to the Indian government has stressed on the point that the first manned space mission by the Indian Space Research Organization will happen according to the schedule as the programme was finalized a few years ago.

“This mission is not happening out of the blue, nor is it a coincidence. We were giving shape to this mission for a while,” Mr. Raghavan told PTI-Bhasha in an interview.

Mr. Raghavan is considered to be one of the most distinguished biologists and was appointed as the principal scientific advisor in March.

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government created the post of the principal scientific advisor in 1999. The PSA has got the authority as the topmost advisor to the government on scientific policy matters.

On Independence Day this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will put a man or woman in the space through mission ‘Gaganyaan’ by the year 2022. And as per that, Mr. Raghavan said that the space agency is working to achieve the target of completing the mission as per the schedule.

But, he also acknowledged the fact that the project is nothing less than a challenge, and added that India has got the expertise required to successfully complete the whole mission on its own.

When he was asked about the government being advised by the scientists to take help from experienced countries like US and Russia for the ‘Gaganyaan’ mission, he said that the nature of science and technology itself is of collaboration.

“Russia and the US are leaders in space and science and technology. Discussions with them are natural,” he said.

Many of the questions raised regarding the money spent on expensive space mission was dismissed by Mr. Raghavan. According to him, the questions are not as of new and said that such questions were raised during ISRO’s previous missions too.

The principal advisor said that during the initial period of the project, people raised such questions to why India was investing so much amount of money to send rockets in space, but the space agency of ISRO benefited a lot from these investments.

“We can anticipate the short-term and long-term benefits of this (Gaganyaan) mission,” Mr. Raghavan said.

He further said that if India is to link the manned mission with the startup sector and industry, it may be the only leading country to launch such a technology mission in the world.

As of now, India depended on imports of electronic spare parts and many other such types of equipment and “we can use this manned mission to promote domestic industry and science”, he said.

When a question was posed about training astronauts and developing the support system for the proposed mission for space, he said: “training is one of the important elements as it helps in evolving the human psychology in challenging circumstances”.

According to him, the manned space mission would propel India further ahead of other countries  in the area of science and technology especially, as it will inspire the young generation of India and as a result, Indians will feel proud of it, he concluded.

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