Delhi, November 21 (PTI): It is unfair to describe the “Chandrayaan Mission” as a failure as technologically the launch was successful, Union Minister of State for Department of Space Jitendra Singh said in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

 

The setback in the landing has only made India’s resolve stronger to carry on with the lunar mission. The experience will help in cutting costs in future missions, the Minister said.

 

The entry into the Earth’s orbit was successful. The entry into the lunar orbit was successful. Orbiter is very much there. ..Only in the last 30 kilometers “this incident took place, which I would not describe as a failure. This has made us wiser. ... Chandrayaan had quite a successful journey uptil now.” Scientific objectives were accomplished including moon surface mapping, topographical studies, radar-based studies etc, the Minister added.

THIS response is in tune with the national mood. More importantly, it states facts as facts, uncoloured. Actually, the response speaks of how modern man has looked at science and its progress -- stage by stage, through thick and thin of setbacks and advances. Each step gained is success, each step underachieved is only a point on the learning curve, each moment of journey is advancement. For, in all these is hidden the purpose of science -- to excel itself, to supersede its earlier progress.

 

This is exactly what the nation thinks about Chandrayaan Mission. Nobody assigns failure to the project. Much to the contrary, everybody takes the crashing of the Vikram Lander on the lunar surface just a whisker away from total success as a point in the learning trajectory. Of course, we learned so much from it. And who said that even the US or other countries achieved success on the first try! -- common Indian people exclaim. This is not false pride; its legitimacy is just breathtaking!

 

Several forays into outer space have flunked. Several launches have been aborted. Several landings have ended up in crashes. Men -- and women -- have got killed in failed missions, precious money has got blown up in smoke minutes away from safe return to Earth, several scientists have faced terrible depression just because they could not attain the set goals.

 

Yet, the larger human community has refused to describe any project of science as an utter failure. For, even in that failure there was so much to learn, so much to take home by way of knowledge. In fact, the setbacks, like the crashed landing of the Chandrayaan Mission, have added to Man’s knowledge of advanced science, cemented his resolve to do better next time.

 

Next time!

This is a very powerful phrase with poetic metaphor. For, despite the setback, everybody involved in audacious projects believes that there is going to be a next time and the next and the next ...!

This is how tremendous progress has been achieved by Man -- on all fronts: From landing on the lunar surface to skimming and scanning the sea beds. From the outer rim of the known universe to the centre of the Earth. From the study of human skin, the largest organ of human body, to the individual cell as the smallest component of human architecture.

 

But each of these successes are not treated as successes per se nor are they treated as failures if the stated goals are not achieved. Everything is learning, and Mr. Jitendra Singh is talking about all this mental process. This is how the metaphor of science has to be understood.

 

True, in those few minutes in the nightly hours in India, everybody lived or died many times whenever ‘good’ or ‘not so good’ word came about how Vikram Lander was proceeding. There might not have been actual prayers on every lip, but there were prayers in every heart.

 

That was the actual success of the Chandrayaan Mission, the details notwithstanding. It galvanised the Indian nation -- as well as human race -- into one person, hoping for the best, wishing success not to the Indian Mission but to the human quest of science.

 

No matter how much progress Man has made in science, every step has been accompanied by certain anxieties, certain uncertainties, certain hidden confidence but also certain tenuous hopes. Vikram Lander’s indolent trajectory -- as it seemed from Earth -- was one great example how human mind oscillated between hope and disappointment. Everything was sensable to machines and not to the human ability to see or sense anything. Yet, millions of human minds were attached by an invisible cord with Vikram Lander -- not just in India but everywhere in the world. For, for reasons far beyond explanation or logic, the world wanted the Indian mission to succeed -- a condition far from the one available when Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and his colleagues were making first forays into space more than fifty years ago. Then, the world laughed at India. Now, the world laughs with India -- a laugh of happy experimentation.

It is not possible actually to calibrate the weight of such moments. It is not possible to celebrate fully such moments. For, each moment is accompanied by rather traumatic oscillation between gladness and sadness. Chandrayaan Mission represented all that mental process, all that internal push-and-pull of human emotion. When Mr. Jitendra Singh said that the Chandrayaan Mission should not be unfairly described as a failure, he was only highlighting the details of the mental process that has often underlined progress in every field, science included.

 

This is not poetry one would want others to believe. This is just a statement of a universally-felt human emotion which is everybody’s treasure.