The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Space discussions mark final day at ‘Shaastra 2007’

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Tuesday, Oct 09, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Space discussions mark final day at ‘Shaastra 2007’

Staff Reporter

Curtains down on the annual technical festival of IIT-M

CHENNAI: When ‘Shaastra 2007,’ the annual technical festival of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) concluded here on Sunday, even the little robots looked a bit tired.

The campus was abuzz with students of engineering attempting to build various prototypes and machines in the last one week.

Robowars

One of the events held on the final day ‘Robowars’ saw two small footballer-robots compete to hit a goal. Top scorers in a written quiz were short-listed to operate the two robots — one white and another black. With commentary from one of the students from the host institute going on, participants crowded around the small field created for the two robots, and cheered their friends. As the smaller events were about to get over, it was time for one of the most awaited sessions of the festival, a panel discussion on Chandrayaan, the proposed and first unmanned lunar mission of India.

M. Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan 1, said that after people heard about the mission, their perspective of the country and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has considerably changed. “We have already begun work on Chandrayaan 2 and though it is a national programme, international collaboration has become vital in today’s context,” he said.

Rajaram Nagappa, formerly with the ISRO, said earlier missions’ primary objective was “Orbit, land and return. Now, it is orbit, land, prepare to stay and return.”

Quoting Russian rocket scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who said “Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever,” Prof. Nagappa said man needed to explore other spaces he can possibly inhabit in future. While the field may not pay as much as the IT sector, it certainly offered enormous challenges and exciting research prospects, he added.

Programme manager of Chandrayaan 1 Jayati Dutta said the ISRO’s mandates included the use of scientific applications for the development of the country. These attempts, besides targeting this objective, also drew students to disciplines related to basic sciences.

Benefits

Speaking on the benefits of space research for society, she said the ISRO’s remote sensing satellites mapped water bodies and forests. The tele-education and tele-medicine programmes were also successful models of research in the area penetrating to rural areas, she added.

Scientist Guruprasad Rao said India was progressing fast in the field and sophisticated space services needed to be added to India’s list of export items soon, he said.

Shantakumar, professor in the Aerospace Engineering department of IIT-M, said the admission trends indicated that more students showed interest in the stream, despite the “waning of the Kalam effect.”

He said more industry and academia participation in aerospace research was important.

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