K. Radhakrishnan, former chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that the nation was globally competitive for commercial of space exploration.
Interacting with the faculty at Mahatma Gandhi Unversity on Monday, Dr Radhakrishnan pointed out that per capital expenditure for India’s space programme is among the lowest among the big six. “Our per capita expense of our space programme is only $3 while that of China is $7.5 and that of United States, $123,” he pointed out. Though we are ranked sixth among the space powers, with the US, Russia, European Consortium, Japan and China behind.
“However, the other powers are keen to learn from our experiences,” he said. According to him, our space programmes till Mangalyaan have an identity of their own in their approach to the space programme, he said and pointed out that 90 per cent of the projects have direct bearing on the people’s needs like telecommunications, remote sensing, metereology, defence and 10 per cent for scientific pursuits.
Dr Radhakrishnan pointed out that per capital expenditure for India’s space programme is among the lowest among the big six.