A Twitter exchange between two vehicles operating outer space went viral in September 2014. NASA's Curiosity Rover, which had been on the Mars surface for two years, tweeted “Namaste @MarsOrbiter [the official account of India's Mangalyaan Mars probe]” and congratulated India on its first interplanetary mission. Mangalyaan quipped, “Howdy @MarsCuriosity? Keep in touch. I’ll be around.”
Within the first four hours of setting up its Twitter account, @MarsOrbiter had more than 32,000 followers and #Mangalyaan, #IndiaAtMars, #MarsOrbiterMission and #Martian were among the top 10 Twitter trends in India. This was one of the rare instances of a space-related topic being discussed by a mass audience in India. Apart from the historic space missions such as Chandrayaan, other activities by the Indian space communities are hardly heard by the hoi polloi. And, landmark lunar missions, unfortunately, are not weekly events.
Narayan Prasad’s podcast, NewSpace India, attempts to fill this lacuna in Indian space discourse. In his biweekly podcast, he interviews experts (including authors, researchers, scientists and lawyers) to shed light on the less-discussed areas related to space programs. The guests so far on the podcast include Arup Dasgupta, former ISRO scientist, Vasudevan Mukunth, the science editor of The Wire , and Rakesh Sasibhushan, the Chairman and Managing Director of Antrix Corporation.
Narayan co-founded Satsearch, a search engine for the space industry. He also started a Bengaluru-based company, Dhruva Space in 2012, which builds and launches small satellites. He did an Erasmus Mundus SpaceMaster (graduate course) with a scholarship from EGIDE (French Embassy Scholarship) at the end of which he got a Master in Space Technology, Sweden and a Master in Space Techniques and Instrumentation, France.
In one of his episodes, Narayan says, “There are hundreds of books that discuss the space programs from NASA or even the ones from Russia. And we read about the same characters. When it comes to Indian space programs, there is very little literature, apart from the academic stuff, that discusses the intricacies involved from the perspective of a general audience.”
Narayan wasn’t a space geek as a child. His interest in the subject, he says, happened by accident. “While doing mechanical engineering [in 2007], my friends and I were developing microwave vehicles, which are now called drones. One of our professors, made us collaborate on a project with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. So, that is how it started.”
Narayan’s podcast is just a part of the larger NewSpace India community that he started in 2015. “I have written a lot of articles for journals and edited a book. But the readership would always be little. When I started listening to podcasts from India, I thought this was a better way of discussing space-related stuff.”
The episodes of NewSpace India podcast — started seven months ago — get downloaded 650 times, according to Narayan. About 40% of the podcast’s audience is overseas. He reckons there is a lot of interest in space in India as well but the knowledge about it is less. “Whenever I interact with students, I can see their fascination for the topic. But that is not enough. We need to see how to build a career in it or analysing our space policies.”
For future episodes, Narayan wishes to focus on the history of India’s space programs. “Out of my first 15 episodes, only in two or three, I have discussed what happened in the 70s and 80s. I want to go back further and speak to the guys who worked in the 60s. They will all be quite old and it’s important to record their stories now.”
NewSpace India is available on Spotify, Player FM and other leading streaming services.
