However, India is not lagging behind. It has sent a setalite to Mars. The $72m probe was sent to orbit the earth last year. According to Indian sources, the mission was achieved at an extraordinary low price of one-tenth of what a similar mission would have cost the advanced nations like the US and Russia.
And India is the first country to have the Mars mission succeed at the first attempt. This is no mean achievement for a so called third world country.
The country’s second mission, not necessarily an Orbiter Mission like the previous one, could take place between the years 2018 to 2020. But then wasn’t it India that invented the zero, without which no scientific discovery would have been possible? It was in India that the first flying machine of any kind was dreamed of.
We cannot forget the “Pushpak Viman” in Ramayan and that the first Jain Tirankhar, Adinath Bhagwan, used to fly to reach his abode on Mount Shatrunjay in Palitana.
Dinesh Sheth
Newbury Park, Ilford
