THINK BEYOND THE BOUNDARY

My Dear Friends,

We all are from different places, our thinking is different from each other, our lifestyle is completely different and so on we have so many differences in each other. We have categories these differences in terms of nationalities, race & religions and many more such boundaries. Even in each category, we do have different sub-categories in the same pattern. We all have developed our own society at each category and/or sub-category and we are making reasonably good progress to shape our own life in a good and healthy shape, shining with flowering colours.

We have seen differences in between us. Now, if we will narrow down and go towards the grass root of the chart, we will find a similarity, i.e. we all are humans. Yes, above all categories and sub-categories, societies, nationalities, religions, we all are just and just humans – no differences at all.

With due respect to all the differences between us, is it not possible for us to remember the biggest similarity in between us? Can’t we have GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP and HUMANITY RELIGION? If we want, we can think beyond the differences. Why not we utilize our difference of opinions in a productive way to develop and for the betterment of our HUMAN SOCIETY? Just on a polite note, I’d like to say that if root is strong and healthy, the tree will be healthier and decorated with flowers and sweet fruits. Let’s make our root strong enough to decorate our life with peace, harmony, love and joy.

In India, there is an ancient adage – “Vasudhaiv Kautumbakam”, which means THE WORLD IS ONE BUT A FAMILY! We all are different flowers decorated into bouquet of Human Society. We shall take this opportunity to make the bouquet special with our aroma of GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP and HUMANITY rather than just making it beautiful.

I am only one of you all, from the bouquet. I do believe that it looks nice in wordings, BUT I strongly believe that it is practically possible. We need to have desire for doing it. If we dream of peaceful, harmonious, loving and beautiful planet Earth, in order to achieve dream, we must take the initiative to contribute ourselves. First of all we need to enhance our knowledge, respect ourselves as well as the differences between us. If we’ll bring happiness in our family – which is at the end of some sub-category in the chart, gradually, it will be spread amongst the societies, sub-categories and categories. This is how the dream will be fulfilled and bouquet of GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP will be special aromatic by fragrance of HUMANITY.

The only conclusion can be WORLD IS OURS, THINK BEYOND THE BOUNDARY!!!

- Rushi GHADAWALA

Life...

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life."

How? Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different and each of us is special. Don't set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you. Don't take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as they would be your life. For without them, life is meaningless.

Don't let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life. Don't give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying. Don't be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us to each together.

Don't be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave. Don't shut love out of your life by saying it's impossible to find time. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings. Don't run through life so fast that you forget not only where you've been, but also where you are going.

Don't forget, a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated. Don't be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. Don't use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Life is not a race, but a journey to be savoured each step of the way.

Let's evaluate ourselves

Recently I came across a discussion on participation of international artists in a reality show in India. I was shocked when I heard the question, "Why international artists including our neighbour countries are allowed to participate into an Indian reality show?"

According to me, this is really serious question for disturbing our ancient culture which defines global citizenship ("Vasudaaiv Kautumbakam"). Art, Science & Technology, development and all cultural activities are boundless, such "dirty politics" MUST BE kept away from all these for the sake of humanity and harmony. When we are talking about global citizenship, secularism, development, harmony... etc, at that time, I do not think that there is necessity of such questions, representing our conservative mindsets!

Let me take you to the opening and closing ceremonies of commonwealth games, recently concluded in India. We all have enjoyed the splendid performances by various artists. To make the ceremonies successful, lots of people have worked so hard, day and night, though nature was not supporting earlier and there was flood like situation in many parts of the city earlier. The dedication of the workers, artists and players brought flowering colours at the end which we all have seen. Each coin has two sides, likewise, there are also some serious mistakes taken place before the games, but instead of looking towards WHAT IS DONE, we have focused on WHAT IS LEFT AND WHAT IS WRONG!! Many of us will say and I also agree that responsible persons should be penalised, BUT at the same time, why we forgot to encourage the enthusiasm and efforts of the people behind the grand success of the entire event? We have clapped and felt proud during the events when we have seen what we like and what makes us to feel proud, but before that, we haven't left anything to abuse the people behind it.

Similarly, there are many people from all the regions who have played an important role in the development of the nation or served themselves to bring glory to India and make our country in real sense shining! The people from this category falls only in one region - region of humanity, development and harmony. Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, Mr. Ratan Tata, Mr. Javed Akhtar, Ms. Lata Mangeshkar, Dr. Narayan Murthy, Dr. Aambedkar... and the list continues including bollywood stars, scientists, artists, industrialists and many more people across the country. The reason behind mentioning a few names is just to show that art, culture, development, science & technology are above all boundaries and these are only a few names from the large society.

It is not our fault, we have always focused on negativity till now. I am not saying that we should not look over our negativity or ignore the mistakes, on just a polite note, how if learn from mistakes and start encourage enthusiasm, positivity and support for the development. We used to say proudly that we believe in Global Citizenship, Humanity and Equality. Now, let's put it into practise rather than just saying for the sake of it. YES, we need to wake up and we need to evaluate ourselves first rather than evaluating others.

Issues, Opportunities and Challenges posed by Space Tourism as an Industry

The Space Tourism industry is a relatively new phenomenon and is only expected to grow further with the progress of this century. Companies have already announced plans to launch people into suborbital space. Yet only in the nascent stage, the industry is generating huge expectations, not only from the people willing to experience a dream fight in space, but even from a larger circle, including the people working behind to make this phenomenon a success and the governments looking forward to it. With such huge potential, promising opportunities, one must not forget it as an industry, a sensitive one, where there are issues and challenges other than safety, which obviously is the greatest challenge the industry faces. The paper highlights these issues and the challenges it may need to overcome, along with the opportunities that the industry promises of, for it to grow.

What is Space Tourism ???

Space Tourism is the term that's come to be used to mean ordinary members of the public buying tickets to travel to space and back. Many people find this idea futuristic. But over the past few years a growing volume of professional work has been done on the subject, and it's now clear that setting up commercial space tourism services is a realistic target for business today.

The first steps will just be short sub-orbital flights, made in 1961, since these are easier than getting to orbit. But the technical know-how to make passenger launch vehicles and orbiting hotel accommodation is available, and there is enormous unsatisfied demand - market research has revealed that most people, at least in the industrialized countries, would like to take a trip to space if it was possible. This gives huge scope for reducing the cost of space travel by large-scale operation like airlines.

The main obstacle is simply the conservatism of the space industry as it is today. Since Sputnik was launched in 1957 most space activities have been funded by governments.

And this "cold war" pattern of space activities has created an image of space that colors everyone’s thinking about it - writers, journalists, politicians, scientists and engineers, and the general public. Even science fiction writers assume as obvious that most space activities will always be government activities.

As on Earth, so in Space:

On Earth governments provide a number of services, defence, police, a legal system. But most activities are private - done by individuals and companies. Well, it's going to be the same in space. Now days space agencies' budgets are being cut. True, so far, instead of using their huge funding to try to develop a profitable business like space tourism, the agencies are continuing the same activities - even though taxpayers aren't so interested any more.

However, the general public is very interested in traveling to space for themselves. So after some false starts in the 1950s, 60s and 80s, work towards realizing space tourism is finally starting to gather some momentum. And the reasons why it is going to happen this time include:

• Because people want it
• Because it's a realistic objective
• Because it's the only way in which space activities can become profitable
• Because it's the quickest way to start to use the limitless resources of space to solve our problems on Earth
• Because living in space involves every line of business, from construction to marketing, fashion, interior-design and law

And not least,

• Because it will be fun!

It is worth to note that developing low-cost passenger launch vehicles is not just to create a pastime for the rich. In business, the companies that make big money are the ones that serve big markets. Like tourism on Earth, there will be a small expensive segment for the rich - but the great majority of space tourists will be middle-class customers - the greater majority of us.

But utilizing space depends on access. Until access is cheap, we can't make use of the limitless resources available in space to solve the problems of our ever-more-crowded Earth. But once access is cheap then we can. And to make it cheap we need large turnover. Tourism can generate the large-scale launch activity needed to reduce costs sufficiently to start to use space resources - and so it's one of the most important projects in the world today.

That is, commercial space activities today include satellites being used for communications, broadcasting and photography (remote sensing). But these are small businesses - no more than a few $billions per year - that will never need humans in space. So "commercial space activities" today are not leading towards space tourism.

Consequently specific efforts need to be made to set up space tourism services, because they won't happen as a natural consequence of present-day space activities. Some people say "Developing space tourism is very difficult, so it'll take a long time. Leave it to the government space agencies." But the agencies already spend around more than $25 billion per year on "space activities" - and they are not trying to develop launch vehicles that could open space up to the public. Barely 2% of their budgets are used for this purpose - although even just one year of their huge funding would be plenty!

So Space Future is playing its part by collecting all the work that is going on, and making it accessible, to help people to understand that this is the way to the space age.

Phases of Space Tourism:

Like any other business, once space tourism gets started it will develop progressively. It can be helpful to think of it as going through several phases. Starting with a relatively small-scale and relatively high-priced "pioneering phase", the scale of activity will grow and prices will fall as it matures. Finally it will become a mass-market business, like aviation today.

Pioneering phase

The phrase "space adventure travel" has been suggested by Gordon Woodcock of Boeing, and is a convenient one to describe the first phase. Customers will be relatively few - from hundreds per year to thousands per year; prices will be high, $50,000 and up; and the service will be nearer to "adventure travel" than to luxury hotel-style. Orbital accommodation will be safe but "Spartan".

Mature phase

This will see demand growing from thousands of passengers per year to hundreds of thousands per year. Tickets to orbit will cost less and flights will depart from many different airports. Orbital facilities will grow from being just clusters of pre-fabricated modules to large structures constructed.

Mass phase

Ticket prices will fall to equivalent of a few $ thousands and customers will from hundreds of thousands to millions per year. Apparently, unthinkable to most people in the space industry, even 1 million passengers per year is just 8 hours of aviation! And aviation is still growing fast at today's level of 1 billion passengers per year. So there's no reason to suppose that space travel will ever stop growing. There's certainly no limit to the possible destinations. And the access to space resources that low cost launch will bring about will ensure that economic growth needn't end for a few more millennia at least!

Space tourism is an idea whose time has come. It's going to start soon, and it's going to grow rapidly, generating the funds needed to open up space to a wide range of human activities

The main problem about space is how much it costs to get there: it's too expensive and risky! And that's mainly because launch vehicles are expendable - either entirely, like satellite launchers, or partly, like the space shuttle.

So we need reusable launch vehicles. The trouble is that these will not only reduce the cost of launch - they'll also put the makers out of business, unless there's more to launch than just a few satellites a year, as there are today. Fortunately there's a market that will generate far more launch business than satellites ever well - passenger travel. Market Research has shown that the idea of space tourism is very popular. And so, just like aviation, the launch industry is going to find that most of its business will be carrying passengers.

But this idea of Space Tourism isn't at all familiar to most people, including the space industry, who are used to the idea that space is for research or military activities. Few people are aware of how much work has been done to show that tourism is a realistic goal, and how rapidly this work is now progressing. Once travel to orbit becomes a commercial service, the question of how to get to space will be mainly one of saving up for a ticket - or looking for work in one of the many space hotels that will be built. Space offers unique pleasures including the view, and zero gravity activities that provide a whole range of things to do on an orbital holiday - including space sports.

Importantly, and contrary to what many people assume, the space agencies are not at all interested in space tourism, and are not trying to bring it about. This is a pity because space activities will never be profitable until tourism services begin, remaining small-scale, expensive, and dependent on taxes which come from you - which would you prefer?

Compiled from IAC-10.E6.3.3 by R. Ghadawala, R. Shah, P. Chokshi, J. Desai, P. Roy

Make the Change or Be the Change

To,

My dear fellow citizens of India.

I am one of the voices of Indian Youth. Today, I would like to take this opportunity to share my view and feelings with you all. Our beloved motherland – India has always been at heart of all of us. We have made a remarkable growth at Global platform. Our economy, science & technology, literature, culture & traditions, heritage and thoughts are setting very good examples to the world. This is only because of the appreciable dedication and contribution of Indians. Ours is the one of the top most largest economies in the world, our film industry is getting accepted by the world, our banking and finance sectors are considered amongst the top most categories in the world, our industry is providing valuable support in development of our country, we have reached to the moon and now aiming for human space flights, our scientists are welcomed and appreciated by the world…etc. The list may last long! I feel really blessed to get birth in this country.

So far we are part of a developing nation and we all, contributing ourselves, directly or indirectly for our country’s development. This is what we are seeing one side of our development, which we like. But, on the other hand, we have still very serious issues like child labour, educational illiteracy, poverty, racism, corruption, environmental pollution, dirty politics…etc. All these issues are curable. What required is just attention. Yes, we do have violence in our nation! Our country requires the burning issues like these to be resolved at the earliest. Ours is one of the largest economies in the world, we have so many rich people in our country, BUT if we’ll look at other side, we will find that there are people who cannot afford to get enough food. Today, we can travel across the globe, at the same time, a small poor handicapped child might be struggling to cross the road. We go to hotels and restaurants, eat luxurious foods and most of them we waste just because we didn’t like the taste, at the same time, a family in a small village somewhere in India might be eating with a couple of dry Chapatis and Daal, which they have got after entire day’s relentless work. We destroy natural greenery just for sake of establishing our so called “eco-friendly” offices or residences. Our children are getting the best education from the leading institutes and universities across the world; where as, many of the poor children are not getting education and ruining their life starting with child labour. We organize charity shows and other programmes for communal harmony, but majority of us are not ready to accept people – out of our community, into our society!

My dear friends, I am not blaming you for any of these. I am one of you all only. You might be contributing in resolving any of issue(s) which is indeed highly appreciable. I have seen so many scholarship opportunities and funding support from various NGOs and trusts set up by many of us. Many of us might be providing support for green environment, child education, communal harmony…etc. I really value and appreciate. We all are doing our best – what so ever we can – for the development of our country and for the humanity. How if we just move steps ahead, join our hands and make the best of the bests! We need to come out of “I DID” or “YOU DID” mind frames and convert them into “WE DID”. The ancient adage “Vasudhaaiv Kautumbakam – The world is one but a family” is looking good on paper and sounds better in speeches, BUT it will look glorious when practically implemented. If we all join our hands and will work together, we’ll surely get rid of the obstacles which are coming in the way for development of our country and our society. Many of you will think that this young man has good idea but doesn’t have knowledge of the system; he doesn’t know anything and just speaking! I agree, but with due respect, I would like to ask the question to you. I appreciate you might have more experience and knowledge than me, then why you haven’t done something so far! My intention is not to hurt anybody’s sentiments and I highly respect you all from the bottom of my heart. I believe that it is more important to take initiative to do something.

My suggestions might be old , but they are for humanity and I am just trying to put them into action. So, let’s make a joint effort. Let’s plant a small tree or take care of a tree, let’s provide food and/or education to the people who cannot afford, let’s make a clean, green developed nation, if we do not want to do anything, no worries! Let’s make others aware and spare at least 5 minutes for country. Even if we don’t want to do this, still no problem. Let’s make ourselves the best to serve our country, this is how we can make a better society to live, a better society will make our country the best. I believe that we all will be happy to live in such a country with harmony, development, education, technology, peace, love and joy. If we cannot provide fuel, at least provide "igniting spark" to burn the fuel. Either make the change or be the change!

I know that we all are so busy in our routine, but we can spare at least something from our busy schedule which will contribute for our country. My humble and polite request you all to please spread the message and join our hands for the betterment of the life and for humanity.

Thank you all for your valuable time.

With respect and regards,

Rushi GHADAWALA

Space Technology and Disaster Management

For the monitoring & management of natural or man made disasters sequential information on the changes of nature and the environment is essential. Now a days space technology integrated with GIS has emerged as a most sophisticated information related technology & useful tool in the monitoring and management of environment and natural disaster and hence helps in taking proper measures for pre & post disaster management.

Severity of an event either natural or man-made that causes unbearable harm to the people and goes beyond their capacity to remedy the loss may be termed a disaster. Disasters are of a wide variety depending on the location of a country on the globe. Cyclones, floods, droughts, earth quakes, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, landslides, erosions etc are among the important natural disasters while there are human induced epidemics like environmental degradation, diseases, war etc.

During the past four decades, natural hazards such as dust storms, sever storms and tropical cyclones, droughts, floods, earthquakes, forest fires, and volcanic eruptions, oil spills have caused major loss of human lives and livelihoods, the destruction of economic and social infrastructure, as well as environmental damages. Economic losses have increased almost ten times. During this period. Losses from natural disasters will continue to increase if we do not shift towards proactive solutions. Disaster reduction is both an issue for consideration in sustainable development agenda and a cross cutting issue relating to social, economic, environmental and humanitarian sectors.

Early warning systems must be more than a technological instrument to detect, monitor and submit warning/alert. It should also include risk assessment and combine efforts by all sectors to plan ahead and build people’s capacity to respond rapidly at the local level and more specifically, to identify increasing vulnerabilities in their communities. It need to become part of a management information system for decision-masking in the context of national institutional frameworks for disaster management as part of national and local strategies and programs for disaster risk reduction.

Remote sensing owes much to the satellite technology due to its synoptic, repetitive and multi-spectral nature in observing the surface of the earth be it in connection with the resources or the disasters occurring any where on it. With the advent of satellites cloud movement and formation of cyclones can be monitored, floods can be mapped, agricultural crops can be estimated alongside assessment of damages. The resource survey satellites carry on board sensors that are capable of providing information on every natural feature that prevails on the surface of the earth. The Geographical Information System (GIS) and Earth Observation System (EOS) are another versatile tools added to the new technology which make the data acquired either through remote sensing satellites, aerial photographs or through physical surveys carried out for a purpose to be more useful to the decision makers and the planners. These technological provisions have made planning and development activities more handy towards achieving sustainable development and successful disaster management.

The present world is now a world of information superhighway. High-tech communication system brings everyone very close to each other. It revolutionizes the field of data & information transfer. Disaster management becomes a global issue and of great concern to every nation. So it is now time to launch campaign for greater and consolidated cooperation and collaboration among the countries in this earth.

Space Technology & Global Climate Change

Some of the variables essential for understanding and monitoring the climate system can be efficiently observed from space since this technology enables their systematic, global and homogeneous measurement. With global warming and climate change as major challenges to present and future generations, space technology has become crucial for collecting critical land, ocean and atmospheric data.

Earth Observation from space provides data (satellite data) that are necessary for the scientific foundation of UNFCC and the Kyoto Protocol. Climate Change is a global issue, which must be addressed with global models and global data are needed as input to these models. Earth Observation from space has unique capacity to provide such global data sets in a continuous way. However, Earth Observation from space also provides data on local (National) scales, which can help in the implementation of the convention and protocol, and support the parties in their reporting duties.

The most relevant variables that can be measured from satellite are daily global albedo (fraction of sunlight reflected back from the Earth), vegetation indices, fires and burnt areas, snow cover of both hemispheres, digital elevation maps of the ice sheet surfaces, glaciers evolution and land cover. Some of these variables are required inputs to models designed to better understand the carbon cycle, others give an immediate view of climate change impact.

The large volume of data acquired from satellite observations of sea-surface temperature has given scientists a uniquely detailed view of the changing physical characteristics of the surface of the oceans, sampled at a rate impossible to achieve with only ship-based observations. The data measured independently by several different satellite systems combines into a set of data products that represent the best measure of sea surface temperature, presented in a form that can be assimilated into ocean forecasting models.

Using SAR back-scatter images, the vegetation growth and analysis can be easily achieved with much more efficiency across a broad area. By predicting agriculture outputs well in advance in regions where people still went hungry, space technologies contributes to yet another important development goal - food security.

Thus, satellites provide globally consistent observations and the means to make simultaneous observations of diverse measurements that are essential for climate studies. They supply high-accuracy global observations of the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface that cannot be acquired by any other method. Satellite instruments supply accurate measurements on a near-daily basis for long periods and across broad geographic regions. They can reveal global patterns that ground or air sensors would be unable to detect.

- Rushi GHADAWALA

Climate Change & Global Warming

Climate change and global warming are well up on the current political agenda. There are urgent questions everyone is asking: are human activities altering the climate? Is global warming a reality? How big are the changes likely to be? Will there be more serious disasters; will they be more frequent? Can we adapt to climate change or can we change the way we do things so that we can slow down the change or even prevent it occurring?

Because the Earth's climate system is highly complex, and because human behavior and reaction to change is even more complex, providing answers to these questions is an enormous challenge to the world's scientists.

The natural climate creates one of the most important general conditions for our existence. It has repeatedly been observed that climate not only is the foundation of human civilization, but also causes its particular forms, successes and failures.

Humans are therefore either at a disadvantage or favored, depending upon their climate region. However, humankind is not merely if at all, and at all times, a creature determined by climate, and climate is not just an object of human contemplation. Climate is also partly the result of human activity, a condition recently increasingly confirmed by the scientific community.

Human-induced climate change is now recognized phenomenon. Our ability to predict how climate will change and how those changes will impact ecosystems and humans improved markedly during the last decade. Debate continues about the exact degree of future change, and there are many uncertainties. Some argue that immediate and drastic measures must be taken to control greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late. The precautionary principle (better safe than sorry !!!) is invoked. Others argue that action will be costly and should be delayed until more research is completed.

The incidence of various impacts of global warming is complex and far from uniform over the world.

There are many ways in which our current environment is being degraded due to human activities; global warming will tend to exacerbate these degradations. Sea-level rise will make the situation worse for low-lying land which is subsiding because of the withdrawal of ground water and because the amount of sediment required to maintain the level of the land has been reduced. The loss of soil due to overuse of land or deforestations will be accelerated, with increasing droughts or floods in some areas. In other places, extensive deforestation will lead to drier climate and less sustainable agriculture.

The most important impact is on water supplies, which are in any case becoming increasingly critical in many places. Some parts of the world are expected to become warmer and drier, especially in summer, with a greater likelihood of droughts; in other parts a greater incidence of floods is expected.

Because of the likely rate of climate change, there will also be a serious impact on natural ecosystems, especially at mid to high latitudes. Forests especially will be affected by increased climate stress causing substantial die-back and loss of production, associated with which is likely to be the positive feedback of additional carbon dioxide emissions.

In warmer world longer periods of heat stress will have an effect on human health; warmer temperatures will also encourage the spread of certain tropical diseases, such as malaria, to new areas.

Economists have attempted to estimate the average annual cost in money terms of the impacts which would arise under the climate change likely for the IPCC business-as-usual scenario or greenhouse gas emissions. Averaged over the world for a time around in the middle of this century, these estimates are typically around 1-1.5% of GDP for developed countries and around 5% for developing countries.

It is important to bear in mind that these estimates have concentrated on the doubled carbon dioxide scenario (in other words, next 50-60 years). If the strong action is not taken to curb carbon dioxide emissions, after the end of the century, a further doubling of the equivalent carbon dioxide concentration will have occurred and it will be continuing to rise.

However, many will ask why we should be concerned about the state of the Earth so far ahead in future. Can we not leave it to be looked after by future generations???

- Rushi GHADAWALA

Space Environment needs proper management

The rapid and wondrous pace with which mankind has changed the way of life on earth in the past six decades is a testimony to his creative brilliance and ability to convert his dreams and ideas into reality. Nations and states branded as inert economies till recently, are the new challengers and are poised to take over the mantle of global leadership. But the developments that have changed our lives unalterably, have invariably come at a price which threaten to prove these great strides to be a curse instead of the blessing that they were meant to be.

Since the 1950s, many satellites have been launched to serve as communications relay devices and image sensors Unknown to millions of inhabitants on earth, their life is being favourably influenced by space activities. Space probes, more particularly satellites in space, provide data on varied subjects which helps immensely even in our everyday life. Regrettably, in his pursuit of pushing new frontiers, he has, however, paid scant respect to the environment in space. With the impressive and spectacular advancement in space came the beginnings of space pollution. Today, space is littered with toothbrush, garbage bags, non-functional satellites and upper stages of rockets/launch vehicles. It is a matter of great concern since collisions at orbital velocities can be highly damaging to functioning satellites and can also produce even more space debris in the process. The space wreckage continues to orbit the Earth on paths that cannot be controlled from the ground. Collisions are common and pose a danger to active satellites. Proposals have been made for ways to ”sweep” space debris back into Earth’s atmosphere to absorb impacting junk and eventually fall out of orbit with them trapped inside. Innovation is needed to solve this problem and retain the use of the invaluable LEO altitudes, and a combination of manual deorbiting and graveyard orbit salvage will probably be the most doable. It is possible that, in a generation or so, the business of orbital cleanup will even be profitable, if operators are given rights to salvaged material.

What emerges as an inescapable conclusion is that life on Earth will not remain unaffected and impervious to the increasing changes in space wrought by us - and we are both the perpetrators as well as the victims. We can continue to ignore the situation only at our own peril and the incalculable harm that we are bringing on ourselves cannot be wished away by remaining in denial.

Man, by nature, is conceited and is used to working alone. But in the present scenario, we need to join our hands and fight together against the potential disasters that we might create because of our limited understanding and narrow vision. We, in India, believe in the adage ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ - the world is but one family. It is time mankind got together to make a concerted attempt and to strive and work towards to a solution so we may continue our endeavours for the betterment of life on Earth.

- Rushi GHADAWALA

Value our own assets

Recently, I took part in debate/discussion via online at CNN-IBN about Sunita William's 2nd Spaceflight, scheduled in 2012. The background was created that only Sunia William's is the female astronaut and she brought glory to India as She is Indian...

I was disappointed with the news which is shown with little bit "different" manner. Mrs. Sunita Williams has indeed done remarkable job during her last spaceflight along with her team. As a space engineer and space mission analyst, I would like to say that its not so easy to spend even 30 days in zero gravity.There are lots of work to be carried out at ISS and for that one has to do many "spacewalks". Mrs. Williams has spent around 6 months at ISS during her last spaceflight. Over there you are away from your social life and there are many physical and psychological effects on human bodies in zero gravity. Whatever she has done, it is outstanding contribution.

The issue is why it is so much highlighted, is it only because she has Indian connection? If it is, then let me tell you the recent incidence of GSAT-4 failure of ISRO. At that time media was busy in blaming the scientists for the failure. A space mission is not only of one person. There are hundreds and thousands of scientist and engineers are involved in the mission devoting a huge amount of their precious time for the mission. If the mission gets success, we appreciate, but if it gets fail, why we blame on our scientists?

I am at present carrying out research studies at Cranfield Space Research Center, Cranfield University (UK) and I involved myself in an important project to remove space debris from low earth orbits (Project DR LEO). At present, developing model to measure soil moisturement for climate change which can predict rain/flood/drought and vegetation growth, using GeoSAR images.

I am not writing about me to showcase my work or myself, BUT I am only one example !! There are lots of highly knowledgeable and senior scientist and engineers in our country, in front of them I am not even 1%. The reason behind the above view is WE HAVE ENOUGH POTENTIAL AND INTELLECTUALS then why we are keeping ourselves in BUTTERING somebody? I have been in industry from quality amount of time, I do not think that our Indian media itself, has given proper value to Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Rakesh Sharma, Dr. Madhvan Nair, Dr. Kasturirangan, Prof. Yash Pal, Dr. Satish Dhawan, Dr. Radhakrishnan, Dr. B N Suresh, Dr. Annadurai, Dr. Kalam, Dr. Selvamurthy...etc. We have such real "KOHINOORS" but still we'll prefer to praise AMERICAN DIAMOND. I am not against the appreciation for Mrs. Williams, as an astronaut, she has indeed done good work BUT she is not the only one. Why we forget Late Kalpana Chawla !!

Appreciation, of good things and good personalities like Mrs. Williams, is really matter of honor and respect, BUT too much is not good. I respect and value the appreciation and acknowledgement of remarkable work by Mrs. Williams and other astronauts, BUT on other hand also, I respect our own "Kohinoors". Apologize if I am hurting somebody's feelings, the only intention was to make us all aware that we have enough to make our country shine!

Thank you all.

Regards,

Rushi GHADAWALA