Two different states in India announce space policies
Capitalism in space: In another indication that India’s governments are going full bore for private enterprise in space, two different Indian states this week announced new space policies designed to attract private investment and space startups.
Those two states, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are shown on the map to the right. Tamil Nadu announced its new space industrial policy hopes to attract more than a billion dollars in space companies to the state. Gujaret in turn announced its own space policy aimed at attracting $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs over the next five years.
It is not surprising that Tamil Nadu has issued this policy, considering that it is the state where India’s new second spaceport, Kulasekarapattinam, is located, and is being built as a launch site for commerical operations. Gujaret is at first glance less obvious, but it houses a major facility of India’s space agency ISRO. It is also one of India’s most industrialized states.
Both however illustrate the impact of the Modi government because of its policy to encourage private enterprise and de-emphasize government control. Not only is the federal government pushing capitalism, the country’s individual states are joining in.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: In another indication that India’s governments are going full bore for private enterprise in space, two different Indian states this week announced new space policies designed to attract private investment and space startups.
Those two states, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, are shown on the map to the right. Tamil Nadu announced its new space industrial policy hopes to attract more than a billion dollars in space companies to the state. Gujaret in turn announced its own space policy aimed at attracting $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs over the next five years.
It is not surprising that Tamil Nadu has issued this policy, considering that it is the state where India’s new second spaceport, Kulasekarapattinam, is located, and is being built as a launch site for commerical operations. Gujaret is at first glance less obvious, but it houses a major facility of India’s space agency ISRO. It is also one of India’s most industrialized states.
Both however illustrate the impact of the Modi government because of its policy to encourage private enterprise and de-emphasize government control. Not only is the federal government pushing capitalism, the country’s individual states are joining in.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It will be interesting to see where Gujarat choses to site one or more launch facilities. Its geography is favorable for Vandenberg-like launch sites that favor southern azimuths for polar, sun synchronous and other high-inclination orbits. But, also like Vandy, Gujarat could support launches at shallower azimuths for such purposes as missile testing given the large ocean to its west and south.
Dick Eagleson: I don’t think Gujarat is focused at all on creating a spaceport, though of course that might happen, for the reasons you cite. Its government instead wants to encourage the wider space industry, from satellites to rocket engines etc, to settle there. Transport to the other coastal spaceports would be relatively easy, by sea.
In so many ways, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is worse than the Congress Party — they’re basically Hindu fanatics, for whom “religious liberty” is a profane word.
But when it comes to regulation, they’re a step up over Congress, which never met a stultifying bureaucracy it didn’t like.
Robert Zimmerman,
You’re likely correct, at least for the near term. As one of the more industrialized Indian states, Gujarat might prove a logical place for future construction of New Glenn-class or Starship-class rockets of Indian design when the Indian space sector advances to a point where this is possible. As with such rockets in the US, there is advantage in launching such things from a site very near to where they are produced.
Richard M,
The Brits did a good job of rounding off Hinduism’s least appetizing practices during the Raj. “Fanatic” or not, I don’t think the BJP are looking to resurrect thugee or suttee. That places them in marked contrast to the genuine fanatics of Islamic stripe who have cheerfully reconstituted every ancient Muslim vice at every opportunity.
Perhaps it is even “Hindu fanaticism” which lies behind the BJP’s less statist ways when compared to the Congress Party. Both are Hindu parties, but the BJP is low caste and the Congress is high caste. The latter were allowed to maintain their local satrapies and sultanates under the Raj and bought into a lot of imported British ideas including socialism. Socialism is always worst for people at the bottom of the economic and social scale. Thus, perhaps, a less-developed taste for statism is simply part of a rejection of those who did better under the Raj and the “Permit Wallah” that replaced it after independence.
Gujarat is, in any case, an interesting place. It was ruled by Muslims for a long time before the Brits showed up, but 7/8ths of the population are still Hindu. Only about 10% are Muslim.
Despite being mostly Hindu, though, very few Gujaratis speak Hindi. Gujarati is, by far, the dominant language. Hindi is only spoken by a few percent of the Gujarati population. What effect this linguistic divide will have on Gujarat’s space ambitions is a question it will be interesting to look at over time.