Hope and fear: India's space revolution

12:31Dr Madhavan Nair:I clearly explained to him the vision given by Dr. Sarabhai, we have more or less completed. And whatever we have perfected in terms of the application of space technology for benefiting the common man, it continues. I assured Prime Minister that the same thing will not change, but we would like to use a small portion of this and take up the new missions. Now the entire organisation is looking for a new vision where we could motivate the young scientists and the team members in the ISO to take up the newer challenges and explore the new frontiers in space research.

13:15Alok Jha:Dr Nair was trying to persuade the Prime Minister that yes, this new version of ISRO would be much more focused on exploration and discovery. But that really, this was just the next logical step in Vikram Sarabai's original blueprint.

13:31Dr Madhavan Nair:He's a very knowledgeable person and he has caught a point very sharply. Of course, he was having a coalition ministry. He had a tough time convincing his cabinet colleagues at the time. and they had basic questions. Why don't you spend this money for providing bread and housing for the poor people in the country like that? But then he said that a country like India, which economy is growing at a very fast rate, setting aside something like 0.5 % of its GDP for advanced research is peanuts. And he has given a green signal at the time.

14:11Alok Jha:This is one point that critics of Israel have returned to again and again over the years. The idea that India, a country with 1.4 billion people, many of them still living in poverty, should deal with domestic socioeconomic issues before turning its attention to the moon or Mars. I'll come back to these questions later on. But Dr Nair, for his part, is convinced that even the most adventurous Israel missions have clear benefits for ordinary Indians.

14:43Dr Madhavan Nair:I can say about the moon mission which was implemented under my leadership. There actually the objective was very clear. We used techniques like multi-spectral imaging to identify various mineral resources on the surface of the moon. The ultimate idea is whether those minerals could be exploited commercially for our benefit. And the most important part was during this exploration, we could confirm that the presence of water on the lunar surface, without any doubt. Such findings ultimately is going to benefit the humankind.

15:24Alok Jha:20 years after that meeting, almost, one of the reasons I'm making this documentary is the, you know, the global, the worldwide excitement surrounding the Indian Space Agency, and especially the Gaganyan human spaceflight missions, which will be happening in the next few years. What would it mean to you personally when that happens?

15:44Dr Madhavan Nair:Within a couple of years, we will see that our own astronauts will be flying in our own capsule, in our own rocket. And I'm really happy to say that. And also, we should have our own space station by 2030, our man landing on the moon in 2035. So that's a type of grand vision which we are trying to pursue now.

16:10Alok Jha:Dr Nair is a man who thinks in spans of lifetimes and sees Israel's new era as part of a long evolution. But what does this turn feel like for the scientists and engineers tasked with making it all happen? The pressure is always there in space area. So nothing new about that. Dr Sita Somersundaram, known as Dr Sita, was a senior scientist at ISRO for decades. She ultimately rose in the ranks to oversee all science missions, including the Mars Orbiter mission, which started me off on this journey. Remember my amazement at seeing that very Indian control room in 2013? Well, Dr Sita was one of the most important people in that room.

16:58Alok Jha:For us, the Mars Orbiter mission was a very, very, very great achievement. Ten months after the launch, the probe finally reached Mars. I asked Dr Sita what she remembers about that day.

17:14Dr Madhavan Nair:We were all sitting in front of our computer terminals, from the chairman down. And to add to the pressure, we had the Prime Minister sitting there in the control centre.

17:26Alok Jha:They're all waiting to see if the probe will successfully enter Martian orbit after its long journey.

17:33Dr Madhavan Nair:This satellite is travelling around several hundred million kilometres. But then, when it reaches close to Mars, it has to arrive there with an accuracy of only about 50 kilometres. I mean, the accuracy had to be that small, that fine. So this thing is hurling through space and then the engines had to fire just to the right amount for the satellite to get the right velocity because if it didn't get the right velocity, it would either crash land on Mars or it would just fly by Mars. And all this had to be done in an automated mode. Automated when I say we don't have visibility of the satellite from our ground station.

18:28The communications are cut off because it is behind Mars.

18:32Alok Jha:That must have been incredibly tense.

18:35Dr Madhavan Nair:Yes, and to add to the pressure, we had to wait for two or three minutes when there was no signal. So those three minutes, we just have to look at the screen, which is not updating anything. and suddenly at the end of three minutes, it starts updating the numbers and we started getting communication from the satellite.

18:58Dr Madhavan Nair:It has entered into orbit. It was a great joy and several processions were held all over India to celebrate this success. History has been created today. We have dared to reach out into the unknown and have achieved the near impossible.

19:23Alok Jha:Going back through the news coverage, though, I found that not everyone shared Prime Minister Modi's enthusiasm.

19:31Dr Madhavan Nair:For everything else we're being told, we don't have money. Sanitation, health, employment, nutrition. So I would say, sure, we should go to Mars, but we should also ensure the minimum rights of the people.

19:44Alok Jha:But for most Indians, these were questions for another time. The thrill of seeing their country sitting at the top table of space powers was enough. My conversations with Dr. Sita and Dr. Nair are helping me to see that ISRO's recent transformation is simultaneously built on decades of careful development and a new burning ambition among scientists, engineers and politicians. But there's another important element of ISRO's success, which Dr Sita wants to highlight. When I joined, there were only a couple of women in senior roles.

20:22Dr Madhavan Nair:There was still a thinking at that time, I should say that whether women would be able to handle this. But then many of us have demonstrated that we believe in sticking on there. And now we have, of course a lot of women women have headed projects we have program directors women who have headed the geostationary program we're only waiting for directors of centers and

20:51Alok Jha:chairmen who would in future be a woman do you think that um the space agency has it helped to break down the sort of gender stereotypes that you've described?

21:03Dr Madhavan Nair:Definitely, I would say we have broken the gender norms, especially because space work is teamwork. You have to work in a team, irrespective of the gender, and therefore they look at what you contribute to the experiment or overall mission as a whole. And so I would like to tell girls, do your education very well and then space is not at all the limit. You can go, you can fly.

21:40Alok Jha:As you'd expect from two leaders of ISRO, Dr Sita and Dr Nair are presenting a very uplifting picture. Taking a step back, I can see why they feel that India's new era of outward-focused space exploration is not as far from Saravai's philosophy as I'd first thought. Even if we just take advances in gender equality, there is plenty of social development to point to. And Dr Sita's passion for progress of all kinds is reflected in the nation's fascination with space. As 2026 begins, India is excitedly looking ahead towards the first test flight for the Gaganyan human mission.

22:23Dr Madhavan Nair:Anticipation is building up for the upcoming missions, like the country's maiden human space flight program, which are awaited in the next few months. All they have to do is develop the biological system and the human life support system.

22:36Alok Jha:ISRO will first launch a robot into space to test these crucial life support systems. This robot looks like half a human. Head, torso and arms, but no legs. Israel has named it Vyomitra, which means space friend. There is a lot of support from across India, but as the big day nears, critics are also starting to raise their voices. And it's not just those familiar questions about India's spending priorities. There are also concerns about a lack of transparency throughout the space programme.

23:14Dr Madhavan Nair:Information is being choked. It has made it very difficult for journalists to hold Israel accountable.

23:21Alok Jha:And then, during what should be a routine satellite launch, disaster strikes. The rocket veers off its trajectory just as it's attempting to enter orbit. It comes crashing down to Earth, along with the 16 satellites it was carrying. And what's worse is that this is the second consecutive failure of India's flagship rocket. The whole space programme is thrown into disarray. Is the country really on track to send people into space? This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. The story continues in just a few minutes.

24:26Dr Madhavan Nair:www.investpr.org

24:33Alok Jha:Welcome back to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm science journalist Alok Jha and this is the second part of Hope and Fear, India's Space Revolution.

24:48Alok Jha:In January 2026, India is grappling with the failure of two consecutive launches. 16 satellites lost, many owned by foreign countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars up in smoke. But the real damage could be a lot deeper than that. ISRO had been riding high on a series of amazing missions to the Moon and Mars. Now these launch failures strike at the confidence of the space community. And it's just as the country is gearing up for its historic human spaceflight mission. The Gaganyan test flight is delayed for several months. What's going on at ISRO?

25:33Dr Madhavan Nair:Since 2014, it's been the case that it's been very difficult, increasingly difficult for journalists to be able to access information related to ISRO.

25:43Alok Jha:Vasudevan Mukhand is the science editor of the Hindu newspaper.

25:48Dr Madhavan Nair:This has been in the form of decreasing access to people within ISRO to interview for stories and stuff like that, as well as a sort of passive culture of secrecy that has adapted around the organisation, which I have no doubt has actually been inculcated. You know, it's I mean, there's nothing accidental about it.

26:06Alok Jha:Not just for Indian journalists, I think for external journalists, too. We've struggled to get anyone official.

26:12Dr Madhavan Nair:So we've had the same difficulty. And I think it's because of a shared reason, which is that we are taking a closer look and examining things, you know, in a...

26:19Alok Jha:In a journalistic way.

26:21Dr Madhavan Nair:In a journalistic way, absolutely. Yeah. But just as much as they're not entertaining questions as much as they were before, you know, to put it mildly. Another thing that's been happening is that information is being choked. You know, for example, if a mission fails, then there's going to be a failure analysis committee and then they're going to file a report. So are those reports available? I don't think so.

26:43Alok Jha:At the time of recording, the reports for the May 2025 and January 2026 launch failures have not been publicly released. There's now a special committee examining the causes of those failures. But Vasudevan cautions me to wait and see if these findings are ever made public. Neither ISRO, the Department of Space, nor the Prime Minister's office responded to my requests for comment or an interview.

27:10Dr Madhavan Nair:Really what this communication thing has done is that it has made it very difficult for journalists to hold ISRO accountable.

27:17Alok Jha:For Vasudevan, this lack of accountability is not just bad in itself. It also raises the chances of future failures, which is especially concerning now that human spaceflight is on its way, with all the risk that that entails.

27:33Dr Madhavan Nair:A rocket is such a complex vehicle. It's very difficult and very complicated to sort of figure out the many ways in which it can fail. The number of moving parts, I really don't know how many there are. tens of thousands, I would say. But what happens is that the number of combinations of things that can happen is several orders of magnitude higher. So you have these sort of permutations of possibilities that arise that can lead to catastrophic failures.

28:01Alok Jha:For Varsadevan, though, there are even bigger questions about ISRO's strategy. He has sympathy for the optimistic vision of the future, I've heard from Dr Nair and others. but he's far from convinced that human spaceflight specifically should be the next priority for India especially following the recent launch failures. In his view the government hasn't clearly explained why it believes this huge investment will benefit Indians.

28:32Dr Madhavan Nair:That is my primary concern with Gaganyan because the government has already invested or committed to invest around rupees 20 ,000 crore which is a very large sum of money. And it is inevitably going to be the case that you get something out of it that is deemed publicly useful. But that doesn't free one from the responsibility of justifying why invest in X rather than Y.

28:54Alok Jha:Prestige, I mean, that would be the simplest answer.

28:57Dr Madhavan Nair:It would be the simplest answer, but I'm just scared that that's the answer.

29:03Alok Jha:You're scared that that's the answer. I'm curious to investigate that. Why would prestige be the sort of worrying answer?

29:10Dr Madhavan Nair:Because of the simple fact that, you know, we could have diverted those resources and all of that attention in a way that's much more productive without having to boost some political egos. And one of the main complaints by researchers within the country is that they're not funded properly and they're not funded on time. Even that is research that could ultimately benefit the people. So the fact is that some things are being funded, some things are not being funded, and there needs to be a good reason for that.

29:42Alok Jha:It's notoriously difficult to calculate the true costs and benefits of any space programme, especially when it comes to multi-decade projects like human spaceflight. And it's even harder to work out the opportunity cost of all the other projects that might not be funded as a result. That's how Vasudevan can come to entirely different conclusions to the scientists and entrepreneurs I've been speaking to. And while Vasudevan sees nationalistic pride as a bad reason to prioritise spaceflight, the government says Israel is bringing unity within India and even beyond its borders.

30:22Dr Madhavan Nair:Our approach of one Earth, one family, one future is resonating across the globe.

30:30Alok Jha:These disagreements about funding and political motives are always part of the discussion surrounding space agencies. Now though, in the aftermath of India's rocket failures, the critical voices have become louder in the mix. Isro, for once, is on the back foot.

30:53Alok Jha:But then I meet someone who has a very different vantage point on everything.

30:59Dr Madhavan Nair:You get into the rocket itself and they do all the rocket checkouts and the thing is alive and smoking from the liquid oxygen.

31:09Alok Jha:Anil Menon is a doctor and NASA astronaut. He's scheduled for his first space flight in July 2026, headed to the International Space Station.

31:19Dr Madhavan Nair:I'll be up there for eight months.

31:20Alok Jha:And like me, Anil has Indian roots.

31:23Dr Madhavan Nair:my family on my dad's side is from kerala they're from a small town there near uttapalam which interestingly there is an indian astronaut currently who is also from that small town like

31:38Alok Jha:what are the chances what's going on in that town what do they put in the water i know

31:44Dr Madhavan Nair:they do say kerala's like one of the most literate states in the world it's a beautiful

31:50Alok Jha:place.

31:50Dr Madhavan Nair:And it's a beautiful place, yeah. My parents would send me to India to live with my grandparents over the summer. So I grew up speaking Malayalam. I mean, my dad lives in India now, he lives in New Delhi, so there's definitely that connection. So watching the space program evolve is also fantastic to see.

32:09Alok Jha:As an astronaut himself, Anil has a keen appreciation of the hurdles the space program is clearing at each stage in its evolution.

32:19Dr Madhavan Nair:I understand some of the challenges, aspirations, joys and wonders of it all. And so yeah, I feel a sense of pride, definitely a sense of admiration. Doing space, whether it's developing a rocket, flying into space yourself, supporting a space mission is such a hard thing to do that it takes intense cooperation, a lot of skill and intelligence. And those are things India's always had and contributes hugely to the whole world, clearly. I mean, ultimately, the really hard challenges from lunar missions to Mars missions and exploration missions, those are challenges we're going to take on together.

33:03Alok Jha:Anil is eager to emphasize that space work necessitates a cooperative mindset from the international level all the way down to each individual astronaut.

33:14Dr Madhavan Nair:Working with the cosmonauts, working with the JAXA astronauts or ESA astronauts, and this goes for the Indian astronauts that I've met, there is a selection driver maybe that brings in people who are really invested in teamwork. When you're in a very small room in space where it's like a high-risk, high-threat environment and you're spending 24 hours a day there, you want someone who you can talk to. So I think it seems to be the most consistent thread that I see between all these different cultures and people.

33:51Alok Jha:In my reporting for this show, I've been hearing a lot of arguments about, you know, the costs and the benefits of human space flight. As someone who's going to be going to space soon, what's your sort of perspective on this? What benefits do you think sending people into space offers for a country versus, you know, the robotic missions or just being able to send satellites?

34:12Dr Madhavan Nair:There's the inspiration avenue and that transformed my life. I wouldn't be a doctor and I wouldn't have helped all the people that have helped in emergency rooms or disasters if I wasn't inspired by space because that drove me into science and that drove me into medicine. And it gave me something to work towards that I thought was a loftier goal. And I think it serves that role for a lot of people. And whether they pivot away from space to just something that's really challenging, that they're very interested in, it's going to transform other people's lives. It's kind of like a critical mass event where it triggers other people to do positive things.

34:50Dr Madhavan Nair:So I think that's immeasurable. And it's something that satellites don't do. It's really seeing that there are these jobs. It's also, I do think, you know, at some point, it's going to be important for us to move on to other planets and to continue to grow as a civilization. And you can't just wait till everything's perfect. Conditions are perfect to start that. Sometimes there's these limited windows in time where you can do that as a society. Now's one of them.

35:21Alok Jha:The concept of interplanetary colonisation might seem quite futuristic, but to Anil, all this feels very real and close. After all, he'll soon be living an experience that the rest of us can only imagine.

35:38Dr Madhavan Nair:When you hit space, I think it's just a shock to the sensation. About 60 % of people feel nauseous. 100 % of people are just kind of in awe of that feeling of falling, and then everyone starts to adjust to the newness of it as their fluid shifts around their body, they move awkwardly and lose things, but they all have this opportunity to look out the window back at Earth and puts their life and the world and society into perspective as they're looking out there, and it's just one of those awe-inspiring moments.

36:19Alok Jha:Anil's perspective takes us far beyond debates over cost or political motivations. Because if India does manage to send a crew into space, who knows how many thousands of people might be inspired to go into careers in science? Who knows what public goods they'll create as a result? I'm sympathetic to this view. I'll admit, at heart, I'm just a space enthusiast, and I would love to see Gaganyan succeed. So I'm following developments closely, as India picks up the pieces following the rocket failures. ISRO is not letting this setback get in the way of its plans. The chairman insists that the satellite launch failures are nothing to do with the human spaceflight project, which will proceed as planned.

37:10Alok Jha:Former chairman Nair, the man who kicked off the whole Gaganyan programme in the first place is also confident that preparations are still on track

37:20Dr Madhavan Nair:The rocket is ready, the capsule is getting ready Life support system and other things are to be validated and human rating of the rocket is required Such activities are going on

37:33Alok Jha:The Indian media is settling back into an optimistic outlook Soon there's a new schedule for the Gaganyan test flight, which will now fall later in 2026. Sadly, that's outside the scope of my reporting. But in the meantime, there's another crucial element of the space revolution that I need to examine. Because unlike the vehicles it builds, ISRO is not operating in a vacuum.

37:59Dr Madhavan Nair:My name is Pawan Chandana, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Skyroot Aerospace.

38:04Alok Jha:In 2020, after almost 60 years as a government-only enterprise, Israel followed NASA's lead and opened India's space sector to commercial players. Pavan is speaking to me from his headquarters and rocket factory in Hyderabad.

38:21Dr Madhavan Nair:The core vision at Skyroot is to open space for everybody. So basically rocket launching should be as easy as, you know, hopping onto an aircraft.

38:29Alok Jha:And what makes your rockets different to, say, for example, SpaceX or any of the other companies building rockets elsewhere?

38:37Dr Madhavan Nair:Like if you see SpaceX or other companies which are building much bigger rockets, they are more like a train to go to space. Trains are more suitable for a large number of customers to come together and go to hub A to hub B. Our rocket is more like a cap to go to space. The customers will book the entire rocket and launch it at whenever they want, go to wherever they want in space.

38:59Alok Jha:Since this rose opened up to the private sort of launches and other things, there seems to be a lot of innovation and activity in places like Bangalore. And I wonder what it's like to be in the middle of all this excitement and this buzz.

39:11Dr Madhavan Nair:It's amazing. In fact, like, you know, just in the last three years, there are over 300 startups which has emerged, you know, innovating in various fields, you know, like building satellites, data, you know, different types of rockets. So I think it's a great buzzing innovation. It also forms an ecosystem. You know, for example, rocket companies need more satellite companies, satellite companies need more data companies. So it's a very great ecosystem which can feed onto each other and together, you know, make a mark in the global space stage.

39:40Alok Jha:For those people building space technology companies in India, what specific advantage does the country have compared to others?

39:49Dr Madhavan Nair:Definitely the manufacturing ecosystem available in India for space is very, very mature. Just an example, the next rocket has parts supplied by 400 suppliers and vendors all within India.

40:02Alok Jha:This is an advanced manufacturing supply chain, essentially.

40:04Dr Madhavan Nair:Very advanced manufacturing supply chain, number one. And India is the home of largest number of engineers. For example, every year, 1.5 million engineers pass out of Indian engineering colleges. So it's a huge pool of talent.

40:18Alok Jha:Pavan explains how companies like his are feeding off and playing into the major Israel projects.

40:48Dr Madhavan Nair:a more vibrant space economy around them. So this is our Skyroots Infinity launch vehicle factory. So all our rocket components, majority of it, are manufactured, designed and tested here.

41:01Alok Jha:Akhil Talang, a young engineer at Skyroot, showing us around. After you pass through the airy lobby, built to look almost like a spaceship itself, you enter the gigantic factory floor.

41:16Dr Madhavan Nair:So coming to this side, our right-hand side, we have our liquid engine testing facility. You can see we have a thermal lab here on this side.

41:27Alok Jha:Everywhere you look in this space cathedral, there are gleaming, high-tech machines which build or test different rocket components.

41:37Dr Madhavan Nair:There's the CRMC motor winding machine at the front.

41:39Alok Jha:Akhil gestures towards a big machine, winding layers of carbon composite into a casing for the rocket boosters.

41:48Dr Madhavan Nair:Composite provides extra strength, extra durability to handle the high pressure environment inside the chamber.

41:57Alok Jha:Standing in the middle of the cavernous space, Talang describes what being a rocket engineer means to him.

42:04Dr Madhavan Nair:When I wake up in the morning, I never feel like I'm going to a job, I'm going to an office. I know that I'm going to work on something that only very few people get an opportunity to get their hands on. It feels like I'm going on an adventure.

42:18Alok Jha:But it's not all fun and games. When those launch days come around, the pressure is on.

42:24Dr Madhavan Nair:Rocket launches, as you know, it's so complex that even a minute bolt here and there, like a small nut failure, can cause a lot of catastrophe. So, and since I'm working in the engine, if, let us say, it doesn't ignite after the countdown ends, everybody will be looking at me.

42:42Alok Jha:He's part of that generation of young engineers who are driving India forward into space. And listening to him, you can feel the enthusiasm bubbling over.

42:52Dr Madhavan Nair:It should be a field that can take humanity into the next level of our evolution. In the coming 10, 20 years, we'll be having interplanetary missions around the globe. You can see space ports coming up. Like people could be going to space restaurants, space stations and all, just like a tourist, like a leisure trip and all. So that's where I feel like it could go and it should go, I think, because the next challenge is to make sure space is democratised, space is open for all.

43:24Alok Jha:Our SkyRoute visit reminds me that ISRO sits at the centre of a much wider network of companies and research labs. India's space revolution would not be possible without these connections. At this point in my reporting, I feel like I finally understand where India's space programme came from. And I think I've heard all the competing narratives about where it's going. Until...

43:50Dr Madhavan Nair:Human spaceflight or robots to the other planets, they are a sideshow, really.

43:56Alok Jha:Dr Bledenbowen of Durham University is an expert on space security, advising several governments. He argues that no picture of India's space programme is complete unless we also take into account national and global security.

44:14Dr Madhavan Nair:It was military technologies and military interests and needs that gave us the space age that we know. And this is what I call the original sin of spaceflight and space technology. If it wasn't for the nuclear weapons use of long-range missiles, the Soviets and the Americans would not have spent virtually unlimited funds to get those early rockets working in the 1950s to be able to deliver nuclear weapons to the other side of the planet.

44:47Alok Jha:If you think about military competition, and traditionally, then people think about, you know, air, sea and land. How does space sort of fit into that in terms of strategic thinking for countries nowadays?

45:00Dr Madhavan Nair:The areas that really matter to us today is really only up towards 40 ,000 kilometres altitude. And beneath that altitude is where all the satellites that are useful for us for economic infrastructure and military power lie. So that's where they are. In there, rather than being an empty or desolate, quiet expanse, it's a very crowded place.

45:26Alok Jha:Dr Bowen explains how every country on Earth, India included, is part of a military and logistical space infrastructure, in ways that we would only really comprehend if it all came crashing down.

45:41Dr Madhavan Nair:If we take someone manages to send malicious data into the global positioning system that the Americans run, then that can be from a nuisance in terms of you're not getting your takeaway pizza tonight if your courier doesn't know the actual map of where they are towards really serious stuff in terms of banks can no longer process financial transactions because they rely on the universal time that is provided by the atomic clocks on the GPS satellites. So the financial system, that would fall apart. logistical systems. You'll start getting lines of cargo ships waiting to dock and that will cause ripple effects around industries around the world with huge economic costs and perhaps severe supply shortages in critical areas in terms of food shipments, fertiliser shipments, medical equipment.

46:39Dr Madhavan Nair:So space is so ubiquitous, it's everywhere. We rely on satellites for everything. the effects can be huge parts of the global infrastructure being taken apart.

46:52Alok Jha:There's a lot of activity going on in this region around Earth. It's another sort of domain of national security and potentially war in the future. Are we looking at sort of a modern arms race then in space?

47:04Dr Madhavan Nair:The United States, China and Russia have been developing many different kinds of anti-satellite weapons or counter space systems, as they're sometimes called, for many, many years now. And rather than now being a period of an arms race, whereas there wasn't before, what we should see is perhaps there's an uptick in space weapons developments now, and India is not apart from this. Today, right now, India has developed regional satellite navigation systems that don't rely on any other country. Then you have what is called intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, or spy satellites. And also you have the launch systems, the rockets to actually put those satellites into space.

47:53Dr Madhavan Nair:And alongside that, a lot of more advanced missile systems that allow for various anti-satellite systems as well. So So India has shown that it can do all those things and it can expand those areas if it chooses to in the years to come.

48:08Alok Jha:Every spacefaring nation is engaged in this sort of militarisation, hidden behind the headlines of human spaceflight or scientific discoveries. But Dr Bowen highlights the specific regional dynamics that are driving India down this path.

48:25Dr Madhavan Nair:Part of this shift is the competition that India finds itself in across Asia and security fears really between India, Pakistan and China. China and India are nuclear weapon states, so there is that relationship there. So advances in Chinese weapons technologies, which themselves rely on China's increasing space capabilities, means that India also needs to keep up to keep China in check. But also, India can continue to gain advantages over Pakistan's military capabilities through its space systems.

49:07Alok Jha:It's a tension inherent in space programmes across the world that dangerous military competition goes hand in hand with some of the most impressive collective achievements of humankind. It might be security fears that make space a priority for politicians and lock in funding for organisations like ISRO, but science and discovery are also big winners in this process. All of this makes me think back to our very first recordings with those people on the streets of Bangalore. Whatever threats and risks space might hold, it also holds a unique power to inspire hope.

49:50Dr Madhavan Nair:All of this that's happening, it's going to create a long-term dream for the younger generations. Oh my God, we have that capability. We achieved, we did something. That is, I think, a big part of what being a human is about, is pushing these kinds of frontiers. And I think Indians are the best in these kind of things. Science stuff and astro stuff and space stuff, I think. And I think everyone should follow the Indians.

50:24Alok Jha:As I record these final thoughts in March 2026, the all-important test flight for Gaganyan is once again on the horizon. By the time you're listening to this, India may be one step closer to putting a crew into space. I'll definitely be watching. Hope and Fear India's Space Revolution was a reduced listening production for the documentary from the BBC World Service. It was presented by me, Alok Jha, and the producer was Dave Anderson.