In late 1970s and early 1980s, Doordarshan had only one channel, telecast was in black & white – Test Cricket would be covered with a single Camera – if Madanlal ran in towards us at Chepauk, next over Karsan Ghavri would run away from us ! ~ then there was the commentary – against New Zealand, Srinivasan Venkatraghavan rescued India with a half-century and went on his knees to hoist Peter Petherick for a six.When he square cut the off spinner for a four – commentator would say, a very good shot.Then .. what do you think of that Lala ? [Lala Amarnath or CD Gopinath or some other player with grand Cricket experience would sit as Expert commentator] who would revert – stating ‘that was a delicate square cut’ ? ~ every one can follow the game, observe something, reel out statistics but those with ground experience could bring out the finer aspects !!
Around
1.52 am on September 7 when hundreds of scientists at the Indian Research Space
Organisation (Isro) were glued to their monitor screens at Isro's control
centre in Bengaluru, respected PM of the
Nation watching in person, millions of Indians were glued to their TV sets and
mobile phones back home, India achieved two milestones and missed one by a
whisker.In focus was 'Mission
Chandrayaan-2', India's ambitious attempt to reach Moon's south polar region,
an area largely unexplored as most lunar probes have focused on Moon's equator
and north pole. It was not just an attempt to merely reach Moon's south pole,
Chandrayaan-2 was an attempt to soft-land a rover there, a feat achieved by
only three countries -- the US, Russia and China.
On
September 7, India reached the Moon for the second time. This was a record in
sorts, given the handful countries who have done it before. What India also
achieved that day was reaching the Moon's south polar region, again. (The first
was in 2008 with the hard-landing of Chandrayaan-1.) India probably missed by a
whisker was, not being able to soft-land a rover on the Moon. Vikram Lander
(which was part of Chandrayaan-2) landed on Moon, but not in the manner Isro
scientists had planned it to. Isro lost contact with Vikram in the penultimate
moments when it was just 2.1 km above Moon's surface. What exactly happened
next is not known.
After
days of rampant speculation, India has confirmed that it’s Chandrayaan-2
orbiter has found the country’s Vikram lander on the Moon – and an attempt at
communication is being made.Doppler
data appeared to suggest that the lander had free fallen to the surface under
the Moon’s gravity, one-sixth that of Earth, making any hope at recovery
unlikely.Immediately thereafter, fake
images of Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram Lander started circulating on social media
after ISRO chief K Sivan said the space agency has located the lander on the
lunar surface and is trying to establish contact.Mr K Sivan said the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter managed to
click a “thermal” image of the lander. This led to several people sharing
random space exploration images claiming them to be that of the Vikram Lander.
As every TV was
showing the occasion live and as Indians watched in midnight with bated
breathe, National Geographic took the cake with its brilliant data centeric
factual coverage.There was an expert -
former NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, who flew on the Russian space station Mir
that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001 for five months.Born on January 16, 1955, and raised in East
Detroit, Michigan, Linenger joined astronaut selection Group 14 at the Johnson
Space Center in August 1992. He flew on STS-64 (in Sept 1994) aboard the Space
Shuttle Discovery. Following his first mission, in January 1995, he began
training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, in
preparation for a long-duration stay aboard the Russian Space Station Mir.During his stay aboard Space Station Mir,
Linenger became the first American to conduct a spacewalk from a foreign space
station and in a non-American made spacesuit. During the five-hour walk, he and
his Russian colleague tested for the first time ever the newly designed Orlan-M
Russian-built spacesuit, installed the Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) and
Benton dosimeter on the outer surface of the station, and retrieved for
analysis on Earth numerous externally mounted material-exposure panels.
The informative NASA
astronaut Jerry Linenger remained unspeculative throughout.“The Vikram descent was as planned, and normal
performance was observed, up to an altitude of 2.1 kilometers,” said
Kailasavadivoo Sivan, ISRO’s chairman, in a statement roughly half an hour
after signal loss. “The data is being analyzed.”There were no prying Qs and the astronaut remained
cool and did not criticize the mission wee bit not offered any unscientific
fancy explanation ~ class !
“India is proud of our scientists! They’ve
given their best and have always made India proud,” Indian prime minister
Narendra Modi said in a statement on Twitter after Sivan’s update. “These are
moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!” Like any voyage to a
world beyond Earth, Vikram’s flight was a risky endeavor, requiring the lander
to slow itself down to a near standstill, autonomously scan for surface
obstacles, and then take steps to avoid them during touchdown. The majority of
attempts to land robots on the moon have ended in failure, either during launch
or on the way to the surface. In an interview before the attempt, Dana Hurley,
a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory,
expressed the nervousness that planetary scientists around the world feel with
every spacecraft landing—because they know all too well what can go wrong.
If that was the
reaction of Indian Prime Minister, Scientists and experts – there was this
half-baked media.During the media interaction after the mission had met
with a glitch, an NDTV journalist was seen screaming at the ISRO scientist who
was interacting with the media. Pallava Bagla, the NDTV journalist demanded
that ISRO chief K Sivan be personally present for the media briefing. Not just
this, he even went ahead to call the scientist a “junior scientist” in an effort
to grandstand. He sought to ask why the Chief was not present and the media was
handled by a Junior.This expert
journalist who understands everything (some commented in social media that he
once asked how many astronauts are sent on board – in an unmanned mission !)
Twitter,
FB & social media burst with condemnation of the behavior of Bagla.After widespread
condemnation for the NDTV journalist’s uncouth behaviour, Pallava Bagla took to Twitter to apologize for his conduct to
ISRO scientist.Still, most people were
not in the mood to accept his apology. The scientists were visibly distraught
after Chandrayaan-2 met with a landing glitch and for a journalist to scream at
the scientists because he wanted the ISRO chief to interact with the media was
the epitome of arrogance and entitlement, something NDTV journalists are no
aliens to. Perhaps what was worse was Bagla calling Mr D P Karnik a “junior
scientist” as if the whims and fancies of NDTV journalists could only be
catered to by the Chief himself.Even
Prannoy Roy agreed tweeting- It’s absolutely sick. Yes, Pallava made a
mistake, a terrible rude mistake and NDTV has said so. May be next time when ISRO or any other organization
including NASA sends a rocket in space, this journalist can be on board to
steer and navigate.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
10th
Sept. 2019
