A part of a project fails, a nation of 1.3 Billion learns. What last night means for future generation of scientists

Imagine an inquisitive child sitting at night in bed with his parents watching history unfold in front of him. He sees the grey-haired scientists huffing and puffing at the slightest variation in numbers on their computer screens, the TV-anchor deciphering every little detail to its last strand, which the child might not understand right now but he very well believes is something important. The Sherlock-like mind of a child genuinely intrigued by the random science stuff happening. He is invested now, the mind veering in different directions, asking parents question after question, he comprehends that it’s about a Lander landing on our neighbouring satellite. He starts to root for it and is visibly elated with the prospect of seeing a real-life spacecraft land just like he had seen in the cartoons. All’s going well, till he sees that the space-center has suddenly gone silent, the silence is deafening and after some time he comes to terms with the fact that the thing which nobody prayed for, at last, has nothing but happened. The slightest pain in childhood feels like the end of world, the little guy tucked in his bed is upset and heartbroken, he thinks what would have happened if he would have been there, he imagines working hard to someday rub shoulders with the subdued scientists and so begins a story of a child inspired by a normal space mission that captured the boy’s imagination and turned him into a passionate bloke who wanted to join the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) just to prove the world that it was not a failure because in science there are no failures, there’s only experiment and efforts.

This could very well be the story of numerous scientists that will be joining ISRO in the coming decades, the flame of curiosity has very well been ignited in these tender minds who for all we know would have taken this little setback as their personal setbacks and will be hell-bent on correcting it. What greater validation for the heroic work that ISRO’s subtle-demeanor superhero scientists do, uniting a country for a space event in the dark of night to see Vikram land on the dark side of Moon. This might very well be India’s “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” moment just like the USA witnessed in 1969 with the Apollo 11 Moon landings that inspired a plethora of modern-day scientists.

“The whole nation is proud of your hard work, I said this earlier today and I am repeating it again- I am with you, the whole nation is with you,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, echoing the sentiments of his countrymen. PM Modi showed the finest of human qualities when he hugged the inconsolable ISRO chief K. Sivan, who was visibly upset after the amount of work he and his team had put in the whole project. The emotional heartfelt hug of PM has been the talk of twitter all day long.

The event was a global-spectacle with scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson also tweeting to support this endeavour.

Even as all hopes of re-establishing contact with the Vikram lander seems improbable, only five per cent of the mission is lost, an ISRO official told news agency PTI. The official added that Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter is successfully orbiting the moon.

The mission fell short 2.1 kilometres short but still got 1.3 billion people closer than ever before. The failure has a taste of success in it. Essence of science is experiment and space journeys are about the finest of margins, surely ISRO scientists will buckle up with their tenacity and commitment and for sure it will spring many surprises and provide the little children across country many such moments of pure adrenaline, after all, it has taught us that we can script HISTORY.