The vision of space that Dr Vikram Sarabhai gave for India is extra-ordinary for its realism and pragmatism, unique for its deep insights into the socio-economic context of the country, extensive in the level of details and identification of different dimensions and remarkable for the display of his own conviction. In the annals of our Science and Technology endeavour, very rarely has one come across such a vision that has withstood the test of time — in this case over more than four decades. Some glimpses of his vision (Sarabhai 1979) are in order at this juncture, as an early example in strategic thinking.

The vision recognized that promotion of space research, besides contributing to societal benefits and enrichment also results in intangible benefits coming out of the need to develop high technologies for economic development and security. The vision also identified space’s unique ability to create leadership and the benefits of international collaborations. Further, it could help develop the nucleus of a new culture where a large group of persons in diverse activities learn to work together for the accomplishment of a single objective. Establishing a synchronous satellite over the Indian Ocean to improve meteorological forecasting, critical to agricultural operations and evolving national plans using space technologies for resource survey were also visualized as important for India. The vision called for an exciting development of a synchronous direct television broadcasting satellite that could serve as the most powerful means of mass communication to reach a large segment of the population in an economically depressed region of the world. Early in the conceptualization of a satellite based communication and broadcasting system, issues of system choice including the financial implications and the economic benefit were recognized as important. The establishment of strong linkages with key user agencies was central to this vision. Dr Sarabhai’s emphasis on self-reliance made it the life current of the Indian space program and enabled the program to overcome numerous challenges in the course of its journey towards operational applications of space. His vision was not merely restricted to technology and application, but also to the attendant needs of new organizational structures on one side, and the fundamental issue of the role of humans in space on the other (Sarabhai 1966).

Development of this vision itself was spread over a decade from 1961. This period was characterized by consultation among the various stakeholders (ISRO Report 1972) — using professionals across the world as sounding boards — for detailed assessments of the different dimensions of the envisaged program through experimentation, analysis and simulation that factored in the socio-economic context of the country. In retrospect, it is gratifying to note that such an elaborate and carefully formulated vision helped to grow the program, in a directed manner over the next three decades without any major deviations, except for small midcourse corrections on some specific parts of the program. It is also of interest to note that this entire decade accounted for an expenditure, that is less than 1 per cent of the total investment in the space program up to 2006 (constant price basis)