Mission ISRO: Episode 4

‘Gee Whiz Wonderful Rocket Shot’

← See all episodes

The stage is set for India’s first rocket launch. India’s space scientists have returned after their training at NASA. The rockets and their payloads will soon arrive ready to be assembled. Thumba, the fishing hamlet-turned-rocket launching station too is gearing up to kickstart India’s space ambitions. Will everything go as planned? Did a proud nation celebrate its first rocket launch?

Show Notes

All clips and voices used in this podcast are owned by the original creators.

We thank wholeheartedly all our guests who appeared on this episode.

References

Full Transcript of Episode 4 – Gee Wiz, Wonderful Rocket Shot

Countdown of a rocket taking off followed by sounds of two gunshots

What just happened here? 

Well, it’s a long story.

From ATS STUDIO, this is Mission I-S-R-O: a Spotify original podcast about how India reached space. I am Harsha Bhogle.

Recap

In our previous episode, we met India’s first space scientists: Pramod Kale, B Ramakrishna Rao, AS Prakasa Rao, Ramabhadran Aravamudan or Dan, HGS Murthy, D Easwardas and of course APJ Abdul Kalam. These seven scientists were handpicked by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and sent to NASA for training, before they started working to launch India’s first sounding rocket. 

The launch would be a joint-effort with NASA – the American space agency would supply the rockets apart from training our scientists. There were two kinds of experiments that the first sounding rocket launch was planning to conduct: a study of the upper atmosphere using sodium vapour payloads and a study of the electrojet using a magnetometer. 

Both these experiments were to be conducted near the magnetic equator. And it was India’s responsibility to find a suitable launch site. Sarabhai, Bhabha and EV Chitnis zeroed-in on a small sea-side village near Thiruvananthapuram called Thumba. And preparation had begun to turn the village into a rocket launching station.

By mid-1963, the training for Indian scientists at NASA was nearing completion. The scientists were preparing to return. Shortly, the rockets and the payloads were going to arrive in India for the launch as well. 

It was time, for India’s space journey to begin. 

It was time for India, only 16 years old, to aim for the stars.

It was time to see ff this audacious idea would even work 

But before all of that …

News Announcement
All Russia is wild about Yuri Gagarin, first man to conquer space. Modest, just a family man. It was no secret either in Moscow or anywhere else that Russia was ready to make the attempt. At 7 minutes past 7 am, our time, the 450 tonne rocket went up <rocket whooshes..triumphant music,

April 12, 1961. 

The Soviet Union stunned the world yet again by being the first nation to send a man to space. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space. This was another win for the Soviets in the Space Race and yet again, a big blow to the Americans who were still recovering from the launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, just a few years ago.

Gagarin went to space aboard “Vostok I” and completed one orbit around the earth. The entire trip took 108 minutes. 

The Russian space milestone only increased the pace and gravity of the Space Race. After the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the Russians had also managed to send a dog into orbit the next month. Laika became the first animal to go to space. It had become clear that their next plan would be to send a human to space. 

The Americans in the meantime, were rushing to play catch up. On January 31, 1958, the Americans launched their first satellite Explorer 1. Soon after, President Dwight Eisenhower had initiated a new space project – Project Mercury, whose goals were to take a man to space and bring him back carefully. But before the Americans could pull it off, the Russians beat them to it.

By the time Gagarin went to space, the man at the helm of affairs in America was a 44-year-old wealthy, Harvard graduate, from Brookline Massachusetts: John F Kennedy. He was the youngest man ever to be elected President of the United States of America.

Back in 1961, it was an unenviable position to be in — the leader of a country that had been defeated twice in the Space Race by then. But Kennedy was quite conscious of what he was taking on. In May 1961, Kennedy stood in front of Congress with an important message.

Voice of John F. Kennedy
Recognising the head-start obtained by the Soviets with their large rocket engines which gives them many months of lead time and recognising the likelihood that they will exploit this lead for sometime to come and still more impressive successes, we nevertheless are required to make new efforts of our own.

He went on to announce an ambitious goal for the American space programme. 

Voice of John F. Kennedy
I therefore ask the Congress above and beyond the increases I’ve earlier requested for space activities to provide the funds needed to meet the following national goals. First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.

To the moon is what Kennedy had announced the US would go and it would do so before the 60s ended.

This race between the Americans and the Soviets was by no means a friendly battle. Taking place during the Cold War, this race was part of a larger ideological, political, economical and even nuclear battle. In fact, in October 1962, the Americans and the Soviets would come very close to starting a full-blown nuclear war. This was the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis which saw a 13-day stand-off between the two countries over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Now, while all of this was going on between the Americans and the Russians, far away here in the subcontinent, India was to take its first small step towards space. 

As you’ve heard already, the Americans were playing an important role in the launch of India’s first sounding rocket. But what if I told you that their arch rival also pitched in? 

Yes, they did – And not just the Soviets, even the French played a role in the start of India’s space journey.

It all began sometime in August 1962. Even before our Indian scientists had left for NASA.

Vikram Sarabhai realised that India’s first sounding rocket launch had already hit its first roadblock. For the sounding rockets to conduct scientific experiments, scientists would need equipment which could be loaded into the rocket as payload. Our scientists needed sodium vapour payloads and a magnetometer for the experiments they were planning to conduct. 

Luckily, the magnetometer would be supplied by Laurence J Cahill (Kay-hill), a  professor at the University of Hampshire and Sarabhai’s friend.

The problem, however, was with the sodium vapour payloads. Sarabhai realised that India did not have the money to buy equipment for these payloads from an American manufacturer.

So, he had to think of another way to procure them and preferably, for free. 

Today, in hindsight it seems as if Sarabhai always came equipped with his own incredible bag of tricks. Or should we say, an arsenal of serendipitous connections.

During his PhD, one of Sarabhai’s students, Praful Bhavsar, happened to briefly work with a French astrophysicist called Jacques Blamont. Blamont played a role in the development of a French rocket called Véronique, which was launched in 1957. He had also conducted sodium vapour experiments on French rockets. Space historian Asif Siddiqi writes that Bhavsar apparently told Blamont about Sarabhai’s ambitious plan of launching an Indian space programme. Blamont, curious to know more, apparently then met Sarabhai in Nice in 1960 during an international meeting on space science. 

Cutting to the chase, Blamont and Sarabhai eventually became good friends. Unsurprisingly. When Sarabhai realised that India could not afford the sodium vapour payload, he approached Blamont. It was an immediate yes. The French would send the payload to India for free.

The Indian space programme repeatedly reaped the benefits of the incredible connections that both Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai had forged in their tenure as scientists.

Then came the Soviets. By 1962, the Soviets had heard about India’s plan to set up a rocket launching station near the magnetic equator. Asif Siddiqi writes that at a UN meeting in Geneva, a Soviet delegate approached Sarabhai and offered to contribute equipment for the proposed station. Siddiqi speculates that the offer was to give Indians a helicopter. 

Sarabhai leveraged this offer as well. In September 1962, he went to Moscow and there he toured the satellite and space flight facilities of the Russians. During that visit, he also met the academician Evgenii Fedorov. Siddiqi writes that Sarabhai knew him from before — again thanks to his vast international network. And soon, Fedorov, who was the head of the Soviet hydro-meteorological service, offered to give Sarabhai and his team a VUKH-7 vibration testing facility which would help scientists test payloads. The Soviets also wanted to give India a digital computer known as Minsk-II and a decommissioned MI-4 helicopter!

Perhaps, it was because they knew that India was already collaborating with the US and France, that the Soviets decided to pitch in. 

Was India playing with fire by engaging with both sides? Well, it must have helped that as a nation, India had a strong non-aligned stance right from its birth.

The idea of collaborating with a number of countries to set up India’s space programme was also a strategic move of Sarabhai’s, argues Siddiqi.

Asif Siddiqi
He understands that India lacks some basic infrastructure to build rockets to build tracking stations. So we must seek it elsewhere. But his goal is to produce indigenous technology. But right now they can’t. So I think that’s a…so he goes to the US, he goes to the UK, and he goes to the Soviet Union, and this how happens in ’61-’62. And then he begins to establish a kind of network — and also the French. So there’s a whole bunch of people involved. And he, he established a meaningful global network, with the hub, if you will, in India, of like minded people who could collaborate with Indians to build the seed of this. I think this this kind of the seed of the Space Programme is somewhere in ’60-’61, that Sarabhai and Bhabha essentially come up with this idea that look, if we’re going to put this plan into action, we need to talk to other people. And the other people in this case, are those who have the expertise, which is America and Russia and some other countries.

Anyway, Sarabhai thus solved the problem of procuring payloads and other equipment for our fledgling space programme. But this didn’t mean that our problems were over. Far from it, actually. 

In the months and days leading up to the launch, India’s scientists faced many such hiccups, roadblocks and some, how shall I say — uniquely Indian difficulties.

To begin with, the date picked for the rocket launch had itself caused some anxiety.

This sounding rocket launch was the first ever project of the Indian space programme. It was as much a political event as it was a scientific one. So, Sarabhai had to pick a day that would not only potentially have favourable weather especially for the sodium vapour cloud to be photographed. It also had to be a date that would be convenient for the many important political figures who wanted to be present for this one-of-a-kind event. 

After a lot of deliberation, Sarabhai eventually picked November 21 but the meteorologists from the Indian Meteorological Department were not happy at all. Here’s Pramod Kale explaining why.

Pramod Kale
Now, as soon as the date was picked up and particularly since, we would launch in the evening, I remember, conversations with Dr. Ramanathan, Dr. Pisharoty and Ms. Anna Mani — she was the deputy director general of meteorology and incharge of the instruments division and all of them were unhappy with the choice of the date — saying that, everytime we know in the evening, particularly in the month of November, it rains in Kerala. 

Again, since the sodium vapour cloud had to be photographed, scientists needed it to be a clear day. In fact, the sodium vapour cloud was going to be photographed from four vantage points: Kanyakumari, Palayamkottai (Pa-La-yam-kottai / Pazhayamkottai), Kodaikanal and Kottayam.

Pramod Kale
So we said okay, at the most what is going to happen, we will have to stop the launch and we’ll try again, next day sometime. But yes, this is…everybody had that particular feeling that we are not going to be able to launch on that particular day – just because of the rain. 

The launch was still some months away — so, worries related to the monsoon gods would have to wait. And there was enough going on already to keep our space scientists occupied. Like this — in July, 1963.

As soon as Pramod Kale returned from NASA, he got a phone call from Sarabhai. There was an urgent problem. Without any prior intimation, NASA had flown the sounding rockets to India and they were now sitting at the Delhi airport.

Pramod Kale
NASA had used the military air transport system of theirs, whatever was available and on that, they had loaded it and the rockets had landed. Rockets means that they are fully fitted with all the propellant in it – which are the explosives. Which was not a good thing to have sitting there at the airport, we had to take care of it. 

In fact, Thumba at that time didn’t even have a storage facility for rockets. Such a facility was still in the process of being built. But like Kale said, rockets with combustible fuel inside could not be sitting in the airport of our capital city!

Pramod Kale
Dr. Sarabhai suggested that Prof. Chitnis and myself, we should go to Delhi and try to see what we can actually do in moving those rockets and storing it somewhere. At that time, Prof. Bhagwantham was the scientific advisor and chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. Dr. Sarabhai suggested we should go and talk to Dr. Bhagwantham.

But that didn’t help. Dr. Bhagwantham asked Kale and Chitnis to ask Homi Bhabha what to do instead.

Pramod Kale
So, we went and talked with Dr. Bhabha. He understood the problem and he must have talked with certain people from the airforce and it was taken care — they moved it to their own place and then after about a month and a half, these rockets were moved to Trivandrum.

By now, I’m sure you’re not surprised that Bhabha took care of the matter. 

The rockets that NASA sent to India were called Nike Apache (Apachay). These were two-stage rockets that had become a standard of sorts as far as sounding rockets were concerned. 

Pramod Kale
NASA in their own experiments had been using some of the rockets which were developed earlier by the US military particularly and out of that Nike was the larger rocket. On the top of it, another rocket could be fitted which could be the Nike Apache or the Nike Cajun.

Unlike the Nike rocket, Apache and Cajun were rockets developed by NASA. And the idea was to fit either the Cajun or the Apache on top of the Nike rocket. This was done to ensure the rocket can travel to greater heights.

NASA chose the Nike Apache combination for our first sounding rocket launch. 

Pramod Kale
So this was a combination which could reach to the height of about 150-170 kilometres maximum, which we were expecting, because most of our experiments, whatever in those days, which were being planned, were all confined from 80 kms up to maybe 130 kms or so. So this was a good combination.

If it wasn’t bad enough that these rockets, with their propellants and everything were sitting in the Delhi airport, days later, the truck that was transporting them to Thumba, presumably from the airport, broke down on the way. But a solution was quickly found and finally the rockets managed to reach Thumba.

Thumba, a former fishing village and now a rocket launching station,  represented a whole other challenge altogether. The people of Thumba had given up their village and their church for a programme that nobody knew would work back then. But convincing the villagers was only one part of the challenge. Turning a place with practically no infrastructure into a functioning rocket launching station was no mean feat either.  One of the men that Sarabhai had put in-charge for the job was a civil engineer called RD John. While he was slaving away, India’s space scientists had moved into the church formerly run by the Bishop, where as a news article recalled, pigeons fluttered in the high ceilings.

Pramod Kale reached Thumba closer to the launch date in November 1963. He describes all that he saw when he got there.

Pramod Kale
Oh we saw the roads being laid at least — the digging was going on, the roads were being laid. So things were…because I actually reached there by about something like what 13th, 14th November but in between we were constantly getting the progress reports from June onwards when the work had actually taken up, started. Our…place for the rocket launching, the rocket launching pad was getting ready. That’s where the concrete had to be put in. The concrete had to be put in, in some of the other places also — particularly the block house – the nearest point from where we were going to control the…fire the rocket..in a safe place with large, thick, concrete, walls and all other things. So that kind of a place which was there — it was a small room, basically something about maximum 10 people, 15 people we could stand up there in that place. Electricity was at least established – I think, as far as i remember we had only one phone, somewhere in one of the buildings. And (laughs) phones were not at all there. So yeah.

These were scientists who had just returned from NASA where the facilities, even if not up to today’s world-class standards, were far, far more advanced anyway.

Pramod Kale
We knew that it was a small village in which all this was happening. For example, there was a school building – a small one. That school building became our office where my equipment had to be set up. By the time I reached there, I found out that they had just poured the concrete and there was water on the floor everywhere. So that is a kind of a thing we had  expected — that this is going to happen but at least we were working towards a specific target and I could see there was… everybody was extremely enthusiastic about what was going to happen and how things were happening. So that was one good thing that everybody was enthusiastic. There was no negative feeling in any one of… that you must also remember one thing – the time frame – that is 1962. We had the problem with the Chinese. After that now we were going to again get something going on of this particular nature, involving rockets, involving future kind of a thing. So people were extremely enthusiastic and ready to help us in every way.

While all of this hectic activity was taking place, our scientists were told that the French payload – the sodium vapour payload, that Sarabhai’s scientist friend Blamont was going to send, would reach Thumba only two days before launch day. And without the payload, the launch would not happen.

Siddiqi writes, that Kalam, who was still at Wallops Island at the time, was asked to escort the payload to India — however late it was going to be. 

But the troubles with the French payload didn’t end there. Once it arrived in Thumba, scientists discovered that it didn’t fit inside the American rocket. 

There were just two days left for the launch.

Amrita Shah, Vikram Sarabhai’s biographer writes that Ratilal Panchal, PRL’s expert mechanic, had to be flown down from Ahmedabad to fix the problem. And in a nail-biting finish, the payload was finally, somehow made to fit into the rocket.

On the morning of November 20th, a day before the launch, our scientists in Thumba woke up to cloudy skies and the threat of rain. By the evening, there was a full-blown downpour. 

But, on the morning of the 21st, quite miraculously, the day began without a drop of rain and remained that way. At 2.30 in the afternoon, the rocket was brought out and loaded on to the launcher. 

But, there was a problem. Amrita Shah writes that as the rocket was being hoisted onto the launcher, there was a leak in the hydraulic system of the crane. A few technicians immediately jumped in to shift the rocket manually. The rocket was in position finally.

But soon, there was a new problem. The remote system to raise the launcher to the correct angle wasn’t working.

Pramod Kale
What had happened was we had moved the rocket…the rocket was getting ready, finally the rocket had to be erected, so that we started the electrical system of that thing and it didn’t work. So, finally it was found out that one particular relay was not really working properly. So a person had to go out, near the launcher and actually operate that switch and finally, we’re able to manage to get the rocket completely vertically up as required. And the exact angle was being calculated by Mr. Kalam and his group – 2-3 other people were there with him as to exactly what should be the angle for actual launch. Once those co-ordinates were given, then again it was being adjusted. 

The guests had already arrived by this time. There was Jacques Blamont himself, Homi Bhabha of course and  VV Giri who was then the governor of Kerala. There were also scientists and personnel from NASA — Reginald R. Hindle and James F. Andrews, for instance, who had accompanied some of our Indian scientists back to India to help with the preparations. The State Assembly of Kerala, based in Trivandrum, apparently adjourned early hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectacular release of the sodium vapor cloud.

Pramod Kale
Dr. Sarabhai was out on the..in the sea coast, on the beach, where we had made a safe place where the governor and all other people could watch from…I was at the launch…block house. Mr. Murthy, Mr. Kalam, I was there, Mr. Easwardas, Chitnis, Prakash Rao and Dr. Bhabha joined with us at the block house at that time. He was very much interested in what we were doing. 

A siren was sounded to clear the area around the launch pad. The tension in the air was as palpable as the humidity.

Around five minutes before the launch, Pramod Kale who was at the block house took the microphone in his hands and began making the announcements. 

Pramod Kale
We were getting ready, with launch minus 5 minutes or so and everybody were to clear from the near the rocket and all other things

The final moment was nearing. It was T minus 3 minutes to launch.

Pramod Kale
And I noticed that one of the engineers, I think Krishna Murari…from atomic energy, electrical…he had again gone back to that place, he said he wanted to do the final adjustment. 

Kale dropped the microphone and ran out of the block house towards the launch pad.

Pramod Kale
I just ran out because it was about 100ft or so but I had to go there, catch him and bring him back. He was doing the final adjustments. (laughs).

Finally, it was time for the final countdown.

At 6.25 pm on November 21, 1963,  India’s first sounding rocket soared upwards and marked the dawn of India’s space journey. Years of planning, dreaming and hard work had culminated into this moment — a rocket had just taken off from Indian soil. 

Vikram Sarabhai in particular was overcome with joy. Here’s Mallika Sarabhai describing it for us – 

Mallika Sarabhai: 21:21: Oh yes, he was very excited. And, you know, when when when the rocket went off successfully he was he was like a little boy. He was he was shining with with excitement and bubbling over with joy. He had that kind of infectious joy that that was the joy of a child. It wasn’t the joy of a grown man and a scientist with so much on his shoulders.

The sodium vapour cloud was also successfully photographed from almost all the four vantage points. Some cameras couldn’t take photos because of a cloud cover obscuring their view. But this didn’t dampen spirits.

Amrita Shah writes that Vikram Sarabhai sent home a telegram that day that said: ‘Gee whiz, wonderful rocket shot’.

I have in front of me, a photograph that I believe must have been taken on November 21, 1963. I don’t know who the photographer is — it is a black-and-white picture. There’s no date on it but the caption in the photo book that it is from says that it was taken on the day the very first rocket flight took off from Thumba.

Correction: It was pointed out to us by Twitter User @zingaroo that the picture we referred to was actually taken in 1966 and was misattributed in the book we referred to in our research – https://twitter.com/zingaroo/status/1304324942511534081

There’s a row of men, some young boy scouts amongst them, standing on the beach in Thumba squinting up at the skies. There are two men towards the right corner of the photograph dressed in shirts and mundus, their hands behind their back, their heads pulled back. Almost all of their mouths are open. Understandably. They were seeing for the first time, a flying object, launched by men, charging towards the skies. 

Behind the men can be seen rows of trees, some arched back, as though they too are looking at India’s first rocket in the sky.

I was trying to find out how the others, the non-scientists, felt on this day and this photograph captures that aspect remarkably well — a historic milestone through the eyes of ordinary Indians. 

This was the moment. India’s space dreams had just begun to turn into reality and we had just overcome such incredible odds. You would  think that the enthusiasm and joy seen near the launch site would have immediately spread outside Thumba and have a morale-boosting effect on our young country.

Internationally too, the event was expected to get wide publicity – marking the arrival of the Indian Space Programme on the global stage. 

On November 22, NASA issued a press release about the sounding rocket launch and described it as a success which was a result of the coordinated effort of France, India and the US — yes the Soviets weren’t mentioned. 

But as fate would have it, India’s achievement was overshadowed by a shocking incident that captured the world’s attention on November 22.

News Announcements
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, you’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath but about 10 or 15 mins ago a tragic thing from all indications has happened in the city of Dallas. Let me quote to you this…And you’ll excuse me if I’m out of breath. A bulletin..this is from the United Press from Dallas: President Kennedy and governor John Connally have been cut down by assassin bullets in downtown Dallas.

Walter Cronkite
From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official President Kennedy died at 1 pm central standard time., 2 o clock eastern standard time, some 38 minutes ago..

On November 22, 1963, American President John F Kennedy, was shot dead while he was travelling in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. He was shot by former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald. The shocking incident not only dominated American airwaves but was globally reported, including in India. Americans, both in NASA and at Thumba, were overcome with shock. 

A pall of gloom descended on Thumba the day after India shot off the first rocket ever. It was a bitter-sweet moment for Indian space scientists who had worked so closely with the American scientists.

In India, the launch was reported and Pramod Kale remembers one newspaper headline in particular. Ironically, it wasn’t a flattering mention at all.

Pramod Kale
As far as I remember, one newspaper in the morning, there was a reaction that we need rice and not rockets (laughs)

We need rice not rockets.

That’s the other thing — There was no denying that by launching its first ever sounding rocket, India had pulled off an incredible feat. But back in 1963, the significance of this event was yet to spread and reach the ears and minds of the people of the country. 

Today, we have reams and reams written about November 21, 1963 but back then, that week, all that there was, was a quiet little celebration in a small fishing village in Kerala.

This didn’t dampen the spirit of India’s first space scientists. They knew that they had pulled off what was considered unimaginable just a few years back. They had the long term in mind — As Sarabhai had said, India wasn’t after space for the glamour associated with it. It was interested in harnessing the potential of space technology for the benefit of the country. In this regard a small step was taken by launching a sounding rocket. Sarabhai’s scientists knew that the country would share their joy sooner than later.

Credits

Narrated by – Harsha Bhogle
Producer – Gaurav Vaz
Research & Interviews – Archana Nathan
Written by – Archana Nathan & Nupur Pai
Narrative overview – Sidin Vadukut & Devaiah Bopanna
Editing – Gaurav Vaz & Supriya Nair
Transcription – Anushka Mukherjee

Title Track, Sound Design, Background Score – Raghu Dixit
Audio Prouduction Assitance – Suraj Gulvady
Audio Engineering Support & Editing – Madhav Ayachit
Recorded at Island City Studios, Mumbai by – Supratik Das