How beautiful that was, said S Somnath, Secretary of the Department of Space, and Chairman of - ISRO and the Indian Space Commission, describing the successful launch of Chandrayaan-3 on Friday.

Stating that he has been fascinated about rockets all the time because it is the only way that we can conquest space, he said space scientists assess the beauty of the launches through the graphs and curves that are churned out from the humongous amounts of data that they gather from the missions.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3 launch: Indian-origin CEOs in Silicon Valley are over the moon

Delivering the Convocation address at the Indian Institute of Technology (Hyderabad) here on Saturday, he said that the ISRO had gathered about 2,000 measurements from the previous Chandrayaan’s effort.

“All of them finally come to us as graphs and curves. We have created an attachment to those graphs and curves. By looking at them, we can feel how they are progressing,” he said.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3: Some questions and answers 

Talking about the fascinating world of space and human travel, he said that people always wondered why human beings should travel to space and explore plants. “Robots lack the feel. They don’t have emotions and sensory feelings. But this gap is going to be plugged soon. Ultimately, human space travel may not be required as the gap is being closed,” he said.

“All travel experiences are just memories when you come back from that trip to, say the Himalayas. If you can create the memory, it means you have travelled to the Himalayas, It can be the same with space travel,” he said.

“Suppose we find a way to merge the external electronic sensors to our nervous system, they can be able to see things and process a signal as we see things. You will be able to create a replica of you, which can travel places and experience. You will be sitting in the comfort of your room and explore places the way you want. It is that simple,” he said.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3 launchpad witnesses unique book release

Advice for students

He asked the students to learn to work with a team. “We all realise that individually we may be weak, powerless and incapable. But once you come together, we are seeing the power of creation,” he said.

“Focus on at least one subject domain and really create a breadth of understanding. Remember one thing. Recognition should always come from your friends and colleagues, and not form your bosses or seniors,” he said.

He also wanted the students to enjoy the work that they are doing. “You must get away from that place where you stop enjoying anything that you do. It’s not worth pursuing,” he said.

Also read: Chandrayaan and the Tamil connect

980 degrees conferred

As many as 980 degrees (undergraduate - 309, post-graduation - 561, and PhDs - 110) were conferred by IIT-H, marking the highest number of students graduating in a year for the institute. This number also includes the first-time graduating batches of BTech in Artificial Intelligence, Bachelor in Design, and the online MTech degrees.

IIT-H Director B S Murty said that the start-ups supported by the institute had generated 1,000 jobs and accrued an aggregate revenue of over ₹1,200 crore so far.

Related Topics