I stayed up to watch the Chandrayaan 2 drama. Too bad. These missions are unforgiving and there is zero margin for error.
As the USA and the erstwhile Soviet Union found out, success in space doesn’t come by easy and not without many long, hard, painful lessons. So India shouldn’t be discouraged. But the Indian public would do well to not treat this as a combination of Bollywood and a T20 cricket match. Enough of the nonsensical “we’re proud of you” chants. Nature doesn’t care about your pride. Space engineering is tough business. The visuals of the Indian control room looked like the typical mess you see at an airport waiting room whenever a flight full of disorderly Indians has been delayed. Starring in this comedy was the distinguished space scientist Dr. N. Modi. I was half expecting Dr. Modi to puff his 56” and demand a screwdriver so he could fix the problem. Like Dev Anand in the movie Lootmaar - the aircraft has an issue and Dev-sahab (“the world’s best pilot”) goes in with a took box of screwdrivers and spanner and next thing we know the engines are spooling up! Perhaps ISRO should hire Salim-Javed next time for some good dialogues. PS: I highly recommend the "Mission Control" documentary - https://www.netflix.com/is/title/80175483
