From India . . . . Shooting For The Sky [Actually Moon]
- By Sam George
- Published 10/23/2008
Sam George
Sam George is the Executive Director of PARIVAR International - a non-profit initiative to address the needs of youth and families of Asian Indian origin in North America and to the Asian Indian community worldwide. Parivar means family in many Indian languages. Sam George also serves as one of the founding directors of Urban India Ministries
www.UrbanIndia.org Sam George and his wife, Mary have spoken at premarital and family events in many countries. They are parents of two boys and make their home in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Sam is the author of the book “Understanding the Coconut Generation: Ministry to the Americanized Asian Indians." Check out this website www.CoconutGeneration.com Coconut (brown on the outside, white on the inside) is a metaphor for the Americanized Asian Indians. Sam George can be reached at sam@coconutgeneration.com
Hello friends,
I reached India yesterday. I am now in God’s own country, as Kerala is often called. Beautiful greenery and monsoon here keeping things calm and quite. It is wonderful to be in quite serene surrounding and away from maddening craze that often drives our lives everyday everywhere.
As I got here, India blasted off it Moon rocket and is planning to send manned moon mission in 2012. It has fueled the aspiration of the entire nation. With booming economy (not much affected by the global downturn) and all high self confidence, this nation is going places. It is much like what US President John Kennedy soon after taking presidency to revamp NASA ambitious plan for space dominance. See NDTV, Timesof India reports here.
The space lauch vehicle is called Chandrayaan-1, meaning journey to moon. It already has plans for follow up trips 2 & 3. The control station is not far from where I am right now. Indian scientists continue to dazzle the world with their scientific acumen and project management capabilities in handling such complex mission.
Not only that Indian accomplished this mission successfully, they did it in record time and cost. Most of the nations who have tried such launches in the past have spend many times this cost ($80 million). WIll other nations start outsourcing space research to India now?
What’s next? WIll it be Mars? Way to go India. Keep it up.
Coconut Generation
