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[Voiceover Countdown] Plus one ... two... three.. liftoff

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Newshour: In early November, India launched a 320-ton rocket

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on a mission to Mars.

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If all goes according to plan, the Indian spacecraft will travel 485 million miles

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over more than 10 months and go into the orbit around Mars in September.

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The US, former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency

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are the only ones to have accomplished the feat

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Dr K Radhakrishnan : It is a challenging task, a complex task

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Newshour : Dr K Radhakrishnan is the director of the

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Indian Space Research organisation

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He was one of the engineers looking on when the Mangalyan

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or 'Mars craft' in Hindi launched

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The probe will be studying the atmosphere of Mars,

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and looking for traces of methane, which could be a sign of previous life.

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Dr Radhakrishnan: A lot of things are known about Mars

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But there are several issues which are yet to be understood, and understood precisely

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Newshour : The mission to Mars is a source of immense national pride in India

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but it might also signal a new Asian space race, and it's already

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triggered a debate about the benefits of exploring another planet,

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when so many Indians struggle for basic necessities

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Though it has been in existence for nearly fifty years, the very fact that

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India has a space program is unknown to much of the world

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But since its inception, India has not only launched a mission to Mars

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but has sent a probe to the moon, and has built and launched 70 satelites

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that do everything from measuring water resources to enabling

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mobile communications in rural India.

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Radhakrishnan says that at its heart, India's space program is meant

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to improve life for India's 1.2 billion people.

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One critical mission is to predict where and when storms will hit land,

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so people in the storm's path can be taken to safety.

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In 1999, when a massive storm hit India's east coast

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more than 10,000 people died.

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But a few months ago, when another powerful storm hit the same area,

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only 21 people died. Nearly a million people had evacuated

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after early warning data from Indian satelites

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Dr Radhakrishnan: Part of this use of earth observation satellite is

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to provide services to the fisherman, to the farmer, to the decision-maker

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at the grassroot level.

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Newshour: : So how does understanding the atmosphere of Mars,

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or whether there was methane, help the farmer, or the fisherman in India?

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: It is not directly; understanding of the atmosphere of Mars

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is not going to help him immediately, directly.

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Newshour: But he says technology from the Mars mission will help improve

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the satellites India has yet to launch, which will directly benefit

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ordinary Indian citizens.

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But beyond the tangible scientific benefits, the feat of sending a rocket

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to Mars has been a huge point of pride for India.

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As the Mars spacecraft left Earth's orbit, Indians took to Twitter

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to express their excitement, a point echoed by Dr. Radhakrishnan

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who says the mission has inspired the nation.

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: People are keeping awake in the night to see

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how the Mars orbiter operations are progressing.

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So if you can transform so many young minds, and they say "yes, we need to

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take up a career in science," it is a big transformation

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for the country, for the future.

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Newshour: And working for the space agency is prestigious.

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Hundreds of thousands of engineers have applied for just a few hundred slots.

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The pride is also in part for how little India spends to explore space.

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The Mars mission costs 4.5 billion rupees, or just over 70 million dollars.

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Compare that to the Maven mission, a similar NASA probe that's also currently

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en route to Mars. It costs nearly ten times as much.

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The savings are achieved in part because engineering labour is cheaper.

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The Indian program recycles and adapts components like launch vehicles

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and builds far fewer models, relying heavily on computer testing.

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But spending any money on space exploration here is controversial.

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India is still a developing country, where nearly a third of the population,

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about 400 million people, live on less than $1.25 a day.

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Brinda Adige runs an NGO called Global Concerns India,

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focused on women and children, here in a slum in the city of Bangalore,

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less than ten miles from the headquarters of the Indian Space Agency.

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She says she was sad when she first heard about the Mars mission.

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Adige: At one end of the spectrum, so much of money that is being spent

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to send a rocket out into outer space, when we know that here on Earth

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in my country, there are children dying every day because they have no food

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to eat. So many more going away, spending their days and nights

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without electricity. No roads, no education, no protection for women

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and the girl child, anywhere in this country.

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NewsHour: Do you think that, if they didn't spend the money on the satellite,

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that they would spend the money on women and girls' issues?

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Adige: No, they would not. They would not.

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Their priorities are certainly not looking at children, women, human beings

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who are in need of basic necessities just to live.

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NewsHour: So you're not against the science, just the priorities.

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Adige: Yes.

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NewsHour: Adige gathered a group of women from the slum

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who echoed some of the same concerns.

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I asked the group that, given the millions being spent on the mission to Mars,

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what kind of impact additional money could have in this neighborhood.

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They described a litany of issues including bad roads, lack of access

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to medical care, the high costs of education, and complaints about

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sanitation issues like sewage runoff after the rains

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and a lack of safe drinking water.

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One of these women, Manoja, who works as a cook in a nicer part of town,

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took us to her mother-in-law's house, and showed us

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the contaminated water that comes out of her pipes.

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Manoja [interpreted]: All of this water in the house smells terrible.

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NewsHour: It smelt rancid.

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This is the municipal water the family pays for from the city.

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They have to spend extra on trucked-in clean drinking water:

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money they don't have.

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But Dr. Radhakrishnan defends the Indian Space Program budget --

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in total, about a billion dollars a year.

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NewsHour: On a global level, India's program is incredibly inexpensive.

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On a local level, it's still very hard for people to comprehend on the streets

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of Bangalore or elsewhere, spending so much money going to a different planet.

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: The question is in absolute terms when you talk about

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the $1 billion that we spend annually. Is it providing the benefits to the people?

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Space is touching the lives of every man and woman in this country.

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NewsHour: Radhakrishnan points out that the entire Indian Space Program

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accounts for one-third of one percent of the nation's budget.[br]

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Those numbers may make it easier to justify what may be a larger goal:

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competing with another superpower.

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Just last month, China became the third country behind the US

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and the former Soviet Union to land a rover on the moon,

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and China has successfully completed manned space flights

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a feat several years away for India.

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But in going to Mars, India could best its neighbor.

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The competition is a fuel India is reluctant to admit.

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In November 2011, a joint Chinese-Russian Mars mission failed.

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NewsHour: Is there political pressure to keep up with the next-door-neighbor, China?

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: Each country has their own priorities,

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their own vision for the space program.

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India has its vision, China has its vision.

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We are pursuing our vision.

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NewsHour: It doesn't matter when China does what it does?

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: It does its program, we do our program.

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NewsHour: But it was right after China's failure that the Prime Minister here said,

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"Here's our priority, we're going to Mars."

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Dr. Radhakrishnan: See, November 2013 is an opportune time for

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a mission to Mars. And such opportune time occurs only once in 26 months.

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NewsHour: While the Indian launch date did capitalize on when the distance

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between Mars and the earth is shorter, to critics like Brinda Adige,

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this is simply a space race.

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Adige: You've gone to Mars, now I also have to go to Mars.

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You've reached moon? I must also go and see whether there's water

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on moon or not. Whether my people down here in this country have

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drinking water or not, is a quandary.

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The question arises, "To what end?"

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NewsHour: To administrators like Dr. Radhakrishnan, success with

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the Mars mission is another step in helping the world see the red planet,

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and India, in a new way.

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