India's Moon Mission: Lets Not Feel Proud About the Low Price Tag

Chandrayaan is orbiting the moon. On 14th November it successfully placed the Indian Flag on the moon. With that India became only the 4th nation to have its flag on the moon.

World class technology

The Chandrayaan moon mission will add a lot of knowledge about the moon, that was so far unknown to mankind. As a result of the Chandrayaan mission, for the first time, a 3-D map of the complete moon's surface, including both the near-side and the far-side, will be available. Also for the first time a mineral map of the moon will become available. It will become known as to what minerals and chemicals are present at what locations on the moon.

For more pictures visit the official Chandrayaan site

Among other imaging technologies Chandrayaan carries the Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument which will help map the moon's terrain in 3-D. To create a 3-D atlas of the moon the laser ranging instrument sends out pulses of laser light on a strip of the lunar surface and then measures the reflected portion. In addition to laser images, the Chandrayaan carries instruments to take photographs in the visual and low-energy and high-energy x-ray regions. The images will help conduct chemical and mineralogical mapping of the moon's surface. This will let us know where and in what quantities minerals like aluminum, silicon, iron, calcium, uranium, thorium and even possibly water are present underneath the moon's surface.

World class scientists

Obviously the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) scientists are world class and have achieved great success in this and their earlier missions. With great precision they have put Chandrayaan in the moons orbit. All systems are working perfectly and the Chandrayaan has started its work to create a 3-D map of the moon and search for minerals there. Most ISRO scientists went to top universities and put in many years of hard work to obtain masters and PhD degrees. Undoubtedly they are some of the top brains in the country, after all they are rocket scientists!

Low price tag

The cost of the Chandrayaan mission has been pegged at Rs. 386 crores (under $90 million). To put that in perspective, a Boeing 747-400 costs over $200 million. American unmanned moon missions have cost atleast 5 times more. The last chinese mission to the moon cost at least two times more.

Low price tag obtained at the cost of scientists?

So should we be proud about the low price tag? How much of this reduction in price has come from producing technology at lower cost using innovative methods and how much has come from underpaying human resources. Well the fact is that we have grossly underpaid our human resources to cut costs. The following table gives the salaries that ISRO scientists are paid (after the pay revision in the Sixth Pay Commission) and compares them to the salaries in the Information Technology sector in India.

Scientist Grade	Years of Experience after Bachelors	Monthly Pay^	Pay in IT sector*
Scientist B	0-4 years	15,600-39,100 +(5,400)	Rs.30,000
Scientist C	4-9 years	15,600-39,100 +(6,600)	Rs.58,000
Scientist D	9-14 years	15,600-39,100 +(7,600)	Rs.100,000
Scientist E	14-18 years	39,200-67,000 +(8,700)	Rs.142,000
Scientist F	19-24 years	39,200-67,000 +(8,900)	Rs.183,000
Scientist G	>24 years	39,200-67,000 +(10,000)	Rs.225,000
Scientist H	>24 years	39,200-67,000 +(12,000)	Rs.225,000

(^These are the basic salary ranges for the given grade. The figures in the brackets are the grade pay. To get the gross salary add the grade pay and 30% HRA + 16% DA of the basic to current basic salary. DA is linked to the inflation and typically rises about 3% every four months and today stands at 16%. For example, a scientist B on joining would get 15,600 + 5,400 + (0.3+0.16) x 15,600 = 28, 176)
(*IT sector salary has been computed using the formula: annual salary after n years = Rs (3 + n x 1) lakhs, while not exact this formula gives a reasonably accurate lower bound. Most scientists have higher degrees like MTech and PhD, in which case the multiplicative factor can range between 1.1 to 1.5. Remember this is a lower bound for salaries in this sector. If you are aware of a better formula do let me know)

Now take a look at the following table to see how much Boeing and NASA are paying their scientists.

Organization and Post	Average Annual Salary
ISRO Scientist	$12,000
NASA Scientist	$88,000
Boeing Scientist	$89,000

Should we feel great about the low price tag of Rs 386 crores for the Chandrayaan? Hardly.

I dream of being a space scientist but will actually become an accountant

While it is not necessary that our scientists should be paid salaries that equal those of NASA scientists, we must at least keep in view the Indian market conditions. We must at least provide our scientists a decent standard of living. They shouldn't have to think how they will pay for the education of their children.

In a recent visit to a school when Dr. Abdul Kalam asked the students how many of them wanted to be engineers a few hands went up. When he asked how many wanted to to be doctors a few more hands went up. Finally when he asked how many wanted to be involved in the Mars mission, all hands went up. But the fact remains that very few young graduates are taking up a career with ISRO. When you are a ten year old you can afford to follow your dream. By the time you are ready to leave school reality sets in. More eighteen year olds in India prefer to be accountants than to be space scientists. ISRO hardly gets applications for its scientist posts. For graduating students from top institutes like IISc or IITs, the top career choice is an MNC and not ISRO.

Lets be proud about the success of the Chandrayaan mission. But lets not be proud about the low cost of our moon mission. That was achieved by grossly underpaying our scientists!