APJ Abdul Kalam

Chapters 5 – 8

1. Why was the Nandi project abandoned?

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 to a little educated family of boat owners in Rameswaram. ‘Wings of Fire’ is a powerful autobiography of courage and belief, as much an individual journey as the saga of India’s search for scientific and technological self-sufficiently. He believed in, “We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.” The fire to achieve and the wings of determination helped him to climb the ladder of success.

Abdul Kalam had been previously awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan (country’s second highest civilian award) in 1990, and a recipient of India’s highest Civilian Awad, the Bharat Ratna, in 1997. He served as principal scientific adviser to the Government of India from 1999 to 2001. He served the nation as President of India (first citizen of India) from 2002 to 2007. He dreamt of transforming India a developed nation by 2020. Presently, he has been working as a Professor at Anna University, Chennai since 2007.

It was his first experience living in an Industrial Town, Kanpur was heavily populated. It was total contrast to Rameswaram. Kalm felt that a kind of loneliness prevailed in the city. Many people had come to the city in search of jobs.

On his return to Delhi, he was informed that a new type of target had been taken up at DTD & P (Air) and that he had been included in the design team. He completed this task with the other team members. Then, he undertook a preliminary design study on human centrifuge. Later he carried out the design and development of a vertical take-off and landing platform.

Three years passed, the Aeronautical Development establishment was established in Bangalore and Abdul Kalam was posted to the new establishment. Here a project team was formed to design and develop an indigenous hovercraft prototype, a ground equip machine. Kalam was to lead the team with four persons to assist him. He was given a time limit of three years to launch the engineering model.

The project was beyond their capabilities and none of them were experienced in that field. They tried to collect all information about the hovercrafts but there was not much material found on hovercraft nor could they find any person who had the knowledge about the hovercraft.

One day, finally, they decided to go ahead with the limited information they had about hovercraft. After spending a few months on the drawing board, they moved on to actual model, part by part, stage by stage, things started moving. Kalam was impressed by this endeavor to produce a wingless, light, swift machine. He feared that with a background such as his-a person who has come from a small town, middle class would shrink from responsibilities and wait for fate or destiny to take its course.

V.K. Menon was the then Defence Minister of India. He was very much interested in the progess of their samall project. He saw it as a stepping stone to India producing Defence equipment within the country. His confidence was a boost to them.

Many of his senior colleagues did not accept Kalam’s inventory pursuit. When the project was one year old, the Defence Minister came to ADE for his routine visits. Kalam escorted him to their assembly shop. The model was culmination of one year’s untiring effort to develop a practical hovercraft for battlefield application. The minister asked a lot of questions.

The hovercraft was christened Nandi. The hovercraft was beyond their expectations. The Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon took a ride in Nandi, with Kalam. The Minister asked Kalam to be the pilot.

It was a smooth ride and the Minister was very appreciative. He told Kalam that they have solved the basic problems involved in developing hovercraft. He asked him to develop a more powerful prime mover.

They completed the project ahead of schedule and created a successful working hovercraft. Dr. O.P. Mediratta, Director of ADE, was pleased with his work. But, unfortunately V.K.K. Menon was out of office and could not take his promised second ride. However, the project was mired in controversy and was finally shelved.


2. What was special about the author’s interview at INCOSPAR?


Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 to a little educated family of boat owners in Rameswaram. ‘Wings of Fire’ is a powerful autobiography of courage and belief, as much an individual journey as the saga of India’s search for scientific and technological self-sufficiently. He believed in, “We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.” The fire to achieve and the wings of determination helped him to climb the ladder of success.

Abdul Kalam had been previously awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan (country’s second highest civilian award) in 1990, and a recipient of India’s highest Civilian Awad, the Bharat Ratna, in 1997. He served as principal scientific adviser to the Government of India from 1999 to 2001. He served the nation as President of India (first citizen of India) from 2002 to 2007. He dreamt of transforming India a developed nation by 2020. Presently, he has been working as a Professor at Anna University, Chennai since 2007.
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Dr. Mediratta brought Prof. MGK Menon to hovercraft- a tall, handsome, bearded man. He asked me several questions about the machine. Prof. MGK Menon enquired me ‘Can you give me a ride in the machine?’.

Prof. MGK Menon was the director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Kalam received the call from the Indian Committee for Space Research (INCOSPER) to attend interview for the post of a rocket engineer.
Kalam went to Bombay to attend the interview, he was relaxed because he did not attempt for the interview.

Kalam was interviewed by Prof. Vikram Sarabhai along with Prof. Memon and Mr. Saraf. They were warmth and friendly. There were none of them show the arrogance or the patronizing attitude towards Kalam.

Prof. Sarabhai’s questions did not probe Kalam’s Knowledge or skills. Interviewers were looking for the possibilities within Kalam. The entire interview seemed to Kalam a total moment of truth.
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Kalam was asked stay back for a couple of days. The next day they absorbed Kalam as a rocket engineer at INCOSPAR. It was a breakthrough for a young man could only have dreamed of.

3. “Bread baked without love is a bitter bread, that feeds but half a man’s hunger”. How does the author use the quote in the context of work?

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 to a little educated family of boat owners in Rameswaram. ‘Wings of Fire’ is a powerful autobiography of courage and belief, as much an individual journey as the saga of India’s search for scientific and technological self-sufficiently. He believed in, “We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.” The fire to achieve and the wings of determination helped him to climb the ladder of success.

Abdul Kalam awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan (country’s second highest civilian award) in 1990, and a recipient of India’s highest Civilian Awad, the Bharat Ratna, in 1997. He served as principal scientific adviser to the Government of India from 1999 to 2001. He served the nation as President of India (first citizen of India) from 2002 to 2007. He dreamt of transforming India a developed nation by 2020. Presently, he has been working as a Professor at Anna University, Chennai since 2007.

The Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station was further developed in active collaboration with France, the USA and USSR. It was to be the centre of India’s integral national space programme.

The real journey however began with the Rohini Sounding Rocket (RSR) programme. This programme was responsible for the development and fabrication of sounding rockets and their associated on-board systems for scientific investigations in India. Under the RSR programme, a family of operational sounding rocket was developed. These rockets had wide ranging capabilities and several hundred such rockets have been launched for various scientific and technological studies.

The development of these rockets made India capable of producing fully indigenous sounding rockets. This could be seen as the revival of 18th century vision of Tippu Sultan.

When Tippu Sultan was killed, the British forces captured more than 700 rockets and the subsystem of 900 rockets. These rockets were taken to England and were subjected to reverse engineering.

With the death of Tippu Sultan, Indian rocketry came to a standstill.

Rocketry was reborn in India, thanks to the technological vision of our late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. Their vision was very clear if India was to play a meaningful role in the community of nation, which must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies.

Prof. Sarabhai was keen on trying novel ideas and liked to rope in young people to do this. He had the wisdom to judge people. Abdul Kalam felt that he was an innovator.

INCOSPAR was filled young and inexperienced but energetic and enthusiastic persons, who had been given the task of shaping the Indian spirit of self-reliance in Science and Technology. This was an example of leadership by trust.

Prof. Sarabhai assigned to Kalam the task of providing interface support to payload scientists. Almost all physical laboratories in India were involved in the sounding rocket programme each having its own mission, its own objective and its own payload. It was his presence that would fill them with enthusiasm. They wanted to show something new to Prof. Sarabhai.

Prof. Sarabhai believed in an open and free exchange of views. He felt that without collective understanding of a problem, effective leadership was impossible in a team. Prof. Sarabhai took a series of decisions that were to become the life mission of many scientists in India. He wanted to create new frontiers in the field of science and technology in India. He made own payload. This was a tedious task. Abdul Kalam had to X-ray payloads to look at stars, payloads to analyse the gas composition of the upper atmospheric payloads to explore the layers of atmosphere. He had to interact with payload scientists from India and abroad.

As Khalil Gibran says “Bread baked without love is a bitter bread, that feeds but half a man’s hunger”. Kalam felt that those work without their hearts achieve a hallow, half-hearted success that only breeds bitterness within. If you are in any profession but wish you were in some other profession then your success will be limited. It is extremely important to become emotionally involved with one’s work, such that any obstruction to the success of that work fills one with grief.

Abdul Kalam was very much impressed by Prof. Oda’s work. Prof. Oda was an X-ray payload scientist from the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Sciences, Japan. The X-ray payloads he brought were to be engineered by his team to fit into the nose cone of the Rohini.

One day, Abdul Kalam was working on the integration of Prof. Oda’s payload with his timer devices, Prof. Oda insisted on using his timer devices. Kalam thought it look flimsy but Prof. Oda stuck to his decision and the timer devices were replaced.

The rocket took off elegantly, but reported mission failure because of timer malfunction. Prof. Oda was so upset that tears filled in his eyes.

Kalam was involved with building subsystems like payloads housing and Jettisonable nose cones. Working with the nose cones Abdul Kalam was led into the field of composite materials.

Two Indian rockets were born at Thumba. They were Rohini and Menaka. This was major achievement for Indians. This could be achieved because of the atmosphere of trust created by Prof. Sarabhai at INCOSPAR.

Rohini-75 rocket was lanunched from TERLS on 20th November 1967.

4. What programme did Professor Vikram Sarabhai visualize almost simultaneously with the SLV project?
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 to a little educated family of boat owners in Rameswaram. ‘Wings of Fire’ is a powerful autobiography of courage and belief, as much an individual journey as the saga of India’s search for scientific and technological self-sufficiently. He believed in, “We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.” The fire to achieve and the wings of determination helped him to climb the ladder of success.

Abdul Kalam awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan (country’s second highest civilian award) in 1990, and a recipient of India’s highest Civilian Awad, the Bharat Ratna, in 1997. He served as principal scientific adviser to the Government of India from 1999 to 2001. He served the nation as President of India (first citizen of India) from 2002 to 2007. He dreamt of transforming India a developed nation by 2020. Presently, he has been working as a Professor at Anna University, Chennai since 2007.

Rocketry was reborn in India, thanks to the technological vision of our late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Prof. Vikram Sarabhai. Their vision was very clear if India was to play a meaningful role in the community of nation, which must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies.

Prof. Sarabhai was keen on trying novel ideas and liked to rope in young people to do this. He had the wisdom to judge people. Abdul Kalam felt that he was an innovator.

INCOSPAR was filled young and inexperienced but energetic and enthusiastic persons, who had been given the task of shaping the Indian spirit of self-reliance in Science and Technology. This was an example of leadership by trust.

Prof. Sarabhai had developed trust in them. Prof. Sarabhai was very optimistic. If he goes to Thumba, would electrify the people with unceasing activity. People would work around the clock in their enthusiasm to show Prof. Sarabhai something new, something that had not been done before in our country.

Prof. Sarabhai took a series of decisions that were to become the life-mission of many scientists and he wanted to create new frontiers in the field of science and technology in India. After the successful launch of Nike-Apache he shared his dream with his team members of an Indian satellite launch vehicle (SLV). His decision to make our own SLVs and our own satellites too simultaneously was remarkable one.

Prof. Sarabhai discussed about the matter threadbare with scientists who are working in various organizations and at different locations.

Prof. Sarabhai assigned to Kalam the task of providing interface support to payload scientists. Almost all physical laboratories in India were involved in the sounding rocket programme each having its own mission, its own objective and its own payload. It was his presence that would fill them with enthusiasm. They wanted to show something new to Prof. Sarabhai.



5. Describe the situation at INCOSPER in the early sixties.

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 to a little educated family of boat owners in Rameswaram. ‘Wings of Fire’ is a powerful autobiography of courage and belief, as much an individual journey as the saga of India’s search for scientific and technological self-sufficiently. He believed in, “We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire.” The fire to achieve and the wings of determination helped him to climb the ladder of success.

Abdul Kalam awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan (country’s second highest civilian award) in 1990, and a recipient of India’s highest Civilian Awad, the Bharat Ratna, in 1997. He served as principal scientific adviser to the Government of India from 1999 to 2001. He served the nation as President of India (first citizen of India) from 2002 to 2007. He dreamt of transforming India a developed nation by 2020. Presently, he has been working as a Professor at Anna University, Chennai since 2007.

Prof. Sarabhai was keen on trying novel ideas and liked to rope in young people to do this. He had the wisdom to judge people. Abdul Kalam felt that he was an innovator.

In early sixties, the situation at INCOSPAR was filled young and inexperienced but energetic and enthusiastic persons, who had been given the task of shaping the Indian spirit of self-reliance in Science and Technology. This was an example of leadership by trust.

Prof. Sarabhai had developed trust in them. Prof. Sarabhai was very optimistic. If he goes to Thumba, would electrify the people with unceasing activity. People would work around the clock in their enthusiasm to show Prof. Sarabhai something new, something that had not been done before in our country.
Prof. Sarabhai believed in an open and free exchange of views. He felt that without collective understanding of a problem, effective leadership was impossible in a team. He says ‘My job is to make decisions; but it is equally important to see that these decisions are accepted by the team members’.

Prof. Sarabhai took a series of decisions that were to become the life-mission of many scientists and he wanted to create new frontiers in the field of science and technology in India. After the successful launch of Nike-Apache he shared his dream with his team members of an Indian satellite launch vehicle (SLV). His decision to make our own SLVs and our own satellites too simultaneously was remarkable one.