ISRO's highest ever budget is three per cent of NASA’s

Tumkur: Inspite of a budgetary outlay that is a mere three per cent of NASA's, its high-profile American counterpart, the Indian Space Research Organisation is ready to take giant steps in areas of inter-planetary missions and human space flight, according to ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan.

Radhakrishnan was delivering a convocation address at Tumkur University.

"The success of Chandrayaan-1 prepares the basis for many futuristic missions. Mission planning is being carried out for Chandrayaan-2, Mars orbiter and Aditya, the maiden solar mission to study solar corona," Radhakrishnan said.

Perhaps the most ambitious of these will be the Human Space Flight Programme in which two Indian astronauts would be sent to low earth orbit and also be safely "landed back".

According to the ISRO chairman, India's workhorse rocket, the PSLV, is now considered the most reliable amongst launchers in its class in the industry with 15 consecutive successful launches.

Once the GSLV-Mk III rocket is made operational, the launch capacity to geo-transfer orbit would be raised to four tonnes which means "an adult elephant being carried to 25,000 kms above the earth".

"The astonishing fact is -- all these were achieved on a stringent shoe-string budget. Our budget for the financial year 2009-10 which also happens to be our highest ever, is just three per cent of NASA's budget for the year 2010," Radhakrishnan said.