The Indian Space Programme

by Gurbir Singh

  A few months after the return of Apollo 15, some of its flown covers came onto the market while the Apollo programme was still in progress. This was contrary to the arrangements made by the Apollo 15 Commander. The covers were to be sold only after the Apollo programme ended. In the wake of the resulting adverse publicity, NASA brought an abrupt stop to the practice. Subsequently, Al Worden, the Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot, was deemed responsible, and he became the only Apollo astronaut ever to be sacked by NASA. He came under suspicion because he was the only crew member who was also a stamp collector at the time.[273] Worden describes in detail this episode and the eventual vindication in his 2011 biography Falling to Earth.[274]

  Rocket Mail and World War II

  During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, General Franco’s rocket squadron deployed rockets containing thousands of sheets of propaganda delivering his messages written in Spanish and Arabic to his enemies in Madrid, the legionnaires and moors. The rockets exploded over their targets distributing the leaflets directly to the soldiers below with messages like “to prolong resistance is the sacrifice of life needlessly”. In an aerophilately magazine The Aero Field (No. 6, 1957), Dr Max Kronstein[275] writes “The introducing of the rocket as a propaganda tool in the Spanish campaign was reported in British newspapers during the war. And the Daily Telegraph of London reported on 12 February 1938, that even at that time both sides used for this purpose a rocket with a range of a mile and a half, which scattered 1000 pamphlets at a time.”[276]

  Having served in the medical corps during World War I, Smith would have understood the potential grave consequences of war on mainland India. Just as the aeroplane became an instrument of war, Smith would have been aware of the potential utility of rockets for war. All of Smith’s rockets were small and were not suitable for military use. There is no evidence that the military expressed any interest in Smith’s rockets. Rather, according to Jal Cooper, a friend and fellow philatelist of Smith, the “British military authorities showed much annoyance and dis-favour at Mr Smith continuing his rocket experiments”. During the War, Smith continued with testing his rockets in the suburbs of Calcutta where he lived.[277]

  Within a few days after the start of World War II, Smith launched what he called his first ‘war rocket’. Despite the name, these war rockets had no military use other than the potential, as General Franco had shown, to deliver propaganda. His first two war rockets, rocket number 207 and 208, were fired in the suburbs of Calcutta on 19 September 1939 carrying 20 covers each. They were called war rockets only because they were launched after the War had been declared. These were the very early stages of the War. It is unclear if Smith was publicizing to the military the potential of his work should the conflict arrive in mainland India. On 25 July 1940, Smith launched two rockets, number 230 and 231, from Park Street, Calcutta, probably in the park very close to his home on Elliot Road. Each carried a brownie camera with an intention to take aerial photos. Both were on the whole unsuccessful and no pictures were recorded. The first flight reached an altitude of 500 m and a range of 100 m, while the second achieved an altitude of 70 m over 500 m.[278]

  In February 1936, Smith had joined the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) that had been founded in Liverpool in England three years earlier. He was probably the BIS’s first member from India. The BIS was one of the several societies around the world established in the 1930s to promote the development of rocket technology and its potential application for space travel. Most similar societies around the world, including the American Interplanetary Society (later the American Rocket Society), were incorporated into their respective national defence programmes and thus ceased to exist as independent bodies. The BIS, however, was not and it continues to operate independently in the UK today. Through the BIS’s monthly journal, which had an international reach, Smith would have been aware of the technological developments in rocketry worldwide, at least until 1939 when the BIS’s formal activities were suspended for the duration of the War.

  Initially, Smith’s rockets were supplied by the Oriental Fireworks Company based in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and James Pain & Son established in London. Later, he developed his own rockets using leather, cardboard and tin. Smith’s grasp of the science of rocket technology appears to have been basic. Although Sputnik and the Space Age were still a quarter of a century away, more technologically sophisticated rocket experiments were being conducted elsewhere. Perhaps, inspired by some of the writings in the literature he had access to from his membership of international organisations, like the BIS, Smith introduced design changes to his rockets. By adding control surfaces, wings and rudder, he developed what he called a Boomerang Rocket with which he experienced some success. A boomerang rocket could fly out, drop a payload and then return to the area of launch. A report in the Star of India on 25 April 1938 describes rocket number 163 as having “stubby double-finned rudder and peculiar sharp pointed wings”. The report of a test launch says, “it first shot forward following a straight course and then slowly turned returning towards the firing point.”[279] Smith fired two rockets, rocket 255 and 256, on 1 July 1941, at Hastings Maidan in Calcutta. He called them Parachute Rockets, but neither had a parachute. Instead, each carried 10 signed covers with a blue and white label depicting an image of a descending parachute.

  Figure 5‑6 King of Sikkim Igniting One of Smith’s Rockets. April 1934. Credit Stephen H. Smith

  Not much technical data about his experiments survive, and less was recorded and published once the War started. Smith does not appear to have had any technical training or experience. His diary shows a systematic approach to recording each rocket launch, but the data is more qualitative than quantitative reflecting his limited skills in engineering and science, as well as his lack of instruments for measuring wind speed, distance and altitude. Smith’s final rocket tests were conducted in 1944. He experimented with alternative forms of propulsion. On 31 October, he launched a rocket using compressed air that he recorded as “compressed air projectile”. It carried 28 signed covers, but the record has no details on the design and technology of how the compressed air was used. On 4 December 1944, he launched two rockets. One used compressed air and the other he called gas-propelled projectile. Once again, no details are available on which gases or how they were used.[280]

  Between 1934 and 1944, Smith conducted nearly 300 rocket experiments. Just about every rocket carried covers signed by Smith himself and others. Even those rockets that carried parcels, livestock and cameras also had covers. There is no comprehensive record of how many covers were taken in each of his rockets and not all attempts were successful. The tally of his first 10 flights indicates that 1,313 items were flown. As his experience grew, so did the capacity and reliability of his rockets, and the number of covers flown also increased. In the first week of February 1937, Smith attended the All India Boy Scouts Jamboree in New Delhi and launched 19 rockets over three days, some in the presence of high-ranking officials, including the Viceroy and Lord and Lady Baden-Powell. The total number of covers carried during the Jamboree was 6,358.

  Spectacular failures in the presence of the public and media undermined the immediate prospects of rocket mail. German businessman Gerhard Zucker (1908–1985) was popularising rocket mail in Europe as Smith was in India. Zucker, who was simultaneously considered a pioneer, showman and a charlatan, conducted a fateful rocket experiment on a beach in Western Scotland on 31 July 1934.[281] He claimed that his rocket could cover nearly 400 km travelling at 3,000 km/h, but the rocket exploded at launch in the presence of a large contingent of the press.

  Smith in India also experienced failure in the presence of the Calcutta press during the launch of three rockets on 28 February 1935.[282] The first rocket launched and exploded (or burst as Smith records in his diary) in mid-air. The other two, both larger, also failed. The first just managed to leave the launch rack before falling to the ground and the second burnt itself out on the launch rack.

  A combination of rock
et technology’s unreliability and the increasing prevalence of airmail prevented rocket mail from getting a firm foothold. As commercial airline services grew around the world, the delivery of mail by air became convenient and cost effective. In April 1941, the UK introduced a postal service specifically designed to meet the needs of a nation at war.[283] The General Post Office supplemented its traditional postal service with the Airgraph Service. The concept of Airgraph was simple. Instead of an actual letter, a tiny photographic negative image of the letter was transported instead by air. Upon arrival, the image was enlarged and printed, put in an envelope and posted locally. Airgraphs reduced the weight of airmail to just 1%, and servicemen and women could exchange letters with their families in a matter of days or weeks rather than months the sea route would take.

  Smith’s work on using rocket power for transport received the same muted response from the British military authorities that Goddard’s work had received from the US government in the 1920s. However, his primary contribution was to demonstrate through experiment the potential of rockets as a practical means of transport.

  Smith’s Personal Life

  Stephen Smith was born on 14 February 1891 in the town of Shillong, then in Assam in the north-east of India. His father Charles William Bath Taylor from Lincoln in Britain had travelled to Assam to work as the Superintendent of the Hoolingurie Tea Estate. His mother, Arabella nee Martin, was the daughter of an English tea planter. Contrary to material available in the public domain today, Smith was not an Anglo-Indian.[284] Although born in Assam, his birth was registered in Britain. He had a sister called Marjorie, who married an Englishman and moved to England. There are not many pictures of Stephen Smith.

  One image, probably taken when he was around the age of 30, reveals a clean-shaven, dark-skinned, black-haired handsome man with sharp facial features. His handwritten English is elegant, and he probably spoke English with similar competence. He lived in Calcutta among the Anglo-Indian community in the pre-independent India from the 1920s to his death in 1951. Living among the Anglo-Indians in Calcutta, he was probably seen and treated as one. With tangible connections to both Indian and British roots, Anglo-Indians belonged to neither. They suffered discrimination from the local Indian communities and racism from the British. The question of the identity of the Anglo-Indian community has cast a long shadow over its 500-year long history, and it preoccupies the ever-diminishing community even today.[285]

  Smith attended St. Patrick’s Boys School in Asansol, West Bengal, established originally by Christian Brothers from Southern Ireland for Anglo-Indian boys. During his lifetime, he wrote several books. In 1927, he authored a small book The World Flyer’s Danger Zone covering the hazards of airmail flights south-east from Calcutta across the Bay of Bengal to Burma and Thailand. He dedicated the book and its proceeds to the widow of Arthur B. Elliott, who was killed on 5 July 1926. He also published Indian Airways in three volumes between 1926 and 1930. A final posthumous publication was a revised second edition called Rocket Mail Catalogue, which was published under his name in1955 but authorised by his wife.

  After leaving school, Smith worked briefly at the customs department in Calcutta before joining the Calcutta Police Force as a Round Sergeant on 18 March 1913 on a salary of Rs.100 per month.[286] While with the police, he completed his training as a dentist. His time with the Calcutta police was uneventful, and he resigned on 4 December 1914. It was as a dentist that he served in World War I, after which he continued in the profession with a private dental practice based at his home on 25A Elliot Road in Calcutta. This appears to have been his primary source of income after the War. He married Fay Gulner Anne Harcourt on 6 November 1918, whom he had known at least since 1913 when he joined the police force. They had one son, Hector, who did not share his father’s interests.

  Figure 5‑7 Stephen Smith and Fay Harcourt Married on 6 November 1918 in Dhurrumtollah Street Roman Catholic Church Calcutta. Credit Paul Sandford

  Smith died in 1951, and his wife survived until 1985. Both are buried at the North Circular Road cemetery in Calcutta near where they lived. There are not many alive today who have a personal recollection of Stephen Smith. Living on the same Elliot Road that Smith lived on, Melvyn Brown remembers meeting Stephen Smith’s son, Hector, twice in the late 1970s. [287] Brown has been championing and chronicling the achievements of Anglo-Indians and, in 1991, unsuccessfully attempted to have a part of Elliot Road renamed after Stephen Smith. Smith’s son Hector married and had a son and daughter. His son grew up with a learning disability and was sent to an institution. Hector’s daughter Gloria emigrated to the UK in 1982 after her second marriage. Hector and his wife joined them in 1987, but Hector did not respond well to the British climate. He caught a cold and died soon after he arrived. Smith’s grand and great-granddaughter live in London, but the family no longer has any connection with rockets.

  Figure 5‑8 Stephen Smith Centenary Commemorative Stamp. Credit Philately World

  Even with the support of friends in high society, it seems as if Smith was isolated and lacked the necessary support, both practical and moral, to successfully promote rockets as a means of transport. Despite his pioneering work, he did not fully accomplish his ambitions. On 11 April 1935, following a successful firing of his rocket number 54 in the presence of the King of Sikkim, a certificate was awarded to him by Mr C.E. Dudley from the Indian Civil Service. This formal recognition, “certifying the utility of the rocket as a means of transport during floods and landslips”, was possibly the only formal acknowledgement of his work in his lifetime. Smith wanted to realise the potential of rocket power for transporting mail and materials, just as he was witnessing aeroplanes doing so for the first time in history. His limited skills and resources prevented him from making a significant advance in developing rockets as a transport vehicle.

  Smith’s son Hector destroyed all his father’s rocket-related material soon after his death.[288] Despite his achievements in rocketry and rocket mail, it is in the world of philately that Smith’s work is substantially recorded and acknowledged. During the 1920s, he founded the Calcutta Philatelic Club and the Aero Philatelic Club of India (which changed its name to the Indian Airmail Society on 19 January 1930). Smith served as the Indian Airmail Society’s secretary for most of the 1930s, during which time he recorded the development of airmail in India in the Society’s monthly bulletins.

  The bulletins recorded news about scheduled airmail flights within, as well as between, India and the rest of the world. They contained interesting and mundane details, including information on the first balloon flight in India in 1837[289] and the number of airmail flights in the first five months of the Karachi-Croydon route.[290] He noted prices, timetables, quantities of airmail, individual pilots covering hazardous routes and details of air crashes, as well as the routine business of running the Society. Over three decades after his death, in 1989, Smith was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the American Airmail Society.[291] In 1992, a year after the centenary of his birth, the Indian government celebrated his achievements by issuing a stamp and a first-day cover dedicated to Smith and his work.

    

  Chapter Six

  Vikram Sarabhai: Leadership by Trust

  H andsome, charming, wealthy and intellectually gifted, Vikram Sarabhai (1919–1971) had everything going for him. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Sarabhai enjoyed a privileged life. He lived in a large house with staff to match, private tutors and laboratories at home to satisfy his childhood curiosity. He had two brothers and five sisters. He was a bright child with a clear scientific interest in building, experimenting and testing. One of his earliest projects was building a toy steam engine. Sarabhai hobnobbed with the incumbent and future prime ministers of India, with scientists of international repute and had personal connections with both of India's Nobel laureates of the time, Rabindranath Tagore and C.V. Raman. Mahatma Gandhi was a family friend; as a child, Sarabhai had joined Gandhi’s 200-mile (321.87 km)
walk, the Dandi March, to protest against the imposition of tax on the production of salt by the British. In 1961, he hosted Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh when they visited Ahmedabad.

  Sarabhai’s ancestors were wealthy merchants belonging to the Dasa-Shrimali Jain sect, who had made their fortune in the mid-19th century by lending money to local chieftains and participating in the profitable exploitation of China instigated by the British colonial rulers. The business arrangement involved buying opium in Malan in central India, exporting it to China and then buying Chinese tea and silk to be sold in the UK. China had no interest in Western goods, so demand for opium had to be artificially induced by fostering opium addiction. The cycle of trade was thus concocted exclusively to serve British financial interests. As middlemen, the Sarabhai business benefited, too. In 1880, Sarabhai’s grandfather acquired Ahmedabad Calico Printing Company, Ahmedabad’s first mechanised cloth printing company. This was not an intentional business acquisition but an inevitable consequence of being the company’s largest lender when it failed.

  Vikram Sarabhai was born in the family home, The Retreat, built by the Sarabhai family in 1904. It was located in the exclusive area of Shahibaug, north of the city centre in Ahmedabad with the River Sabarmati forming its western perimeter. Shahibaug had once been the extensive garden of a royal palace called Moti Shahi Mahal built by Shah Jahan before he went on to build his more famous creation, the Taj Mahal. Since the time of the British Raj, Shahibaug has attracted well-heeled businessmen, industrialists and professionals. During Sarabhai’s time, Rabindranath Tagore also lived there.