TECHNOLOGY-INDIA: Sanctions Have Not Stopped ‘Star Wars’ Plans

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 23 2001 (IPS) - Undeterred by Western technology embargoes and sanctions, India’s government scientists have independently developed nuclear, space and super-computing capabilities that could go into a modest ‘star-wars’ programme.

Last week, India joined a select group of nations that have placed satellites in geo-stationary orbit deep into space on launchers powered by cryogenic (super cold fuel) engines which are used on inter- continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Communication satellites placed in geo-stationary orbit can guide ICBMs and the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) already designs, builds and operates them while launching has so far been carried out by Russian or French rockets.

Plans to build an indigenous Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) using cryogenic engines was delayed by nearly ten years because the United States stepped in to stop Russia from transferring the technology to India under a 1992 contract.

The United States said the deal violated the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal, non-treaty association of countries meant to limit the spread of missiles and missile technology. Russia became a member in 1993.

Finally a compromise was reached which allowed Russia to supply seven cryogenic engines without transferring critical technology required to handle the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuels.

Last week’s successful injection of an experimental satellite weighing 1,450 kilograms 36,000 kilometres into space as a “technology demonstrator” was proof that ISRO scientists have mastered the art of operating a cryogenic engine.

Indigenously-built cryogenic engines are meanwhile being tested at a liquid propulsion test facility at Mahendragiri in southern Tamil Nadu state, defying embargoes on the export of dual-use technologies to India dating back to 1973 when this country first tested a “peaceful” nuclear device.

India desisted from actually weaponising until 25 years later, in May 1998, when Raja Ramanna, the brains behind the nuclear programme, said one reason the bomb was finally built was because of non-cooperation from the West.

Ramanna said that since 1973, India had been forced to find its own way in the field of nuclear energy designing and building its own reactors and depending on fuels made from radioactive thorium found naturally and in abundance on coasts of the peninsula.

Older reactors running on uranium have depended on supplies from Russia but the new Bush administration has called on Moscow to stop supplying the Tarapore Atomic Power Station in western India saying it stood in violation of the London Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Embargoes led by the United States have also affected, but by no means stopped, a quest for super-computing power which India says it needs for making weather forecasts, nuclear research and aerodynamic modelling for a light combat aircraft which was recently unveiled.

The answer to the embargo was to sink in an estimated 100 million dollars to build what is known as “parallel computing” or the linking together of several small personal computers using “open frame architecture” which worked as an alternative to super computers.

According to Vijay Bhatkar, the director of the government’s Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), entrusted with the job of building ‘PARAM’ with a 100 gigaflops range, only Japan and the United States have anything better.

Bhatkar says the best part of PARAM is scalability which allows the machine power to be easily enhanced into the magical teraflops range which allows it to perform a zillion floating point operations (steps in mathematical calculations).

The PARAM in its 100 gigaflop (100 billion floating point operations) version is already being used for processing seismic data, oil prospecting, the modelling of satellite launch vehicles and missiles and importantly for nuclear simulations based on data from tests.

The latest semi-annual report of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the United States Congress says: “India continues its nuclear weapons development programme for which its underground nuclear tests in May 1998 were a significant milestone.”

Richard Celeste, Washington’s outgoing envoy in India said last week that all economic sanction slapped on India after the 1998 nuclear tests could be lifted over the next six months.

Late last year, Congress passed a resolution urging the lifting of all sanctions against India. But Washington insists that Indian first sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which New Delhi says is discriminatory.

There have been concerns that India, a country where millions go hungry, may be squandering money on technologies which may have little direct bearing on badly needed development activities.

According to Srihari Raju, a seasoned computer industry watcher, high performance computing may be of strategic importance but the fact was that super computers were already becoming more freely available and the PARAM has no commercial significance.

Counters Bhatkar: “The important thing is to prove that we can do it on our own.”