“Necessity is the mother of all inventions.”
it is said.
From time immemorial, our need to communicate with other people has led us from pigeons and messengers on horseback to telephones to satellites, in this radical era of efficiency and connectivity.
Infact, not only now, in an unanticipated pandemic, but from 1957 onwards (when the space era began) satellites have provided humans with a method to connect and communicate faster than ever before.
Defence aid, GPS navigation systems, internet connectivity, satellite imaging and weather forecasting are only a few to name.
“Humans are social beings.”
and yes, they certainly are; but this phrase often backfires on humanity in the most crude of ways. As violence and crimes against women and children take a toll on the otherwise inevitable sense of security in society, GPS navigation systems empower us to share our location 24/7 with a near and dear ones.
Satellites have connected people all over the world together!
*Presto!*
Communication is just one aspect of it all. There is the much-needed defence aid, enabled via satellite imaging; in times when religious and cultural beliefs are defied, yet paradoxically upheld and manifested in the darkest ways, many a times even posing threats to entire nations.
When Vikram Sarabhai (the father of India’s space programme) first proposed his ideas, little had we known how this will define and protect not just a generation or century but millenniums and eras together.
End-to-end connectivity facilitates early location, speculation and protection from disasters- natural and man made alike.
As per statistics 60% of India’s population is an agricultural population, and of that more than 40% is dependent on timely rainfall. When 24% of our demographic composition is at the mercy of rain, is it not a miracle that we can almost accurately forecast such natural phenomena!
Now coming to the most relevant and recent instance:
The COVID-19 Pandemic
Satellites have made overseas communication (which otherwise a herculean thought) possible. While we live amidst a pandemic, wherein physical contact is a big bold ‘NADA!’, our lives are but a bliss owing to satellites. The most arduous of tasks are at our fingertips. No sector of the economy is hindered (unless due to the digital divide).
For this and so much more, we have satellites to thank. We conveniently share and receive important information, from around the globe, in the blink of an eye. Establishing communication takes no more than a jiffy.
In a more literal sense, satellites have always been our lifeline, with the moon being the best example, providing us with a biologically conducive environment to survive and thrive.
“Ignorance is bliss.”
it is often paradoxically quoted, but I just could not disagree more. The very purpose of humanity is to grow by expanding our horizons to beyond the average imagination.
And what better benchmark to set than aerospacial exploration, studying other planets and celestial bodies; which can be used to our benefit, if and when the need arises. Ignorance is only bliss as long as it is coupled with a parallel perpetual pursuit of knowledge to define right from wrong, petty from poise.
In a geographical and industrial perspective, satellites are an absolute boon. Resource mapping, geo-mapping, land identification and classification, demographic/population dispersion are just the fundamentals of it all.
In today’s time, the fastest mode of transportation (long distance) for the common man is airplanes. During flight, radar signals bounce off satellites and are received by planes (and vice versa). Moreover, as we witness a complexity in design, it is only natural to observe a directly proportional rise in quantity, thus making aviation an even more exasperating process.
It is then, quite literally, that satellites will be our lifeline.
In a nutshell,
there is no better abiotic machine than a satellite. With appropriate usage and expertise the human race can unlock the immense potential it forsees, by acting as a catalyst in all spheres of development, for it is only with the many intricacies that ingenuity is attained. It is only with the satellites in space acting as our lifeline that we can travel-
“To infinity and beyond.”
© achillesheelpoetry, 2020
Salutations!
I am a novice when it comes to space and technology, so pardon my amateur perception. I might archive this post later, but I really loved the way I wrote it. This is also my first attempt at writing something that ought to convey more facts than emotion.
A penny for your thoughts in the comments section s’il vous plaît.
Ana
