The giant leap to reaching Mars remains the biggest goal of private and national space agencies across the world. SpaceX, Blue Origin, NASA, ISRO and numerous other space agencies are working on manned or unmanned missions to Mars. The UAE space agency aims at settling over 600,000 on Mars by 2117 in large scale settlements; however, Elon Musk’s SpaceX thinks it’s possible to do so much more by 2050.
India has seen huge private sector participation in the space tech industry. Many start-ups are now working in the space business. India has seen over $31 million of venture capital funding flow into these start-ups in the first half of 2021 alone.
Development of more powerful indigenous cryogenic engines and human spaceflight can make India a leader in this race. What is important is political will and private sector participation. Both are now seemingly more evident, which has propelled ISRO to being one of the leading space research organizations in the world.
