So, Elon Musk’s former spouse once recounted the time when he invited her to his hotel room to watch rocket videos. It might have been the set up for a perfect double entendre. But, it seems like Elon stuck to his word and actually, showed her rocket videos. So, the enthusiasm for rocket tech may be niche, but even then, pretty concentrated.
The thing with rockets is that typically, they may be only used once. After they launch, they may fall back to Earth and can’t be used again. So, that means that space travel is super expensive, because new rockets would have to be built for every launch.
But, what if rockets could be recycled? Where a rocket could be designed to be used more than once, instead of throwing it away after one launch? Say it lands back on Earth, it gets refurbished and then, off it goes for another mission. Money gets saved and space exploration becomes more cost-effective.
Plus, there’s fuel to think about. Did you know there’s something called solid fuel: a hard block of it inside the rocket that, once ignited, burns and pushes the rocket up? Then, there’s liquid fuel, which could be turned on and off or adjusted. With liquid fuel, the thrust could be stopped by turning off the flow of fuel. So, a hybrid rocket would have the best of both worlds: both solid and liquid fuel. Combining the two may make them safer, more efficient and make re-using them more possible.
Speaking of Elon Musk, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are said to be reusing their boosters. And in 2024, India was said to have achieved that milestone too: its first reusable hybrid rocket called RHUMI 1. Though, unlike the Falcons, which have become the new Captain America, India’s RHUMI 1 has gone the hybrid route. That might be a big achievement for India in the space race. So, India could dramatically lower the cost of launching. Talk about “jugaad” and frugal engineering.
Anyone who needs atmospheric data or wants to conduct experiments in zero-gravity, or surveillance, please contact RHUMI 1, they may be able to help out. And it’ll be at a cost that won’t break your defense budget! Could this help India with doing some environmental monitoring? Could this lead to more VC money flowing into Indian SpaceTech? If SpaceTech is disregarded a bit for being too slow-moving or capital-intensive, could this shake things up a bit?
For India, is the sky no longer the limit?
