I had an opportunity to watch the movie
ROCKETRY - THE NAMBI EFFECT last week and cannot express in words, how much I enjoyed the movie. All these days, I wrote about what intellectual property is and how it is useful to the society and how you can create more intellectual property and how to exploit intellectual property, so on and so forth.
This movie is a celebration of the very gifted and a brainy Indian rocket scientist
Mr. Nambi Narayanan whom we as a nation failed to notice. Unfortunately, people came to know about him because of the infamous; fabricated Spy case against him and not because of the contribution he made to the Indian space research and patriotism hat he had towards his country.
Well! False allegations of espionage against him, has gravely hindered our progress in the field of space and aviation. The charges against him were dismissed as false by CBI in 1996 and by the Supreme Court of India in 1998.
Mr. Nambi Narayanan in the 1969 went to Princeton University in USA through the prestigious
NASA fellowship where he gained expertise in chemical rocket propulsion. He was offered a job in NASA which he refused to take up a job in ISRO. He returned to India and introduced liquid propellant motors where solid motors were common. Mr. Narayanan and his team developed the Vikas engine, used by ISRO for many of its rockets, including the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). He also made a pact with Russia to buy cryogenic engine for India as early as 1994.
The movie Rocketry helps you to know how things have evolved in our Indian space and research organisation.
In this context, I would want to reiterate that it is very much essential to appreciate and acknowledge new inventions and Innovations. Not acknowledging an invention and non-disclosure of inventions may not only stand in the way of development but would delay the progress of the entire mankind for a few generations altogether by limiting the availability of important information that could be used by other scientists and inventors.
CBI also stated that the nature and gravity of the offences also had a big impact on the technological development of cryogenic engines in India; the said project was delayed due to the false implication of Nambi Narayanan and India slowed down in the space race with other countries.
Not necessary to mention how important it is for us to be efficient in the space race. Many common everyday services for terrestrial use such as weather forecasting, remote sensing, satellite navigation systems, satellite television, and some long-distance communications systems critically rely on space infrastructure. Of all the sciences, astronomy and Earth science benefit from space technology. A country’s defence is to a large extent dependent on the space technology and almost everything that you are using today depends upon space technology and rocket technology. Due to the disregard for a mind blowing scientist and inventor we are behind in the space race compared to few countries. This story is a great example to showcase the importance of invention, intellectual property, its protection, its disclosure and its acknowledgement.
There are also other cases in history to showcase the consequences of neglecting inventions. I have mentioned two such cases below.
DA VINCI HELICOPTER :
Learnado Da Vinci who is known for his art is also an inventor which many do not know. He was the 1st person to draw a working sketch of a helicopter. However, due to fear of being ridiculed by the society, which did not receive inventions with the right kind of mindset during his time, he kept his inventions a secret. Therefore, the technology of flying which could have been available in the 15th century was only delayed by few centuries.
Breakfast cereal became popular among American children in the 1930s. Although cereals were available in many shapes and flavours, they were all packed in the same type of box. The tops of cereal boxes had two flaps that were glued together. It was difficult to close these boxes again when the flaps had been torn apart, so once the box was opened the remaining cereal quickly became stale. Mary Speath enjoyed fresh cereal for breakfast but was tired of it becoming stale soon after the box was opened. In 1946, when she was only eight years old, Mary began experimenting with a small toolbox and the cereal box flaps. She wanted to keep her cereal fresh by finding a way to re-seal the box flaps after they had been torn apart. After many experiments she succeeded by shaping a protruding notch on one of the flaps which would fit into a slit cut into the other flap. For many years Mary kept her cereals and crackers fresh by carefully ungluing he flaps of boxes and shaping them so that they could easily be closed and re-opened. Unfortunately, neither Mary nor her parents recognized her idea as an invention, so they never even thought about patenting it. In the 1960's cereal companies independently invented re-sealable closing flaps similar to the slit-and-tongue design that Mary had invented more than 14 years earlier. This type of re-sealable lid can be found in most box packages today. Since Mary did not patent her invention, she did not make any money from her idea. In fact, most people don’t even know that she was the original inventor of the re-sealable boxes which people use every day. In addition, since she did not patent her idea or make it known, the rest of the world had to eat stale cereals for many more years until the cereal companies finally thought of the solution on their own.
