Learning How to Fly: Life Lessons for the Youth

by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

When I think of Professor Satish Dhawan, many incidents come to my mind. I would like to share with you again, one important incident, which is a valuable lesson to the younger generation. I was the project director of the first experimental launch of SLV-3. On 10 August 1979, the vehicle took off beautifully at T-0 and the first stage gave predicted performance. The second stage was initiated, but within a few seconds, we witnessed the vehicle in a tumbling motion and we lost the flight to the Bay of Bengal. It was 8 a.m. in the morning. The whole team in spite of working all day and night for several days, got busy in collecting the data and trying to establish the reason for the flight failure. Meanwhile, I was called by Professor Satish Dhawan to attend a press conference. Before the press conference, he told me that he was going to handle the situation and I should be present with many of the senior scientists and technologists. The press conference room was overflowing with media-persons. There was gloom, many questions were posed, some very powerful, thoughtful and also criticisms. There, Professor Satish Dhawan, announced, ‘Friends, today we had the experimental launch of SLV-3 to put the Rohini satellite in the orbit. It was a partial success. It is our first mission of proving multiple technologies in a launch vehicle. We have proved many technologies in this launch but still we have to prove some more. We have tumbled but not fallen flat. Above all, I realize my...

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