On June 15, 2023, Mike Gold, the Chief Growth Officer of Florida-based Redwire Space, told the PTI that “the relationship between India and the US is absolutely critical on earth and even more so in space. India will soon become the fourth country in the world that will launch its citizens into Space and, therefore, a global leader in Space.
Adding further, he said, “Sky is no longer the limit for India,”
Mike Gold is also an architect of Artemis Record, a set of agreements that lay out the plan and framework for the responsible exploration of the Moon. He was a former associate administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships at NASA.
India is conducting missions to monitor and investigate, explore climate change on the Earth through the NISAR (NASA-ISRO-Synthetic Aperture Radar). This is basically a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on an Earth Observation Satellite.
“India is going to the moon with a lunar rover, and India is going to the Sun. I think that is a wonderful synergy and balance between the Sun and the Moon mission that India is conducting.” And, of course, the Gaganyaan Mission is the first crew mission it conducts. India has also been extraordinarily innovative related to implementing this space programme at affordable and low costs”
In this new world of commercial space, it is not enough to conduct space programs. However, if you can do so in a fashion that is affordable, robust, and still successful, that is extraordinarily important, he said.
He said that India is clear and is successfully leveraging its incredible human capital, adding that it is no rocket fuel that gets missions to space but people, and India excels in its people.
“It has got an incredible human capital base that I believe is what is allowing India certainly in part to be able to execute these missions to space but people and India excels in its people.”
Relative to the relationship with the US, India is gradually becoming a space power rapidly, making the relationship with the US absolutely vital. India and the US are cooperating, and working together to gather critical climate data information about the earth is absolutely vital.
That is an example by which India and the US can save the world with the information these two space powers bring. “As India moves ahead with its crew operations, that is where I hope we can build upon the collaborations like NISAR in the scientific field to build more broad and deep relationships,” he said.
I hope that NASA can cooperate and coordinate with ISRO as much as possible to support India’s space flight goals in the US generally, he said. He also hoped that the International Space Station would someday become the destination for Indian astronauts.
There is an incredible opportunity to partner with India as human space flight is critical and important, wonderful for explorations, and inseparable from science, it requires a place to go and a destination.
As we look at where this relationship will evolve, it can begin with a partnership with NASA and what is occurring with the ISS, but parallel to that, we should be having discussions now between the private sector companies and ISRO in regard to the leveraging of commercial space stations that will eventually succeed the ISS.
The former top NASA official hoped that India would join the Artemis Accords as it journeys to the moon. “Part of the reason that it is absolutely vital for India to execute the accords is because India is already going to the moon. India is a lunar country The purpose of the accords is to ensure that we have a peaceful and prosperous future in space.”
“I believe that India is a sleeping giant when it comes to commercial space You have an amazing amount of human capital of manufacturing capacity that, when applied to commercial space, could be transformative not just for India but also for the entire commercial space sector.”
Redwire is looking forward to partnerships in manufacturing in India. The only barrier, according to Gold, is bureaucracy. There have been challenges relative to the amount of bureaucracy to access public-private partnerships or work with Indian entities, which is why reforms and current regulations are so welcome.
The only thing holding back India is India itself; for India to open up entrepreneurialism, the opportunities for global partnerships in the commercial space will be transformative. And I applaud PM Narendra Modi and the leadership of ISRO for having catapulted India into the future of new policies, reforms, and regulations for commercial space.
“It is extraordinarily exciting not just for India but also for all of us in the private sector in America,” he added.
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