Answers from ISRO

Some ISRO engineers recently made themselves available online to answer questions put to them by the public. Here are some questions posed by me, which they then responded to:

http://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/1ujcmo/we_are_three_isro_scientists_here_to_answer_your/

sanman 1 point 6 hours ago

1) Why can't ISRO treat the public to onboard camera footage from the launch vehicles themselves, just as other space organizations do? Why should it be a problem for ISRO, if it's not a problem for others?
2) Why has ISRO pursued the most difficult cryogenic staged combustion cycle first, rather than first trying to develop gas-generator or expander-cycle combustion technologies? Why go for the hardest technology first, at the cost of delaying capabilities, when it could have been done later?
3) Will Chandrayaan-2 be moved up, now that GSLV-Mk2 is finally spreading its wings? What about another mission to Mars? Will India be able to take a shorter route to Mars using GSLV, just like NASA's MAVEN mission did?
4) What are the status reports for the Reusable Launch Vehicle program, and the Human Spaceflight Program? I'd read that Dr Sivan had been moved from RLV program to help out the cryogenic propulsion program - will he be shifted back, now that the cryo engine is complete?

[–]ISROredditors 1 point 2 hours ago

1. Many of us have been asking this question to ourselves and our seniors for quite some time now. Nobody has an idea why it is not being done. Given the new fb outreach program, if the public demands, maybe it will be done soon.
2. Because it is more efficient. Let us assume we had gone for the simpler technology and developed it n years ago. The efficient technology still might have taken the same time to build... instead, focusing our attention on the better technology will ensure that we are familiar with the hardships and we overcome them again when we scale it to larger engines or when we go for something completely new again.
3. If the orbiter and the rover development and testing go on smoothly, it probably will be. But we need to remember that foreign participation from Chandrayaan-2 has now gone and it is totally indigenous, so the workload on our teams has increased. A 'shorter' route doesn't really serve any purpose when the difference in time taken to reach there is not much compared to the total time. Hohmann transfers are the most efficient way for interplanetary travel and with GSLV (it will certainly be a boost), we will at least have heavier probes and more payloads.
4. RLV, HSP etc all will undergo a fast forward now that the cryo engine is here. For HSP, there still is a long way to go with GSLV Mk-III, human rated vehicles and lots of testing.