Chandrayaan didn’t need the hoopla of a live telecast
reality, the window view during deep space travel would make for boring television. When we look out of the window of a plane at cruising altitude, nothing seems to move. Now multiply that effect by 10,000.
In deep space, a traveller would see even less, and relative motion even slower. Almost all of the videos we see from space are invariably speeded up or touched up before release. The Hubble Telescope’s grand images of Mystic Mountains in the Carina Nebula have been processed so much that they would never appear the same to the naked eye.
Thus, a live feed from deep space wouldn’t make exciting television at all. The now released, curated video of the landing and release of the Pragyan rover make for far more exciting viewing than a live feed would have been. This curated video is a much better use of mission resources and will excite curious minds far more.
Back when Vikram Sarabhai recommended the setting up of a space research organization and a committee to create an Indian space programme, the mission objectives were likely very different. Then the world was obsessed with space flight mostly for the delivery of satellites into orbit and payloads (read nuclear bombs) to other ends of the world. We live in different times now.
It is established that humans are a spacefaring species. I believe, though, that we won’t use our capabilities for living in space or on other planets. Space is an incredibly hostile place, not designed for the human body or mind.
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