unforeseen costs . “ You name the thing and I will get it for you , but do not ask for time ,” he said . At times , I often laughed at his impatience , and read for him these lines from T . S . Eliot ’ s Hollow Men :
Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow .
Defence R & D at that time was heavily dependent on imported equipment . Virtually nothing indigenous was available . Together , we made a long shopping list and drew up an import plan . But this made me unhappy — was there no remedy or alternative ? Was this nation doomed to live with screwdriver technology ? Could a poor country like India afford this kind of development ?
One day , while working late in the office , which was quite routine after I took up the RATO projects , I saw a young colleague , Jaya Chandra Babu going home . Babu had joined us a few months ago and the only thing I knew about him was that he had a very positive attitude and was articulate . I called him into my office and did a bit of loud thinking . “ Do you have any suggestions ?” I then asked him . Babu remained silent for a while , and then asked for time until the next evening to do some homework before answering my question .
The next evening , Babu came to me before the appointed time . His face was beaming with promise . “ We can do it , sir ! The RATO system can be made without imports . The only hurdle is the inherent inelasticity in the approach of the organization towards procurement and subcontracting , which would be the two major thrust areas to avoid imports .” He gave me seven points , or , rather , asked for seven liberties — financial approval by a single person instead of an entire hierarchy , air travel for all people on work irrespective of their entitlement , accountability to only one person , lifting of goods by aircargo , sub-contracting to the private sector , placement of orders on the basis of technical competence , and expeditious accounting procedures .
These demands were unheard of in government establishments , which tend to be conservative , yet I could see the soundness of his proposition . The RATO project was a new game and there was nothing wrong if it was to be played with a new set of rules . I weighed all the pros and cons of Babu ’ s suggestions for a whole night and finally decided to present them to Prof . Sarabhai . Hearing my plea for administrative liberalization and seeing the merits behind it , Prof . Sarabhai approved the proposals without a second thought .
Through his suggestions , Babu had highlighted the importance of business acumen in developmental work with high stakes . To make things move faster within existing work parameters , you have to pump in more people , more material and more money . If you can ’ t do that , change your parameters ! Instinctive businessman that he was , Babu did not remain long with us and left ISRO for greener pastures in Nigeria . I could never forget Babu ’ s common sense in financial matters .
We had opted for a composite structure for the RATO motor casing using filament fibre glass / epoxy . We had also gone in for a high energy composite propellant and an event-based ignition and jettisoning system in real-time . A canted nozzle was designed to deflect the jet away from the aircraft . We conducted the first static test of RATO in the