As India celebrated becoming the first Asian nation to reach Mars, S.M. Vaidya, head of business at conglomerate Godrej's aerospace division that made the spacecraft's engine and thruster components, sounded surprisingly downbeat.
The mission was, indeed, a major achievement, he said, and one of which the state-run Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) should be proud.
But a single trip to Mars is not enough to sustain a promising yet relatively small industry, he added, and ISRO should be doing more to foster it.