Mankind needs to find alternate habitat in the galaxy: Kalam

SAN FRANCISCO: Former president A P J Abdul Kalam wants mankind to find an alternate habitat in the galaxy and thinks Mars could be the ideal planet.
   
Mankind needs to find an alternative habitat in another planet with the Moon serving as the human space technological industrial belt and Planet Mars as alternate human habitat, Kalam said at a recent address to the International Aerospace Conference at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"We have to evolve and ensure guidelines for creation of environmental friendly industrial belt in the Moon and habitat in Mars," he said.
   
Favouring a 'space vision' and missions to enhance quality of life, he also called for a "paradigm shift" by nations to work together in order to see a quantum jump in the progress in space technology.

Kalam said large societal missions and low cost access to space would pave the way for Moon-Mars combination missions.

"This technological contribution will lead to cost effective launches of large payloads for geo-synchronous and polar orbit missions, paving the way for Moon-Mars combination missions with mass transportation systems," Kalam said.

Underlining the importance of use of space technology to enhance quality of life, he said the world community must explore the possibility of generating electric power through single cycle fusion process using Helium-3 on the Moon.
   
Kalam said greater efforts should be put to create affordable alternate sources of clean energy on scales large enough to be a perennial substitute for fossil fuels.