Bilal Khan (Quwa)
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- Aug 22, 2016
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I think someone (sincere) at SUPARCO has a dream of becoming like NASA, but in truth, the most practical way to develop Pakistan's space program is to emulate Airbus DS, Thales, etc. I don't think these entities are interested in space for its own sake (like NASA), but for commercial reasons. So, everything they do R&D wise is flowing towards that goal, and right now, designing and manufacturing satellites, glide vehicles, etc is where the money's at.Having seen SUPARCO up close I am cautiously pessimistic lol.
I think Pakistan should take a similar approach. In all honesty, I doubt anyone at GHQ will take a lunar probe or Mars mission seriously, so it's a non-starter. But they might talk about SATCOM, IMINT, and maybe even SATNAV (for independent targeting), and certainly hypersonic glide vehicles, next-gen rocket tech, etc.
Not to be brutal, but for SUPARCO to succeed, it probably needs to be shrunk into more of a research entity (so that it can get access to more overseas resources, events, etc). Otherwise, space development proper should ultimately go to PAC (swap the 'Aeronautical' for 'Aerospace') as AvRID has some R&D capacity, which it can put towards new satellites, launch vehicles, etc.