Vikram Sarabhai — The Father of India's Space Program

In 1962, physicist Vikram Sarabhai — often called the father of the Indian space program — founded the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR), the precursor to ISRO. Sarabhai's vision was radical for its time: he argued that a country with hundreds of millions living in poverty needed a space program not as a luxury but as a necessity — for weather forecasting, communication, education via satellite, and natural resource mapping. "There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation," he said. "To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose." Sarabhai's genius was practical: he repurposed a church in Thumba, Kerala, as India's first rocket launch facility, and the first sounding rocket was transported by bicycle. He died in 1971, before seeing his vision fully realized, but the organization he built would put India among the world's elite space powers.