Peeping out above the trees behind the Nehru Museum in New Delhi is the nose cone of a satellite launch rocket.

The proximity of the shrine to the founder of modern India to a symbol of space travel is no coincidence. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s prime minister, wrote about the solar system from his prison cell in the 1930s and, once in office in an independent India, was determined that his country play a part in scientific exploration.