IT is indeed a great achievement by India that its pioneer satellite reached Mars last month. However, I would like to mention that in the 1960s we were far ahead in rocket and space technology in our region owing to some dedicated professionals.

One of them was an unsung hero of PAF, Air Commodore Wladyslaw Turowicz, who was one of the Polish officers who became a Pakistani citizen and joined the infant PAF shortly after independence.

He has also served in the early 1960s as head of maintenance of the equipment/systems of PAF. He was a prominent Polish-origin Pakistani military and rocket scientist and an aeronautical engineer.

Air-Cdre Turowicz was administrator of Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission from 1967 to 1970. It was owing to his tenacious efforts that Pakistan’s ballistic missile and space rocket programme took off. He died in Karachi on January 8, 1980.

Muhammad Asif

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014