Nepal, March 28 -- Some 100 kilometres above Kathmandu, a boundary drawn by Hungarian-American physicist Theodore von Karman separates national airspace from outer space. For most of Nepal's modern history, that line has also marked the outer limit of our strategic imagination. We are a country of mountains and rivers. The assumption that follows is that we are therefore not a country of aerospace ambition.

That assumption deserves a precise challenge. Nepal does not need to become a launch site. It does not need to compete with Kazakhstan, Cape Canaveral or even Shriharikota. What it needs, and what it is beginning to build, is something more durable: A research hub, a place where knowledge is created, engineers are trained, and the int...