Editorial: Subhanshu Shukla's Space Journey is a Proud Achievement
Despite being associated with Patiala district, he now lives in the Coonoor district of Tamil Nadu
Subhanshu Shukla's space trip is a proud achievement Editorial: Indian astronaut Subhanshu Shukla’s arrival at the International Space Station (ISS) is a commendable achievement in the field of space travel. He and the three other astronauts who came with him will stay in the ISS for two weeks. This is the first time that any Indian citizen will stay in the ISS and conduct at least seven such experiments which in the future will help make space travel and human settlement in space easier.
Before Shukla, the late Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams had stayed in the International Space Station, but despite being of Indian origin, their citizenship was American and they travelled in space as Americans. Before these two, in 1984, Rakesh Sharma stayed in space for 21 hours through the Soviet Soyuz-9 rocket. He became the first Indian citizen to reach space, but after that remained away from space activities. After retiring from the rank of Group Captain in the Indian Air Force, he continued to work as Chief Test Pilot in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
Despite being associated with Patiala district, he now lives in the Coonoor district of Tamil Nadu. Like him, Shubanshu is also associated with the Indian Air Force, but for the last three years he has been working at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). In fact, he was selected for India’s first human space mission (Gaganyaan-1). This very selection opened the path for going to the ISS. After returning from the ISS, he will also be included in the Gaganyaan mission next year. The only purpose of sending him to space now was to utilise his experience for the Gaganyaan mission.
Before departure to the ISS, Shukla and his three fellow astronauts had to go through a phase of uncertainty for almost two weeks. For this 'Axiom Mission-4', the ‘Falcon-9’ rocket was to be used from the Kennedy Space Center of American space agency NASA. It faced glitches first on June 11 and then on June 13. Because of this, the mission kept getting postponed. Finally, on June 25, the task of launching the rocket was accomplished. With the help of this rocket, the spacecraft ‘Grace’ reached from Earth’s orbit to the ISS, and it took twenty and a half hours to do its job. The head of this mission, Peggy Whitson, is American. She has travelled to space four times earlier as well. Subhanshu Shukla’s status in this mission is of captain, meaning the pilot of the spacecraft. The other two mission members are respectively associated with Poland and Hungary. Like Shukla, they are also travelling to space for the first time.
The entire mission is the result of cooperation between Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, NASA, ISRO and another private company Axiom. During the stay in space, the mission members have to conduct 23 experiments, the results of which will be shared with all four partners. The Indian experiments are related to the behaviour of microbes in space, germination of vegetable seeds in space, nutritional testing of those, behaviour of cancer-causing microbes in space and the effect of medicines on them. ISRO especially wants to know how long Indian astronauts can stay in space and to what extent they can endure mental stress. All these experiments can prove to be the foundation of ISRO’s future missions in terms of variety and success.
However, this is also a strange paradox that while at one end on Earth, scientific inventions are being used for unnecessary wars and human destruction, on the other hand, methods to make human flight to the highest skies possible are being explored jointly by different countries. The ‘Axiom-4’ mission shows that science should be used not for destruction, but for development. In delivering this message effectively, Subhanshu Shukla is playing an important role. This is a matter of pride for India.