In a proud moment for India, Subhanshu Shukla becomes the first Indian astronaut to script history with the International Space Station (ISS), where he along with three other nationals intend to carry out some 60 experiments before their return to earth two weeks hence. Private entities facilitated this mission – with the Texas-based Axiom partnering with Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture, and the lifting off having taken place on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre. After a long gap, Shukla followed up in the footsteps of Rakesh Sharma, who was the first Indian national to go into space – on a Soviet rocket in 1984. At this juncture, a special homage is due to Kalpana Chawla, the Indian-American astronaut who was the first woman with an Indian background to travel to space – on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist, but who met with a tragic death in 2003 when it crashed, killing all seven crew members.
Space exploration, which was a craze some 50 years ago, lost considerable attention after the end of the Cold War. When hostilities between the United States and Soviet Union stopped and the USSR disintegrated, the race between them to explore space and seek domination there lost its punch. The ISS was a good step forward. Though the US took the lead in the construction of the station with support from European nations, Japan etc., in the 1980s at the initiative of Ronald Reagan as President, Russia too was drawn into it in the 1990s. The realization dawned on all for the need for a collective push in space explorations. All the same, the old enthusiasm is still missing in this field where many surprises await mankind in future. Before we reach out to life elsewhere, chances are also that others might come in search of humans right here. This now is also a time to think about a migration from earth at least for those who can afford to do so if and when favourable conditions emerge. With global private initiative, Space tourism is already a craze for many.
One of the early entrants in space explorations was India, with visionary prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru having set the ball rolling. India’s first rocket launch station, in Thumba, Kerala, came into being in 1963, followed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969 and much else. Past the Chandrayaan missions to Moon, India is currently planning the Gaganyaan, aiming to launch the nation’s first human space mission in 2017. Some Air Force pilots are currently undergoing training for the same in Russia and here. India now boasts of achieving an unmanned docking in space; and was the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon. In space explorations, China was a late entrant but, with its resources and newly acquired technological clout, the red nation is closely behind us and might work wonders.
