Space travel alters worldview, makes clear planet belongs to everyone: India's first spaceman Rakesh Sharma
is in space as part of the Axiom-4 mission, India's first spaceman
, who went there as part of the Indo-Soviet space programme in 1984, has said that space travel alters the mindset of humans and makes them see the world from a perspective that 'this planet belongs to everyone' and is 'not the sole preserve' of anyone.
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'We really need to preserve what we have, which means we need to end conflicts, we need to forget about our weapons, we need to forget about confrontation and we need to start collaborating instead,' he said in a recorded podcast shared by ministry of defence on the day India returned to space after 41 years.
After more than a year-long training in the erstwhile USSR, Sharma, an IAF test pilot, was launched into space along with two Russian cosmonauts, where he spent over a week in orbit on the Salyut-7 space station in 1984.
'Because I was a test pilot when the selection happened… that time I was young, I was fit, and I had the qualification, so I was lucky enough to have been chosen. Then, after selection, we moved to Star City, just outside Moscow, for our training.
The training went on for 18 months and culminated in the Indo-Soviet spaceflight in 1984. It was an eight-day mission, and we carried out experiments which were designed by Indian scientists," he said.
Sharma recalled that the entire training and communication with crew members and mission control while they were in orbit was in Russian. 'We had to learn the language before we started training, and that was not easy because of the paucity of time. So, we took about two months to learn the language,' he said.
He highlighted that in space, sunrises and sunsets happen at an interval of 45 minutes as 'we moved around Earth in just 90 minutes', and saw day and night several times in a day.
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In the podcast released on Wednesday night, the spaceman said that while space travel technology has changed, 'as humans, we haven't changed much'. 'The mental impact will always be there because humans will be able to get a different perspective. It does kind of alter the worldview... (shows) the vast place in the universe.' Sharma had famously said 'Sare Jehan Se Acha...' when then PM Indira Gandhi asked him how India looked from space.
Asked about the future of Indian space travel, he said, 'We will be going farther and farther from planet Earth... Space tourism will happen but space exploration will go side by side and we will keep marching ahead'.
On India's uniqueness, Sharma said: 'We shared our Vedas with everybody. Our heritage says 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The world is one family)'. We still value it in the modern world as during Covid epidemic, we shared (vaccines) with everybody...'.
When asked how he found the world and India from space, Sharma exclaimed, 'Oh dear! Beautiful. In our country, we got everything: we got a long coastline, the ghats section, plains, tropical forests, mountains, Himalayas. It's a beautiful sight, different colours, different textures'.
After his return from the mission, Sharma went back to the IAF from where he retired as wing commander. 'After a few years, I moved to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited as their chief test pilot,' he said, and recalled his association with the evolution of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) 'Tejas' fighter jet. 'Later I joined the IT industry. Life has been rewarding for me.'
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