Growing up in the early 2000s, the tales of astronauts Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla, and Sunita Williams (an American astronaut of Indian origin) were woven into my childhood textbooks. Later, as a teenager, I discovered Ravish Malhotra, another pioneer whose name deserved wider fame, but didn’t. But after these icons, there has been a long gap. An entire generation of kids grew up without any Indian launching into space. The sense of scientific pride associated with human spaceflight has faded for years, even though the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has achieved so much in uncrewed spaceflights, putting satellites and equipment up in space.
Now, that narrative is changing through ISRO’s Indian Human Spaceflight programme. Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla has become the first of four beacons for the aspiring young minds. This week, he returned to the country after visiting the International Space Station on the Axiom-4 mission. And soon, in 2027, he will be joined by one of the three Group Captain Prasanth Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, and Group Captain Angad Pratap on board India’s first crewed flight to space. They will be flying aboard ISRO’s very own spacecraft from Indian soil in Sriharikota.
For children today, role models like Shubhanshu Shukla offer practical proof that big dreams can be achieved in a rather unexplored field of studies among the youth. I hope these missions spark curiosity among the kids like they did for me when I was five. I didn’t go through with it, but at least it taught me so much more about space than my school could have ever motivated me to. I hope the media succeeds in giving these astronauts the visibility they deserve
Chaitanya's Weblog 