Venue: IIT Bombay
Date: 17/12/16
Interview with Mr. Rakesh Sharma, first Indian in space. Interviewed by a HoD from IIT Bombay.
He talks about his change from an air force pilot to being the first Indian in space. He says he had always wanted to be an air force pilot ever since he was 7 and as we all know he did accomplish his dream and in doing so he reached new heights beyond skies into space, He remembers an opportunity was sprung upon ISRO by Indian Government to have a manned mission to space. But ISRO nor then not now does any manned mission, so it was passed upon to Indian Air Force who jumped upon the opportunity. Then came the selection process and believe me it was tough, basically two men had to be chosen out of thousands. Believe me, when I say the process of selection was tough, it was done on various stages analysing every aspect of the pilot's mind and physical ability. He remembers one particular psychological test for which all the applicants were locked up individually in a room with only artificial lighting and no windows for 72 hours. They had to solve a few questionnaires timed after every few hours and they had to plug into a monitor which measures their heart rate among other stuff and worst of all there was no clock in the room. Imagine being in a room with only your thoughts, well that was to check for claustrophobic tendencies and our hero passed through it with ease.
Now undergoing all these stages of tests where he had to prove himself two people were selected from Air force to go to ROSCOMOS, Rakesh Sharma, and a replacement if anything goes wrong with the primary Cosmonaut. If you think this was all you are completely wrong there is a lot more to train for before going into space. To put things into perspective let us consider the space weather before thinking about training you need to undergo for it. So space is rough there is no Gravity or any other considerable force acting on your body, let us talk about the effects it would have on us. Firstly your vestibule fluids in your ears, the thing that gives you feeling whether you are standing vertically or not would work because the fluids would float in your ear as there is no force pulling it downwards so you have no feeling of altitude or posture. Secondly as you are accelerating upwards from earth to cross atmosphere you are experiencing a force of 3g that is your weight on earth becomes triple and acts directly on your spine because you are lying down and so it is hard to breathe but suddenly all that force goes away when you are in space and you feel weightless so you have to be prepared for that change. There are few more things you have to worry about when it comes to no gravity like you can lose up to 30% of your bone density and that could be deadly, so you have to exercise rigorously and daily.
