Four gaganauts have recently been chosen for India’s manned space mission next year. My congratulations to Group Captains Prashanth Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla for their selection. This is just the beginning. India is now in the process of selecting and setting up training facilities for a core of gaganauts to man our future ventures in space.
For India, human space flight is still uncharted territory. Apart from Kalpana Chawla with NASA, the only other Indian to have gone up is Rakesh Sharma, but that was courtesy the Russians and their experience in the field. Very soon, we will boast of sending our people with our own technology.
Reading about the four gaganauts reminds me of the days that I was associated with the selection process for the first Indians in space. We started with 52 pilots, of which four were shortlisted. There were two wing commanders, Ravish Malhotra and S.C. Mittal, and two squadron leaders, Rakesh Sharma and myself.
This would be further cut to two pilots, who would undergo full training in Russia. But, some aspects of training started before that final cut. We sat through Russian language classes, while our physical and medical evaluation was in progress. After coming back from the evaluation in Moscow, the four of us were put through some lectures by ISRO to familiarise us with outer space.
First-hand learning: Suri (left) with Ravish Malhotra in the Soyuz capsule during their introduction to the spacecraft | Imaging: Sumesh C.N.
The evaluation and training of people who travel to space are elaborate processes. The conditions in outer space have to be simulated to the extent possible. The candidates go through these simulations to see if everything in their systems will work the way it is supposed to. Apart from regular medical evaluation, we were put through situations that bring on spatial disorientation. Like being strapped on to a rotating wheel. That is 10 times worse than being on the world’s trickiest roller coaster. Or sitting on a chair that rotates while your head wobbles. The vestibular system is thrown awry and you may feel sick. Quite obviously, any kind of discomfort or disorientation here would render you unfit for the job.
Then there were the high pressure chambers and the centrifuge to test your capability to sustain G force. At 1G, you feel normal, but at 2G you feel like your weight has doubled. This is where our experience in flying fighter planes came in useful. While flying fighter planes, we normally sustain 4G to 5G. Every part of the body becomes heavier. It is difficult to lift your hand or keep your head up. The blood starts draining from the head and travels towards the feet, causing blackouts. In extreme maneuvers, we even sustain 8G to 9G momentarily.
Have you ever sat in a car that suddenly accelerates to a hundred kilometres an hour and you feel like you are being pushed back against the seat? Well, while going into space, multiply that feeling by a 100, especially when you are accelerating to escape velocity so that you can leave the earth’s orbit and get into outer space. And then that wonderful feeling of being in zero gravity, where you can float like a butterfly, but not sting like a bee. My apologies to Muhammad Ali. Both Ravish and Rakesh went through zero gravity simulation after the final selection.
Along with physical and medical tests comes mental assessment. Up in space you are quite lonely. Staring into a void for a long time could be disastrous for your mind. I have not been that far up in space. But, I have been on the MiG25 we used to fly in the stratosphere, at 26km above the earth―close to 85,000 feet. You do not see a blue sky at that height. The sky is a dark grey even in the afternoon. It is quite similar up in space.
To test our mental adaptability, we were individually put in a small room with a bed, four walls and no windows for 72 hours. Three days and three nights of isolation. Any longer and we would have started tearing our hair out! There were three video games placed next to the bed. Every now and then they used to ring a bell from the outside. We had to get up, check our vital parameters like pulse and blood pressure, and log our scores on the video games. Exciting stuff!
And finally, of course, there is the technical aspect of training, learning about the spacecraft, or the machine that you are supposed to be handling and the specific experiments that you are supposed to be carrying out in space.
I think a strong mental make-up is part of being a fighter pilot. That is why people selected for space missions around the world are mostly fighter pilots. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and the seven American astronauts trained for NASA’s Mercury programme were all fighter pilots.
With Hrithik Roshan in Jodhaa Akbar.
Rakesh and I were good friends. In 1972, we were together in the No 1 Squadron in Adampur. He was my senior at the National Defence Academy. Both he and I were young officers. He was from Hyderabad and I was from Delhi, but we had common friends. I fought the 1971 war as a forward air controller, because I had just got my commission. I was sent with the Army to guide air attacks. So, I fought in a tank with the 72 Armoured Regiment. After the war, Rakesh and I converted to MiGs. We had not known Ravish and Mittal earlier, but we got to know each other well during the year of my association with the programme.
From the start, we knew that only one person would go up in the Soyuz 7. There was no animosity or competition. We all had the may-the-best-man-go-up attitude. In the case of our four gaganauts, three of them will be on India’s human space mission. The fourth is also likely to go up in a joint mission with NASA.
The press is calling them the Fabulous Four.
Give them a break guys! The last four to be called the Fab Four were long-haired musicians from Liverpool. Give them an original name. The nation has new idols!
The four who are selected are capable pilots and my only advice to them would be: You are the pride of the whole nation. Do your job to the best of your capability, but in the process, do not forget to enjoy the ride.
―The writer was among the four test pilots initially selected for the space flight in 1984. After retiring from the Indian Air Force, he became a radio jockey and is now an actor.