Dubai: Dubai-based photographer Dr Hersh Chadha was invited to Star City in Moscow to meet the cosmonauts and astronauts who recently returned from the International Space Mission 49/50.
Dr Chadha was the honorary guest at the ceremony and gave a speech showing his appreciation to the three cosmonauts who took his photographs to space.
Last October Dr Chadha sent five of his photographs of flowers to the International Space Station with the ISS 49/50 team to be displayed there, making it as the first ever permanent photography exhibition in space.
His message to the ISS team was: “To me a flower symbolises the beauty of life… Well, I can’t give you a flower to take to space but I would like to give these pictures of flowers, that I took from around the world, so that when you look at them, even in space, you get that feeling and truly experience ‘your world’.”
It all began more than 15 years ago, when Dr Chadha went to study at Harvard Business School where a fellow student spoke to him about her late father, Stuart Allen Roosa, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission.
Dr Chadha was inspired by him and wanted to send his pictures to space. He kept trying till Col Valery Korzun from Star City in Moscow arranged for five of his pictures of flowers to be taken to space last year.
“I think I have achieved what I wanted to. I have managed to excel in the field of photography in my own view and this is because finally five of my pictures went to the International Space Station. I also want to share this with other people so that they can keep pursuing their dream, even if it takes 15 years to come true.”
