How India’s space mission is inspiring a new generation

Back in 2014, soon after India successfully launched a robotic probe around the orbit of Mars, The New York Times published a disparaging cartoon which showed a farmer with a cow knocking at a door with a sign - ‘Elite Space Club’, with two men dressed in suits sitting inside reading a newspaper about India’s mission. There was a huge backlash as many readers complained the cartoon was racist and mocked India. The paper then apologised. Nearly a decade later when India completed a successful mission to the moon’s south pole, people remembered the same cartoon.

This week, another milestone was achieved in India’s space dreams as Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla became only the second Indian to travel to space. Along with 3 other astronauts, he took off on the Axiom-4 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and will spend two weeks at the International Space Station carrying out critical experiments. 41 years ago it was then Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma who went to space with the Russians. There is a huge symbolic aspect to Shukla’s space mission but also a more important scientific one as India prepares to launch it’s own human space flight in a mission called ‘Gaganyaan’ in 2027. India also plans to set up its own space station in the next decade and have a man on the moon by 2040.