New Delhi: When Indian Air Force Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla was selected to fly onboard the US-led space mission, Axiom-4, he immediately called his friend, mentor and hobby buddy, Aloke Kumar.
“You will not be able to guess what just happened,” were Shukla’s words from the other end of the line.
But Kumar, who already had an idea, let him have his moment. One of Shukla’s biggest cheerleaders throughout the training period is rooting for him as he flies to the International Space Station.
Kumar, who is also Shukla’s professor and mentor for his Master’s thesis at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has an ulterior motive behind the Indian astronaut’s safe return home—to have Shukla finish his incomplete thesis.
“He left his thesis midway to go for his training in the US. I will hold him to it as soon as he is back,” Kumar said in an interview with ThePrint, with a glint of pride in his eyes.
It was while training for India’s first human spaceflight, Gaganyaan, in Bengaluru that Shukla first met Kumar. Their shared interest in astrophotography and curiosity about what lies beyond the Earth’s realm, and the possibilities of human habitation in the extraterrestrial, made them friends.
Incidentally, this was also the time when Shukla, along with his Gaganyaan crewmates, enrolled at IISc to pursue a Master’s degree in space studies. Thus began Shukla and Kumar’s partnership, who are fondly known as “Jai and Veeru” in the IISc circles.
“We bonded over this boyish wonder about stars and planets. And this has since been the foundation of our friendship,” Kumar said, narrating how the duo would spend hours gazing at the night sky during the COVID-19 lockdown.
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Work at IISc
Shux, as Kumar calls him—which is also Shukla’s call sign (a unique identifier used for radio communication)—has been working on a project to study space habitation.
His work focuses on the nature and properties of lunar and Martian regolith as a potential building material in space, as well as on modules that can facilitate the construction of colonies on planets.
He is also part of the larger work on space technology, biomanufacturing and habitation in Kumar’s lab, including the Bharatiya Extraterrestrial Expandable Modular Habitat (BHEEM), a futuristic abode engineered for work and stay in space for extended periods.
In the last few years, Kumar’s lab has also developed the breakthrough ‘space bricks’ using lunar and Martian soil, bacteria and urea, which can be used to create buildings in space.
Partnering with Kumar, Shukla was also working on studying how Sporosarcina pasteurii, a bacterium capable of bio-cementation, performs in the presence of perchlorates—oxidising salts found in Martian soil. The work can make it a potential binding ingredient for making buildings on Mars.
Shukla’s cheerleader
Kumar, one of India’s pioneering scientists leading the country’s research in space manufacturing and habitation, has donned the cheerleader cap today and watching the Axiom-4 launch, which lifted off today with Shukla and three other astronauts for space for a 14-day mission, with his colleagues at the IISc campus.
The last few weeks, he has been boasting about Shukla’s achievements to everyone he meets.
He says that Shukla might be the first Indian to fly to the ISS and the second Indian to ever fly to space, but he is carrying the hopes, dreams and wishes of all Indians with him.
“I, along with 1.4 billion people, are rooting for him from India,” he said, his excitement barely contained.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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