New Delhi: If you are a healthy adult, an Indian citizen, and have thousands of people willing to vote for you online, you have a shot at going to space. And it will be almost like a reality TV show.
Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), a US-based space agency, is partnering with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos, to make your dream come true. No hard-set educational background, no long-duration astronaut training — all you need to be is a healthy adult, an Indian citizen, pay roughly USD 2.5 for registration, and build a campaign so that people are willing to vote for you.
In an exclusive interview, SERA founders Sam Hutchison and Joshua Skurla shared with ThePrint that a portal on which interested astronaut candidates can register is now open.
Registrations for an upcoming mission on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket are open via a Telegram Mini-App—Mission Control—which utilises the TON blockchain. A blockchain platform is like a shared digital notebook, which is a decentralised and secured system.
India is guaranteed a seat on the mission, along with Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and Thailand. The sixth seat is open to all.
“SERA was founded as a space agency for everyone. Historically, space missions have been operated only by an entire nation to pursue their national purpose,” Sam Hutchison told ThePrint.
He said the mission is for countries that have no or few commercial citizen astronauts as part of their space programme.
“Anyone can sign into our app and propose the science experiments that we should carry out on the mission. After the registration, people get to decide who gets to represent them,” Sam Hutchison added.
SERA founders say they have incorporated a democratic and decentralised selection model for aspirants.
“The process of selecting both the astronaut and the experiments is a democratic one,” Sam Hutchison stated.
SERA has also partnered with Banijay Asia to co-produce a format in India that tracks the journey of Indians who aspire to join its suborbital flight missions—highlighting their challenges, eliminations, and campaigns, among other phases—thereby bringing in a reality show vibe.
Senior officials aware of the development confirmed to ThePrint that the launch of the first SERA suborbital flight is likely to be scheduled for the first half of 2026.
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How will this happen?
Joshua Skurla explained that SERA’s registration portal allows users to choose from three options: enrol as an astronaut candidate, submit a science experiment, or be a supporter and vote for the enlisted participants.
“We have six seats, and each seat comes with its own payload space. So, we plan to run these experiments in this payload space,” Skurla said.
The astronauts themselves will carry out some of these experiments, Joshua Skurla added.
According to Skurla, India was selected, among other countries, for SERA’s space mission in light of its recent advancements in space exploration. The recent successes in India’s space programme, including some ambitious upcoming missions, have positioned it as a country to watch in the global space market.
Flying to space
Twenty-eight-year-old engineer Victor Hespanha, a Brazil-based civil engineer, never imagined he would be able to fly to space. But in 2022, that changed.
Hespanha became one of the first civilians to fly to space on a Blue Origin mission after being selected through a crypto-enabled community platform. His journey is now cited by SERA as an inspiration and model for expanding public access to space.
His space travel—a suborbital mission—was aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. He is currently working closely with SERA and will help train the new batch of recruits.
“This flight is obviously not like a mission to the International Space Station, for instance. So, the training required for it is also not going to be as rigorous,” Hespanha has said.
For the mission, astronaut designates will need to undergo training for nearly a week ahead of the launch.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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