Highlighting the Mars Orbiter Mission and Chandrayaan-3, former NASA astronaut Steve Smith has praised India’s space programme as ambitious and a source of pride for every Indian.
Speaking at India’s first International GenAI Conclave in Kochi on Thursday, which was inaugurated by Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Smith, a veteran of four space flights covering 16 million miles and seven spacewalks, commended India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (2013-14), known as Mangalyaan.
“It was the first time a country ever made it successfully to another planet on the first attempt. All of you should be proud of it,” Smith said during his session, ‘Lessons Learned from A Skywalker’.
Discussing ISRO’s successful soft-landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar south pole last year, Smith remarked, “What makes India’s moon mission spectacular is the fact that in the next 11 months after that, four other missions to the lunar south pole failed: one each by Japan, Russia, and two private US spacecraft.”
Touching upon ISRO’s Gaganyaan mission, he added, “India will send astronauts to space now. I was told that one of them is from Kerala.” He was referring to astronaut-designate Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, who hails from Palakkad.
Smith, recalling his friendship with Indian-born US astronaut Kalpana Chawla, also shared his personal experiences of being rejected four times by NASA when he applied for its astronaut programme. He recounted a near-death experience at the age of 15 due to internal bleeding, which led to medical disqualifications from the Air Force and NASA, and four rejections from the Astronaut Corps.
Driving home the message to set ambitious goals, Smith cited SpaceX founder Elon Musk as an example. “A South African immigrant came to NASA 15 years ago and said he could reduce the cost of launching a rocket by 50 to 85%… NASA’s reaction was to laugh. Here we are, 15 years later, and Musk has done exactly that,” he said.
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