"May Not Look, Sound Like Us": Axiom-4 Mission Chief On Extraterrestrial Life

NDTV

9 hours ago

New Delhi:
Likening a visit to the space station to a camping trip, former NASA astronaut and Axiom-4 mission commander Peggy Whitson said the orbital station has enough food, water and other supplies to sustain the daily lives of those on board.
"We have wet towels that we can use every day to clean ourselves. And we have enough resources from food and water perspectives that we can provide for ourselves. So it isn't like going to some ultra-rich hotel spa or whatever. It is very much a bit of a camping trip. But it's a lot of fun," she told NDTV.
Days ahead of the mission's June 10 launch, Dr Whitson said that the most "special part" would be the integration of her team of four with the seven astronauts already on board the International Space station (ISS). The orbital station, she said, is equivalent to inter-connected bus-sized modules of various sizes with four pull-up laboratories, a toilet, exercise hardware and life support systems. "There's actually a lot more space than you think. But obviously, by increasing the crew size by four, it will be a challenge for us to all integrate and work together," she said when asked if the ISS will become crowded when the Axiom-4 team enters it.
Should the Axiom-4 mission launch be successful, Dr Whitson and her team members Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, European Space Agency project astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland, and Tibor Kapu of Hungary will be seen floating around the orbital lab amid its screens, plugs, wires, switches, pipes and knobs. But what she is confident of is life far beyond among the billions of galaxies that unfold outside the space station's portal windows.
"I haven't seen any (extraterrestrial life) with my own eyes. But what I have seen is just billions and billions of stars. And this is just our little galaxy. And there's billions and billions of galaxies. And I know, I know there has to be other life out there, because it is so expansive. I'm sure it exists, it may not look or sound like us," Dr Whitson said. That, she said, is the what pushes the idea of exploration and drives the continuous development of technologies further and further to find out about life beyond Earth.
Dr Whitson and her colleague Mr Shukla, who is called "Shux" by the team, will especially look at India from space. "All of planet Earth is beautiful. India is special as well. It's relatively easy to pick out India because of the geography. I'm looking forward to seeing it again," she said.
The Axiom-4 mission will launch on June 10 at 5.52 pm IST on board SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Mr Shukla will be the second Indian to travel to space four decades after Rakesh Sharma's iconic spaceflight onboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft in 1984.
Once docked, the astronauts plan to spend up to 14 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting science, outreach, and commercial activities.
The Axiom-4 astronauts will perform around 60 scientific studies and activities representing 31 countries during their 14-day stay at the ISS. Mr Shukla is set to conduct exclusive food and nutrition-related experiments developed under a collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), with support from NASA.
The experiments aim to pioneer space nutrition and self-sustaining life support systems, vital for future long-duration space travel. ISRO has lined up a set of seven experiments for Mr Shukla, who will also participate in five joint studies planned by NASA for its human research programme. It has drawn up plans to focus on India-centric food for carrying out experiments on the ISS, including sprouting methi (Fenugreek) and moong (green gram) in microgravity conditions.