Countries should not compete through space programs, as this will only hurt humanity, astronaut Rakesh Sharma believes
April 3, 1982 was a red letter day in the history of Indo-Russian joint space programs.
Rakesh Sharma, then a 35-year-old Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter jet pilot, flew aboard the Soyuz T-11 with two cosmonauts from the Soviet Union – Commander Yury Malyshev and Flight Engineer Gennady Strekalov – to the Salyut-7 space station to become the first Indian to travel to space. During the next eight days, Sharma photographed India from space and performed yoga exercises to study the effects on the body during weightlessness.
Sharma was chosen for the space program in 1982 along with backup Ravish Malhotra, another IAF officer. The two trained for two years in Russia before Sharma lifted off.
Four decades later, Sharma, now 75, lives in the picturesque hill town of Coonoor in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He vividly…