Sunita Williams and other space odysseys

There are multiple factors driving the excitement and scientific investment in space travel — our innate urge to know the unknown being the chief one

- Shobhit Mahajan

At 3:27 am IST on Wednesday morning, three astronauts and one cosmonaut splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. The event was live streamed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was watched by millions around the globe. Among the astronauts was Sunita Williams, an Indian-origin astronaut who, along with Butch Wilmore, had to spend more than nine months on the International Space Station (ISS) because of non-availability of a spacecraft to bring them back.

The fact that this 2025 Space Odyssey has been followed by so many people around the world is testimony to the enormous fascination which space still holds for us. This might seem paradoxical; after all, in our hyper-technological world, we usually have only a fleeting interest in technological advances. Space exploration and especially human space travel though is something which still excites us across generations.

Despite what is being propagated nowadays about ancient developments in aeronautics, it was only in the early part of the 20th century that a Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky laid out the theoretical details of using rockets for space travel. The scientific principle is the same that we use for rockets during Diwali. A propellant is burnt in a chamber and the exhaust gases cause a reaction which propels the rocket. The science maybe straightforward but the technical expertise required for creating enough thrust to reach outer space is formidable.