{"id":72846,"date":"2025-07-12T11:00:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T02:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jul\/12\/india-first-astronaut-in-40-years-international-space-station"},"modified":"2025-07-12T11:00:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T02:00:02","slug":"i-didnt-give-much-thought-to-the-universe-indias-first-astronaut-in-40-years-inspires-next-generation-of-stargazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72846","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I didn\u2019t give much thought to the universe\u2019: India\u2019s first astronaut in 40 years inspires next generation of stargazers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The International Space Station has been flying over the country this week and excited children tracking Shubhanshu Shukla\u2019s every move will be hoping for a glimpse of his temporary home on Saturday night<\/p>\n<p>As the International Space Station passes over India this weekend, many of those looking up to catch a glimpse as it goes by will be excited schoolchildren, who, like millions across the country, have their eyes, hopes and dreams pinned on astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to visit the ISS.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat if the astronauts find evidence of intelligent life forms in space? Or even better, what if Shubhanshu Shukla\u2019s experiments help humans discover a way to survive on other planets?\u201d says Deborshi Halder, an excited 15-year-old. His classmate, however, is concerned. \u201cBut if places beyond Earth become habitable, we humans may land up exploiting them too, leading to space pollution,\u201d says Sabnam Sireen.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/jul\/12\/india-first-astronaut-in-40-years-international-space-station\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The International Space Station has been flying over the country this week and excited children tracking Shubhanshu Shukla\u2019s every move will be hoping for a glimpse of his temporary home on Saturday nightAs the International Space Station passes over I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4842,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59,860,62,2950,299,61,297,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-development","category-global-education","category-india","category-international-space-station","category-science","category-south-and-central-asia","category-space","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4842"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72847,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72846\/revisions\/72847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}