Rakesh Sharma

I had pretty much done it all before I went into space. So when the opportunity came, I went along. It was that simple.

The earth appears fragile and defenceless in the harsh environment of space and when one sees the amount of technology required to keep a human alive in that environment, one begins to feel blessed that one is an inhabitant of planet earth that supports human life.

Stars appear as pin-points of light. They don't twinkle there as they do when we see them from earth because the atmospheric blanket is not there.

Priorities have to be allocated by the government because they have a complete picture of the country's requirements. If priority is allocated to a manned space programme, I'm confident we can swing it. But it's going to be tremendously expensive - the infrastructure and so on.

If you end up doing what you are passionate about, the journey is so easy.

Theoretically, there are planets with an environment that can support life. As yet there is no evidence that there indeed is life on other planets. It's only a matter of time before we get to know.

Anyone who goes to space tried to look at his own country first, but soon it appears that there is no boundary between the countries and the entire world is one family where our destinies are integrated.

There is hardly a facet of an Indian citizen that has not been touched by ISRO’s technology.