India won’t depend on the US for space medicine in future: Shux

Panaji: India is set to emerge as a global hub for space medicine, said Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, astronaut and Indian Air Force fighter pilot.“Space medicine will be a big discipline in India in the next five to 10 years. We will not have to go to the US to do space medicine. We will do it in India,” Shukla, who was recently awarded the Ashoka Chakra, said at the Goa Book Festival, here, on FridayIn ongoing international research, he referred to studies on cancer and other medical conditions being conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS).Shukla cited the CLIO programme, a space medicine research initiative currently running on the ISS, in which members of his mission were involved. “All space medicine is going to open up in our country. Things in this sphere are going to change very rapidly in the next five to 10 years,” he said.On the Gaganyaan mission, which aims to send Indian astronauts to space and bring them back safely, Shukla said, “My role is to feed back the experience I gained into our overall plan, to ensure that everything we do is safe, secure and reliable.”He said that India’s human spaceflight programme is not a one-time effort.“It is not that we want to go to space and come back and that is the end of it. We have a full plan to sustain this programme for the future and move towards more complex and efficient missions,” the Group Captain added.According to Shukla, the long-term vision includes regular launches, safe returns, and the gradual implementation of advanced human spaceflight capabilities.