00:14:12 · Aditya Agarwal, Shubhanshu Shukla
[00:14:12] S1: Shubhanshu, you need to design a psychological test for SPC membership. Okay. Alright. But what is the last one? The isolation? That's really interesting. [00:14:21] S0: So you said physically, I told you hard. But I think out of all the tests, I think the isolation was the hardest one for me because they put you in isolation, we were three of us, we go inside, it's the platform that we have, this was the platform for isolation. There were three beds bunked up on-site and that was the only space. No artificial light, you know... Sorry, no natural light. You know, there was no connection with the outside world. There was no clock. There was no way to tell what is the time. [00:14:44] S1: No [00:14:45] S0: clock? No clock. And so you were there for seven days and you had to just feel. [00:14:50] S1: You have your iPhone or not? Sorry? No phones. Of course, no phones. No phones. Alright. Now you're screwed. Okay. Yes. [00:14:59] S0: So that was really challenging. And and, obviously, it is designed to put stress on you, so you... They will make you do mundane things, you know, which takes time, like origami, you know, or making... An origami not just making one swan, but making thousand swans, you know, out of paper sitting in extended period of time. So they really test you to the, you know, limit, and how do you react to those situations. So that was probably the hardest, I would say.
00:14:59 · Shubhanshu Shukla, Aditya Agarwal
[00:14:59] S0: So that was really challenging. And and, obviously, it is designed to put stress on you, so you... They will make you do mundane things, you know, which takes time, like origami, you know, or making... An origami not just making one swan, but making thousand swans, you know, out of paper sitting in extended period of time. So they really test you to the, you know, limit, and how do you react to those situations. So that was probably the hardest, I would say. [00:15:21] S1: So maybe switching from getting ready for going to space to actually going to space. You know, you often hear astronauts talking about what a deeply emotional experience it is to look at the Earth and all of us contained within it, kind of from the outside in. How did it... What is the experience like for you?
00:15:42 · Shubhanshu Shukla
[00:15:42] S0: Yeah. It is a very surreal experience. You know, the challenge is that there is no way for me to tell it to you. That is what is always going to be the case. I mean it because before I went to space, there were people who had flown, you know, the astronauts. I spoke to them. They showed me their videos, they showed me their pictures, they explained to me, and I am in the same field. I understood it in a way that I could understand at that point of time. But when I went and I felt it for myself, it was just completely different. It is not the same. So, is very hard. I think it is a human limitation. Our imagination is also trapped with your experience. Whatever we say, whatever creativity we talk about, it is always based on something that you have seen, heard or experienced in some form. You cannot come up with something which is completely, you know, different from what you have felt. So it is based on your experience. So I think that is what the difference is. But you do get that feeling. You know, when you travel outside, it is known as the overview effect that the astronauts get when you travel outside and you look at the planet from the outside. So, everybody feels differently. Somebody may feel more aligned spiritually or closer to God, in that sense. And for me, the experience was that when I travelled outside, it was that immediate feeling that this is home, like the earth is home. And it was not about a place or a country or a region, that entire planet was your home. That was the strongest feeling for me when I traveled outside. Looked at looked at the Earth from the outside for the first time.
00:17:19 · Aditya Agarwal
[00:17:19] S1: It's incredible. How about the physical conditions of kinda microgravity and being on the space station, like, how would you... Like, how severe was it, maybe is one way of asking it.
00:17:32 · Shubhanshu Shukla
[00:17:32] S0: It is quite severe, but it is very liberating, and it is a lot of fun. But your body, you know, it is not used to this environment. So, when you get up there, there are lot of changes that happen. Immediately what happens is that since nothing is pulling on you, all the blood from your legs, it shifts to your head, and your head actually swells up it increases in size, you have a very puffy face, all the fluid shift happens to your head. Your heart doesn't have to pump blood against gravity to your head, so it shrinks in size over a period of time by about 10 to 15%, your heart becomes smaller. You are floating in space, everything is floating, so everything inside your stomach is also floating. So you don't feel hungry necessarily. In the initial few days, you don't feel like I did not feel like eating at all for the first three to four days, I had to force feed myself. Very exciting, know, when you get to space, because gravity is not pulling on you, you become taller, you grow in height. So, your height increases when you get to space. I grew by about five centimeters when I was there. The problem is when you come back to earth, so it is not a lasting change that you get to have. But all of this happens for about four to five days, and after about fifth day, your body gets used to this new environment and then everything is great. Obviously, are some things which keep on happening, like the muscles that we use here to oppose the force of gravity, we don't use it in space at all. There is no strain, no effort, so you lose it very rapidly. So, the long duration crew, which stays for six months, they have to exercise mandatorily every day for two hours, one hour for aerobic conditioning and one hour for anaerobic conditioning, but it has to be done, otherwise you will lose muscle very rapidly. So these are the changes, but you you have to get used, your body get adapt... Adapted to this new environment that it is exposed to. And I think it... Given the variability, probably about a week for every condition, and I think you'll, you know, conditioned for this new environment within a week, and you're okay with that.
00:19:31 · Aditya Agarwal, Shubhanshu Shukla
[00:19:31] S1: What about cognitively? I mean, so far, have described some of the the emotional kind of, like, sensations that you get being out in space. Obviously, some of the physical changes, which, by the way, I think it's... This kinda reminds you how much more malleable our bodies are than we kinda realize. Right? Like, our bodies are not kind of, like, fixed. Like, even in short stints in different environments and systems, our bodies can adapt very quickly. But coming back to cognitively, I'm assuming that there's just more background cognitive processing happening because you're in a different environment when obviously things that are happening in the fast thinking part of your brain, now you have to actually slow down and kind of like actually do more consciously, whether they be moving around or understanding in some ways a z axis kind of like floating around and so on. But what is kind of the cognitive experience? Do you feel there's more blood going to your brain? Does that mean that you're actually in some ways flushed with kind of like, in some ways, more processing power? [00:20:31] S0: It would be great if that was the case, but it isn't so more fluid means it is a permanent kind of a congestion in your head. And there is a space fog, the term that is given is known as space fog, but it is a sort of confusion that is there in the initial few days. Even the things that you know how to do, you become slow at them. [00:20:55] S1: Because your brain is swollen Actually, up a little