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
00:20:59 · Shubhanshu Shukla
[00:20:59] S0: a lot of things are happening right now. It is not just the fluid shift. Your balance system, all the inputs that go to your brain, all the sensory inputs that go to your brain, they are all haywire now. Because there is something known as an otolith organ inside your inner ear, along with the semicircular canals which are responsible for your balance orientation. So, the otoliths have got follicles which are always vertical due to gravity on earth. And when you get up to microgravity, they are not vertical anymore, and it just changes the datum completely. So, it becomes very disorienting. And also, you are seeing things for the first time. It is very hard to explain, but it is very disorienting initially. So we went and we docked on the top of the ISS, you know, that was the port that we went. And the ISS is a long structure, it's a tube, kind of modules connected together. So when the first time you come down and you always have to move head first so that you don't, you know, plug out a wire by kicking with your legs, So, you always come head down. So, I remember when I came head down the first time and I was looking into the depth of that modules connected together, it is like standing on a building at the edge and then turning 90 degrees on that edge of the building. So, the sensation that you get, you will fall, right? That's exactly the same sensation was there. You won't fall. Everything is falling in space. That is why you are not experiencing gravity. But that sensation is so strong that you want to grab onto So, these things are very strong initially when you get up there. The concept of space, you know, we are sitting here in a three-dimensional room, but we are not actually three-dimensional. We are restricted to floors. We are not hanging by the ceiling or sticking to the wall here. But this is possible in space. But your brain has to get used to this concept. So, cognitively, you're not yet there. So, I remember, second day, I wanted to cross a module, the lab, and there was a NASA astronaut who had set up an experiment right in the centre of the module. And I looked at her, in my mind, I had no space. So I was waiting to cross, I did not cross. There was this other astronaut who was passing by and she asked me because she saw that I am not doing anything, just waiting. She said, Shukla, what are you doing?