The setting and backdrop for this story is into the future. Its a sort of time warp into the future. Fast forward 50 years and its the year 2075. One day I receive a simple and cryptic message rather a question by post. The message reads "Would you like to join?" Unwittingly I commit myself and say "yes". What came was a bolt from the blue and caught me unawares and came as a total pleasant surprise. In response to my "yes" NASA had selected me for their Artemis program(as part of a online lottery) which aims to put the first woman, next man and the first person of color on the moon and establish a sustainable human lunar presence by the end of the decade and eventually pole vault to Mars after colonizing the moon and nearby areas. The shortlist includes 18 other astronauts that includes Raja Chari, a F-16 fighter pilot, Jessica Watkins, Mathew Dominick, Kyla Barron, Johnny Kim, Robert Hines, Francisco Rubio, Loral O'Hara, Harvard University graduate and geobotanist Zena Cardman, Canadian astronauts Joshua Kutryk, Jenny Sidey Gibbons, Jeremy Hansen, Charles Duboczet, Joseph Acaba, Victor Glover, a black astronaut, Kjell Lindgren, Kate Rubins who harvested fresh radishes off the Advance Planet Habitat on the ISS opening up further possibilities for space exploration and human colonization of space, Christina Hammock Knock, Jessica Meir and Stephanie Wilson. Out of this only three will finally go to the moon at least one of which will be a woman. Years ago Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla kept his tryst with destiny and made his rendezvous with space as part of the Axiom-4 mission. Much later India's manned space flight Gaganyan had lifted off on board a brute of a Bahubali rocket with a crew of four that included Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, Group Captain Angad Pratap, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan and Group Captain Prashant Balakrishnan Nair. Now by providence and a stroke of luck it was my turn!. First of all, a little bit about manned spaceflight in general. Some of the first taikonauts as Chinese astronauts are known taiko meaning sky or space in Chinese are Col.Yang Liwei who went into space aboard the Shenzhou-5 capsule, Fei Junlong, Nie Haisheng, Jing Haipheng, Liu Yang, Mrs Liu Wang, Wang Yapan, the last two being women, Liu Boming, Zhai Zhigang, Zhang Xiaoguang, Chen Dong, Cai Xuzhe, Zhang Li, Deng Qingming, Tang Shengjie, Ye Guangfu, Jiang Xinlin. Li Guangsu and others. And the first Emirati astronaut was Hazza Al Mansouri. We keep our tryst with and a date with destiny and the moon. Our photos are splashed in all major newspapers of the world, we become world famous and Jessica Watkins creates history by becoming the first woman to walk on the moon. Next is the epoch making mission Mars as part of a new era and as part of the Artemis program as noted earlier. For this purpose NASA has designed two vehicles the first of which is powered by Laser Propulsion Technology which cuts the usual 7-8 month journey to Mars to just under 45 days and the second is a nuclear powered rocket via which one can reach Mars in just two months. NASA selects the former as through it one can reach Mars faster. Space X CEO Elon Musk has already been making noises about placing men on Mars but his plans have been plagued by time and cost overruns. Now we start our rigorous training the rigor of which is only matched by our steely resolve to pull off the mission. First is training in zero gravity. After that training in high gravity acceleration including escape from an escape module. And so our training continues with a rigorous regimen. We train for a combined total of 300 hours in simulators. We prepare for spacewalks or robotic arm operations in the Virtual Reality Laboratory which immerses us in a computer generated microgravity environment. And then there is training in a simulated Martian environment just to take no chances. Soon we are ready to be put into orbit. On D-Day, May 16, 2025 we a crew of three dressed in spacesuits head for our Artemis III rocket in Launch Complex No.3 at the Kennedy Space Centre, Houston, Texas, United States and our rocket blasts off. We are on our way!. Its a 45-day long haul to Mars. We steadily inch towards Mars. Often it becomes tedious sitting in the rocket on the long journey but patience pays rich dividends. And at last after what seemed an eternity compounded as it was by the fact that there is no relativeness in space we reach Mars's orbit and our spacecraft's last command is to study the aerodynamics of our spacecraft before we land on Mars. Numerous fiction works have been written on Mars and mankind's date with our planetary neighbor but the actual feeling of setting foot on Mars is an indescribable, eerie, outlandish and out of this world feeling, a must experience. We conduct some scientific experiments, relay back photos for the benefit of earthlings and by now we are world famous. Soon, it is time for the long journey home and we arrive on Earth to a hero's welcome. The President of United States proposes we go on a world tour and as part of that I with my crew mates arrive in India to a hero's welcome and India and America bestow their highest honor on me and my team mates as do a whole host of countries.
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