Ten days after reaching space, on what was meant to be a nonworking day, Shubhanshu Shukla was given an additional slot to call people back on earth. For Shukla, the first Indian man to travel to the International Space Station, the choice was simple. He decided to place an IP call to the first Indian to travel to space, Rakesh Sharma.
“But when I saw the +1 code prefix, which is used for calls from space, I dismissed it off for a spam call,” chuckled Rakesh Sharma as he recalled the unexpected phone call. It was only after Shukla dialled again that the call connected. “Fortunately, he called me immediately after that. On his second call, I picked up. I was really pleasantly surprised to hear him on the other side,” Sharma said.
Parts of that extraordinary conversation found voice on Wednesday when Sharma and Shukla appeared together on stage for the first time since Shukla’s return from space in July 2025. Speaking at the Mumbai Climate Week, the two Indian spacefarers reflected on what they saw from orbit and what it means for a planet facing a deepening climate crisis.
“Pollution does not respect national boundaries, and our destinies are interconnected in that way,” said Sharma, recalling how he once saw forest fires in Burma, now Myanmar, sending plumes of smoke across the far east due to upper winds. “It isn’t as if that if fields are being burnt in West Pakistan or Punjab, then it only affects northern belt of India. Ultimately, something which is not right, which is not being done properly in one section of the globe has got to affect everybody else,” he said.
Observations from space, he added, make the damage visible. “What many astronauts described a vibrant blue dot is now more grey. Their observations were that our Earth looks less blue than it did. And this is within the space of a few years. This is what pollution is doing.”
Forty-one years after Sharma’s historic mission, Shukla became the second Indian to travel into outer space in 2025. Travelling at 26,000 kilometres per hour to reach the International Space Station in 526 seconds, Shukla said that when he first looked at Earth from orbit, one thought came to mind: “This is home.”
Asked about the worsening climate crisis, Shukla drew lessons from life aboard the ISS, where sustainability is not a choice but a necessity.
“In space, you have to be sustainable as there are no resources. The water as well as the air that we breathe is recycled. You don’t have any additional air and most of it is recycled and purified and circulated back. When all the systems are working perfectly fine, almost 98 percent of the water is recycled on International Space Station. There is a nice saying on the station that yesterday’s coffee is also tomorrow’s coffee. So, everything gets recycled. This including clothes that you wear. The food that we use, it’s in packets which has to be finished, when you open it. This made me realise that living sustainably is possible if you attempt to live without excesses,” Shukla said.
Echoing that sentiment, Sharma warned against overconsumption. “The earth’s resources are finite and if we are going to expend that in a profligate manner, then we are going to eat ourselves out of the only planet which we have. Therefore, we need to protect our planet earth from ourselves.”
As discussions around future lunar missions and even making the moon an administrative base for Mars gather pace, Shukla said preserving international collaboration would be crucial.
Before the two space travellers shared their experiences, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar joined them on stage. “There is evidence of how quickly world is changing and its alarming. We are discussing these solutions to make these planet a good place for generations to come. We need to take a step now, for what is right, so that we can build the future we truly want,” Tendulkar said at the event.
Indian cosmonauts Rakesh Sharma and Shubhanshu Shukla participate in a session at Mumbai Climate Week at BKC in Mumbai on 18 February 2026.
Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee. 18.02.2026. 
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