Watch this space: Who is the first Indian space tourist and where did gold come from?

New Shepard’s 25th Mission crew includes Indian-origin Gopi Thotakura (Image credit: Blue Origin)

Kulangara told indianexpress.com in 2021 that he spent Rs 1.8 crore to secure himself a ticket aboard a Virgin Galactic spaceplane. Kulangara was selected as a tourist as far back as 2007 and went through multiple training sessions since then, include some to simulate a zero-gravity environment. He had already visited over 130 countries and was going to add another feather to his cap as an explorer, but he still had not flown to space yet. 

So that leaves it to Thotakura, who Blue Origin described as the “pilot and aviator who learned how to fly before he could drive.” He is a chief operating officer at Asian Infrastructure Private Limited., a family business and also the co-founder of Preserve Life Corp., a “holistic wellness” organisation. 

In addition to flying jets commercially, Gopi pilots bush, aerobatic, and seaplanes, as well as gliders and hot air balloons, and has served as an international medical jet pilot. A lifelong traveller, his most recent adventure took him to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro,” said a press release from the company. 

Do remember that neither Thotakura nor Kulangara would be the first Indian to go to space. Both of them are a little too late for that. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian astronaut when he flew to the Soviet Union’s Salyut-7 space station in 1984 on a Soviet Soyuz T-11 rocket. 

While Sharma spent seven days in space, the NS-25 mission carrying Thotakura will only spend about an hour in flight from takeoff to landing. Only around a minute of that will be spent beyond the Karman line, which is considered the edge of our planet’s atmosphere and the beginning of space.

The mission will also be the first crewed flight for the fully-reusable New Shepard rocket since NS-22 in 2022. Blue Origin’s fleet of rockets, named after Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space, was grounded after an engine failure caused a crash during an uncrewed mission in September 2022. It only resumed flying in December 2023 and the upcoming mission will be its fires crewed one since the mishap. The company is yet to announce a date for the launch. 

As we pondered the question of the difference between the first Indian space tourist and the first Indian space tourist designate, researchers from Northwestern University and other institutions this month made an announcement about something else scientists have been thinking about — where did heavy elements like gold and platinum come from?

They have often speculated that these elements are manufactured in a supernova or stellar explosions. This should mean that we would be able to find signatures of the elements in the newly discovered supernova. 

The “brightest of all time” or B.O.A.T is the name given to a gamma-ray burst that swept through the Earth in October 2022. Gamma-ray bursts themselves are the signals from the most powerful and violent explosions in the world, those believed to birth black holes. And this was the most powerful one we have ever detected. 

An extensive study of B.O.A.T helped scientists confirm that it was caused by the collapse of a neutron star, which is what remains after a supernova explosion. But the study also found no signatures of gold or platinum or any other heavy metals. This means that we still don’t know where they come from and also suggests there is a small chance they did not come from supernovae in the first place.