India, Aug. 22 -- As Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla recalled the Axiom-4 Mission and his first-hand experience at the International Space Station (ISS), making him only the second Indian to journey into space, people of my generation were reminded of a different time some 40 years ago. Back then, images of Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, aboard Soviet Soyuz T-II uttering the words 'Saare jahan se achha' were beamed on Doordarshan for many days. His words, which went on to create history, were an apt reply to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's question about how India looked from space. This was some years after the Apollo missions to the moon and back had been wrapped up as part of which astronaut Neil Armstrong had taken that one small step that would become a giant leap for mankind. It was just a few years after NASA's first space station Skylab had de-orbited prematurely and was brought down safely back to earth. People spent the last tense days of its descent hooked to All India Radio which kept flashing the latest news about the risk of the space station falling on populated areas. Thankfully, the satellite did not cause any loss of life as the major part of its debris got scattered in the Indian Ocean. During those days, all of us would spend our Sundays glued to the television screen watching the futuristic space show Star Trek. The show always started with the Star Trek slogan: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Each Sunday, Captain Cook and Mr Spock, the two leading characters, would navigate their space ship called the USS Enterprise to different corners of the Milky Way and each new episode unfolded a fresh encounter with a new race of aliens. Obviously, 40 years is not a very long time, yet it is definitely more recent than the ages ago when people like Aryabhatta, Copernicus and Galileo peered into the skies to unravel the mysteries of the universe and announce that we live in a heliocentric and not geocentric world. However, 40 years is long enough for major changes in our relationship with the cosmos to take place. Whether it is the recent past or long back, space has always fascinated us as it could hold answers to the three most vital questions: Why are we here? Are we alone? How did it all begin? As we watched images of our own Shubhanshu Shukla floating in the gravity-less chambers of the ISS close on the heels of the success of the Chandrayaan mission which came after a long tale of PSLV launches, it seems India is reaffirming its role in humanity's quest for greater knowledge of the universe of which we are a part. All this is happening at a time when humanity is conquering new frontiers. The discovery of exoplanets with biosignatures, the freely accessible pictures of distant galaxies, news of upcoming star parades and super moons or the theories of cosmogony circulating on the internet shows that we are living in the age when space science has become an intimate part of our lives. People like Shubhanshu connect the scientific progress made during the ancient and the recent past with the present. He connects India with the whole of humanity. No wonder when he looked down from space, India still appeared 'Saare jahan se achha ' ....