Gopi Thotakura: The First Indian Space Tourist
Gopi Thotakura, an accomplished Indian pilot, is stepping beyond the conventional flight paths and setting his sights on the final frontier - space. As part of Blue Origin's New Shephard-25 (NS-25) mission, he is slated to become the inaugural Indian space tourist.
“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” - Star Trek
The first Indian to journey into space was Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, a former Indian Air Force pilot, in 1984. Now, forty years later, Gopi Thotakura is poised to follow in his footsteps, not as a professional astronaut, but as a space tourist.
Thotakura is an experienced pilot and aviator, h...