Noe Delhi Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, who created history by stepping onto the International Space Station (ISS) last June, has recently shared the experience of his memorable journey. At an event on Wednesday, Shubhanshu talked about his time in the orbital laboratory, experiencing ‘G-force’ during ‘lift-off’ and ‘splashdown’, experiencing zero gravity and re-adjusting to life on Earth after space travel. During this, he has told how he had to wander around himself for three hours to collect samples for the experiments to microgravity conducted during his 18-day stay on the ISS.

“My aim is to take you on this journey with me and hear what I have experienced, so that you can feel this space flight with me,” Shubhanshu Shukla said while describing the Axiom-4 mission. Shukla said he twisted around for at least three hours using a syringe to extract samples from a bag to study how microalgae, a source of dense nutrition, grow in space.

“On Earth, when there’s an air bubble in a syringe, you can squeeze it a little bit and the air bubble will pop out, or turn the bag upside down and it will pop up,” he said. But this does not happen in space.” Shukla had to collect samples of the microalgae experiment from a bag and put them in a small box and keep them in the freezer, so that they could be brought back to Earth.

“When there is a bubble, the only thing that works is that you have to centrifuge yourself,” said Shubhanshu Shukla, adding that he had to collect 36 samples by doing four-five rounds of centrifuging for each sample. Shukla said, “So, I had to make so many trips to get samples without air. I had to run around continuously for three hours to take out the samples and keep them in small boxes.