As Isro works on human spaceflight, a glimpse of challenges from the past

On one day in 1973, three American astronauts on board the Skylab space-station closed their radio link with NASA ground stations and took time off to chill

On December 28, the Government of India okayed India’s first human spaceflight programme at a cost of Rs 9,023 crore. The programme will attempt to launch three Indian astronauts to low-Earth orbit for as many as seven days. If the mission – slated to happen in 2022 – succeeds, India will become only the fourth country in the world able to launch astronauts into space.

It is not yet clear what the astronauts will do in space. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which is leading the programme, has said they will perform some science experiments on their first flight