NEW YORK: India is amazing from space, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams said and voiced optimism that she will visit her “father’s home country” and share experiences about space exploration with people there. Sunita made these remarks during a press conference Monday. She was responding to a question on how India looked from space when she was in the International Space Station and on possibility of her collaborating with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on space exploration.

“India is amazing. Every time we went over the Himalayas, and I’ll tell you, Butch got some incredible pictures of the Himalayas. Just amazing,” Sunita said. The 59-year-old NASA astronaut and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore addressed reporters at their first joint press conference days after they returned to Earth as part of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, having been stranded in space for over nine months.

“And you can see, like I’ve described it before, just like this ripple that happened, obviously when the plates collided, and then as it flows down into India. It’s many, many colours,” she said. “I think, when you come from the east, going into like Gujarat and Mumbai, the fishing fleet that’s off the coast there gives you a little bit of a beacon that here we come, and then all throughout India, I think the impression I had was it was just like this network of lights from the bigger cities going down through the smaller cities. Just incredible to look at at night as well as during the day, highlighted, of course, by the Himalayas, which is just incredible as a forefront going down into India,” she said.

Sunita added that “I hope, and I think for sure, I’m gonna be going back to my father’s home country and visiting with people and getting excited about the first, or not the first, but the Indian national who’s going up on the Axiom Mission coming up, pretty awesome,” she said. She made those remarks while referring to the Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station that will include Mission Pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India.

Lucknow-born Shukla will be India’s second astronaut after former Indian Air Force officer Rakesh Sharma to go to space since 1984. “They’ll have a hometown hero there of their own that will be able to talk about how wonderful the International Space Station is from his perspective. But I hope I can meet up at some point in time, and we can share our experiences with as many people in India as possible, because it’s a great country, another wonderful democracy that’s trying to put its foot in the space countries, and we’d love to be part of that and help them along,” she said.

Sunita’s father Deepak Pandya hailed from Gujarat and came to the US in 1958 where he did his internship and residency training in Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. She was born in Ohio to Deepak and Ursuline Bonnie Pandya. When Wilmore asked Sunita if she plans to take her crew members on the trip to India with her, she replied with a laugh “Absolutely. You might stick out a little bit but that’s okay. We’ll get you all primed with some spicy food, will be good.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had welcomed Sunita and her fellow Crew-9 members as they returned to Earth after the prolonged mission to the International Space Station, saying their unwavering determination will forever inspire millions.

“Welcome back, Crew9! The Earth missed you,” Modi said in a post on X. NASA astronauts Sunita, Nick Hague and Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth March 18 onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down in the sea off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. For Sunita and Wilmore, test pilots for Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, an eight-day mission stretched to more than nine months as a series of helium leaks and thruster failures deemed their spacecraft unsafe. The spacecraft returned without them in September.

“Theirs has been a test of grit, courage and the boundless human spirit. Sunita Williams and the #Crew9 astronauts have once again shown us what perseverance truly means. Their unwavering determination in the face of the vast unknown will forever inspire millions,” Modi had said. He had said space exploration is about pushing the limits of human potential, daring to dream and having the courage to turn those dreams into reality. “Sunita Williams, a trailblazer and an icon, has exemplified this spirit throughout her career,” the prime minister said. “We are incredibly proud of all those who worked tirelessly to ensure their safe return. They have demonstrated what happens when precision meets passion and technology meets tenacity,” Modi had said.