The Irish-born girl flying gliders solo: ‘Going to Mars is my dream’

“I know aliens exist, and it would be really amazing to be able to find them. I want to find another home for future generations, and going to Mars would mean travelling further than anybody has ever done before.”

The person talking to me is Irish-born 15-year-old Ishitha Arekapudi. Her family now live in Seattle, and she’s on a call to me before getting ready to go to school: it’s 6.30am local time in Washington.

Whether or not aliens exist, it’s probably true to assume that Ishitha has got closer to searching for them than most of her peers. She took her first solo flight in a glider in early February, at Washington’s Arlington Municipal Airport.

“I want to become an astronaut, because space is the next frontier in exploration,” she says.

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Ishitha’s parents, Bharath and Manjula, who are Indian, came to Ireland some 20 years ago. Her father had been offered a job with Microsoft. She and her younger sister were born in Ireland. Ishitha went to the Educate Together school in Greystones, Co Wicklow, until she was 12. The family left for the US three years ago, where her father took up a new job at Microsoft. They haven’t been able to come back for a visit yet, due to the pandemic, but they hope to.

“I love Ireland so much. I miss seeing my friends,” she says.

When did she first want to be an astronaut?

“For me it was a sequence of events,” she explains. “A lot of people were talking about space exploration and different planets, and I hadn’t heard much about it before. I found out you can be an astronaut. There are not exactly recruiting programs for it, but all the Nasa places have space camps.”

Space camp

She attended the one-week “space camp” at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which inspired her further. There was a decommissioned rocket, a robotics programme, and an astrobiology lab, which attempts to grow things in conditions that simulate being in space. They also simulated the famed Apollo 13 programme.

How did that turn out for her, I ask.

“It turned out okay! We survived!” she laughs.

There were some 50 lessons to be had before Ishitha was at a stage of competency that she could fly solo

Her interest in space brought her to gliding lessons. Some were funded through a scholarship, others were privately funded at $100-plus per lesson. There were some 50 lessons to be had before Ishitha was at a stage of competency that she could fly solo.

There is a video on YouTube that shows the flight Ishitha took on February 6th, and which I watched. I had only vaguely known what a glider was, never having seen one in flight. They are a whole lot bigger than I had imagined, and go properly high in the sky. Gliders don’t have engines, but they still look like a daunting aircraft to be in sole control of.

Ishitha explained to me how a glider gets airborne. “My glider was hooked to a bigger aircraft, which tows it up into the air. You can release the tow rope at altitude, and then you’re on your own.”

She was at 1,500 feet altitude when she let go of the tow rope. “You get up there, do one turn, and come back to land.” I don’t know what you were doing when you were 15, but I could just about ride a bike, let alone fly a glider solo.

'I was really nervous at the start, but I had so much fun, seeing things from a new perspective. Everything is so different up there, with the freedom of flying'

What did it feel like, being up in the air alone, and knowing only she could bring the glider down now?

“I was really nervous at the start, but I had so much fun, seeing things from a new perspective. Everything is so different up there, with the freedom of flying. To control an entire aircraft by yourself is an amazing experience.”

Pilot licence

Ishitha’s next plan is to get her glider pilot licence, which she can do when she turns 16. Her longer-term ambition is to work for Nasa and ultimately become an astronaut. Nasa does recruit people, but that’s much further into her future. “People are usually in their 30s or 40s by the time they have enough experience,” she says.

Thousands of flying hours lie ahead, and some job associated with aviation. By the time Ishitha is in her 30s, she confidently predicts, some kind of space travel to Mars will be possible.

“There is definitely alien life out there. Mars is the next frontier and it is the closest planet we can go to. To go to Mars is my dream, and if that means not coming back, I’d do it. But I would hope it would be possible to come back.”