Remember how Shahrukh Khan played a NASA scientist building a satellite to measure the earth’s rainfall in Swades: We, the People?
Well, his filmi project has launched in reality.
Early Feb. 28, NASA and Japanese space agency JAXA launched a satellite from Japan, setting up the core of the Global Precipitation Measurement project.
SRK played NRI Mohan Bhargava in the 2004 film, which was partly filmed at Kennedy Space Center in Port Canaveral, Florida. In the movie, Mohan is the project manager working on GPM, and he uses his knowledge to help a rural village in India build a dam.
At the time that Swades was filmed, GPM was scheduled to launch in 2007. Delays in funding pushed that date back. The project is a continuation of another one that was launched in 1997, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.
Real-life GPM Project Manager Art Azarbarzin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a press release, “This is the moment that the GPM Team has been working toward since 2006. The GPM Core Observatory is the product of a dedicated team at Goddard, JAXA and others worldwide.”
“I am very happy to hear that they have actually launched GPM now. I have full admiration for NASA and I feel extremely proud of all the Indian scientists working there,” Swades director-producer Ashutosh Gowariker told the Hindustan Times.
You can follow the GPM project on Twitter @NASA_Rain.
