A purported newspaper clipping (here, here, and here) is going viral on social media, claiming that NASA has selected an Indian Ayurvedic doctor to study the role of traditional medicine in space travel. The viral report alleges that Dr Ezhilarasan, an Indian Ayurvedic practitioner with over ten years of clinical experience, has been chosen by NASA for this initiative. It further claims that the project is a collaborative effort involving NASA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the Ministry of AYUSH. In this article, we will fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: A newspaper clipping states that NASA has selected an Indian Ayurvedic doctor to study the role of traditional medicine in space travel.
Fact: The viral newspaper clipping is fake, and the claim that NASA has selected an Indian Ayurvedic doctor for a joint space medicine research mission with ISRO and the Ministry of AYUSH is false. According to official and credible sources, no such collaboration exists. Moreover, there is no media outlet by the name ‘The Yonk Times’. On 18 May 2025, the fact-checking unit of the Government of India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) clarified in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the viral claim is false and that the image being circulated is morphed. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search but did not find any credible reports supporting it. We then checked the official websites of NASA, ISRO, and India’s Ministry of AYUSH to verify whether any announcement had been made regarding a joint collaboration, as mentioned in the viral post. However, we did not find any such information, statement, or press release (here, here, and here) supporting the claim on any of these official websites.
A closer examination of the viral newspaper clipping reveals numerous spelling and punctuation errors, incorrect phrasing, and repeated sentences, all of which strongly suggest that the clipping is fabricated. The clipping claims to be published by ‘Yonk Times’. Notably, there is no media outlet by that name. It is likely that the intended reference was ‘The New York Times’, but the name is misspelt in the clipping. We also confirmed that this news clipping was not published by ‘The New York Times’. Furthermore, we could not find any credible media outlets reporting a story in support of the viral claim.
During this search, we came across a post on X (formerly Twitter), shared by the fact-checking unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the Indian government’s nodal agency, on 18 May 2025. The post labelled the viral newspaper clipping as fake and clarified that the image being circulated was morphed. PIB further stated that ‘The New York Times’ has never published any such news story.
Additionally, we reached out to NASA regarding the viral claim and will update this article once we receive a response.
To sum up, the claim that NASA has selected an Indian Ayurvedic doctor to research the role of traditional medicine in space travel is false and fabricated. No such collaboration exists between NASA, ISRO, and the Ministry of AYUSH.
