IAF astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla interacted with students in Bengaluru on Tuesday and told them that being in good health was a key to being able to go to space someday.

Shukla, who recently flew on the Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) took questions from school students and signed autographs after the interaction programme organised at the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bengaluru by the Department of Science and Technology.

Throughout his interaction with students, Shukla stressed the importance of maintaining both physical and mental health to become an astronaut.

Shukla spoke about his experience at the space station and also presented a brief video showing his space journey and the intensive training he had to undertake.

Shukla joyfully remarked that this time around, he would refrain from commenting on Bengaluru’s traffic. “During my previous speech in Bengaluru, I jokingly mentioned that space was easier than navigating Bengaluru traffic. During the earlier conference, too, I had said a lot of things about space, but what got picked up was that one statement. So today, I’ll refrain from talking about traffic and only talk about space,” he said.

Students were also briefed about space travel — the difficulty of adjusting to microgravity, the challenge to stand after returning to Earth, muscle loss and the extreme G-forces astronauts endure. “At times, it feels like an elephant sitting on your chest,” he described.

Speaking about the future of India’s space programme, he praised ISRO’s Gaganyaan Mission, saying, “Gaganyaan is not just a mission—it is India’s declaration that we can achieve world-class space capability in our own way. We will be cost-effective without ever compromising on quality.”

“I may appear as a hero to you today, but thousands of engineers, doctors and specialists made my mission possible. You can become any one of them. I trained for five years for a 20-day journey. Perseverance and patience are essential,” he added.

Inputs from Deccan Herald 

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