When you go to space, the entire earth becomes your home, your identity: Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla

Addressing an audience dominated by school and college students, including NCC cadets, Shukla traced how identity expands with exposure. “As kids, when we go to school, our identity is defined by our home and family, our parents. When we go to college, our identity is defined by which school we have come from. When you leave our own city and move to another, our identity is defined by our native city – like someone is from Pune, I am from Lucknow etc. When you leave our own country and move to another country, our identity is defined by our country. When I was in the US for a year, I was representing India. And an extension of it when we leave our planet and go into space, our planet becomes our sense of identity and the entire earth becomes our home – not a particular country, region, place or a city. And that is an extremely strong feeling. To look at the entire world as one entity and that we are in this together, is a very unique perspective that I carried back to the earth after my mission.”

He said India is now preparing for Gaganyaan. “India is now working on its own mission, Gaganyan which we are a part of. The mandate of the mission is to send an Indian into space and bring back. We are also working on our space station which will be called Bhartiya Antriksh Station. He will conduct science experiments like it is done in the International Space Station. By 2040, we have a plan to land on the moon. Maybe someone sitting here, a boy or a girl, will be setting foot on the moon by 2040,” he said, adding, “when you want to go to the moon, you will have to compete with me. I will still be in the race. What I want to say is, possibilities are endless, in 1984, Wing Commander Rakest Sharma travelled to space. I was not even there because I was born in 1985. When growing up, I used to listen to his stories, his mission. But the thought of becoming an astronaut never occurred to me because we did not have a programme. But I can very proudly tell you that this time, after I went to space, many children have asked me how they can become astronauts. So today, becoming an astronaut is no more a dream, it is now reality. There is a profession called astronaut in India now and it is open to all. Possibilities are endless. But for that you have to commit, promise to me that you will work hard in that direction.”

When asked if he ever felt the need to go beyond a fighter pilot’s role to become a test pilot and then an astronaut, he said he simply kept saying yes to opportunities. “I never dreamt of becoming an astronaut because there was no programme. But I knew one thing, that if someone else can do it, so can I. And because of that I kept saying yes to every opportunity,” he said.

He recalled one such moment. “I was posted in Srinagar as combat leader of 51 Squadron. I had obtained all the qualifications that one could achieve and I was training others for combat. I was sitting near the runway when the night flying was on and aircraft were taking off one after the other. I had already flown four sorties. And it was at that moment I thought, I should try something more. Then I decided to apply for the test pilot course. I immediately started preparing for it.”