The Man Who Took India to the International Space Station | Shubhanshu Shukla

**Shubhanshu Shukla** (0:00)
Astronaut training is nothing but making you comfortable in being uncomfortable.

**Aditya Agarwal** (0:04)
How about the physical conditions of microgravity and being on the space station?

**Shubhanshu Shukla** (0:10)
All the blood from your legs, it shifts to your head, and your head actually swells up. Your heart doesn't have to pump blood against gravity to your head, so it shrinks in size. Everything inside your stomach is also floating, so you don't feel hungry. I had to force feed myself. Your ability to deal with unknown situations has to be really high. I never thought I could be an astronaut. I'm only the second Indian to go to space in 41 years. It is mind boggling. It is just amazing. This is the power of human perseverance. We can make that happen if we believe in something. I think the more number of time we say yes, more the chances are that you'll find something extremely exciting to dream big and stay curious.

**Aditya Agarwal** (0:49)
You know, I've had the chance to interview many accomplished and interesting people on the SPC stages, but I've never actually met anybody who's gone to space. So this is a first for me.

**Shubhanshu Shukla** (1:04)
This is how they look.

**Aditya Agarwal** (1:07)
Handsome and charming, exactly. You know, one of the things, Shukhs, that we talk a lot about at SPC is the reason why Ruchi started SPC about 10 years ago was that if you're going to do something in life, you might as well try to find the maximal version of it. What is the single most ambitious shot you can take on goal? And one of the things that strikes me about becoming an astronaut is, you kind of have to go through many phases of actually choosing the hardest thing. So as you kind of rewind your own journey back, and I was reading the notes that I came up with, that you applied to the NDA when you were 17 years old, without telling your parents.
What was going through your head at that point?

**Shubhanshu Shukla** (1:54)
Nothing sane, I would say. You know, I did not tell them because I kind of knew that if I told them in advance, then probably I would face some resistance from their side because I don't have a family history, and nobody is there in defense or in the armed forces. So I kind of knew that they would say no or discourage me from going into this, which they eventually did when they came to know that I had already applied and got selected in the written exam. So I thought, this is the easy way out. Go ahead and just apply and write the exam and we'll see.
And that was the approach even when I was going for my SSB. I told my parents that I want to go.
It was in number one AFSB Dehradun.
And when I told my father that I want to go for this interview, he said, okay. And like you said, I was 16 and a half at that time and I never traveled alone. And but he said, okay, go. And so he didn't help me out or tell me that how to go. He probably that was his way of discouraging me to join India. But I went and I went for the SSB and absolutely loved it. You know, it was a fantastic experience altogether. So initially, yes, it started out like that. But coming to the point that you said, I think that is very true. Now that I sit here and I look back, I really feel that this is the only thing that matters. Even the astronaut training teaches you this. You know, we have a saying which says that astronaut training is nothing but making you comfortable in being uncomfortable. That is what you have to learn to do. Nothing is comfortable. Getting into the space suit, getting inside the capsule, floating in microwave, it looks great, but it is not really good for the body. You know, you don't feel good. You have to pretend to feel good in the initial few days, actually. So most of it is about this. How do you be okay with doing the things that you don't like to do? And you do them for a long period of time. That is what training has always been like.

**Aditya Agarwal** (3:44)
You know, it's interesting.
So a little bit about my background. So I, when I was 22 years old, I had kind of gone to college and I had gotten kind of a stable job. I had gotten a job at Oracle in the Bay Area. My mom and dad were very happy. But then after six months of being at Oracle, I just was a little bit bored. And so my version of this was that I met a young guy called Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg was 19 years old.