From the moment he was announced as one of the four astronaut-candidates for India’s maiden human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan, Air Force test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla has been a prolific science communicator. His social media feed is full of amusing yet enlightening quips, videos, and posts about what going to space has been like for him.In his new book, The Second Orbit, Shukla adds a personal touch. His journey begins from being a boy in Lucknow too paralysed by doubt to enter a handwriting competition and ends — figuratively — with being a man “encased in fire” as he plummeted through the atmosphere. But in between, he goes past the sterile trope of a ‘hero’ to talk about his body’s “quiet mutiny” and the ego-stripping lessons of teamwork. In an email interview, he speaks about why he wrote this book and the bureaucracy of space travel. Edited excerpts:
Why did you write a book?
I believe the journey belonged to everyone, not just to me. I may have been the one strapped into the seat, but the aspiration behind that seat was always a shared story. Second, I wanted to make something very clear to young readers: every great journey begins somewhere ordinary. Mine began in a classroom. I wanted them to know that theirs can too.
