Indians will soon travel to space on indigenously made rocket: Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla

“Clearing space was easier than Bengaluru’s roads,” a room full of top industry leaders, innovators and government officials heard at the closing session of the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2025, with astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla drawing guffaws from the crowd. Bengaluru motorists and frequent commuters, of course, winced.

Shukla, a Group Captain in the Indian Air Force and one of the six astronauts selected for India’s first manned mission to space, Gaganyaan, was speaking at a session of the “Future Makers Conclave,” hosted as part of the three-day summit. He revealed that while the road commute from his home in Marathahalli to the summit venue, the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC), had taken him thrice as long as his allotted time to speak.

“You have to appreciate the commitment,” he joked, alluding to the relative ease of blasting off from Earth’s gravity but the challenge of arriving on time in Bengaluru.