Very soon, someone from our own soil, in our own rocket will travel to space: Shubhanshu Shukla

Excited after a successful mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla on Thursday hoped someone would very soon travel to space "from our own capsule, from our rocket, from our soil".

Addressing a press conference here, Group Captain Shukla said the first-hand experience from the ISS mission was invaluable and a lot better than any training.

He also said India looks "saare jahaan se achcha (better than the entire world)" even today -- words first used by Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma after his space mission in 1984.

On his Axiom-4 Mission, Shukla said the experience from the ISS mission would be very useful for India's own Gaganyaan mission, and he learnt a lot in the past year as part of his mission.

"No matter how much training you have done, even after that, when you sit in the rocket and the engines ignite, when they catch fire, I think it is a very different feeling.

"I had not imagined how it would feel, and I was actually running behind the rocket for the first few seconds, and it took me some time to catch up to it. From that moment until the time we splashed down, the experience was unbelievable. It was so exciting and so amazing that I have really been struggling to find words to convey it to you, so that you can live that experience through my words," he said.