‘If you want to be an astronaut, you have to give up your wisdom’: What Shubhanshu Shukla meant

Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), has said that he underwent the extraction of two wisdom teeth before his space mission, as dental surgery cannot be performed aboard a spacecraft.

Speaking at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay on Wednesday, Shukla explained that while astronauts are trained to handle medical emergencies in space, dental procedures are not possible once a mission is under way. He was speaking alongside Group Captain Prasanth Nair and Group Captain Angad Pratap, both of whom have been shortlisted for Gaganyaan, India’s first human spaceflight mission.

“Your dental health is extremely important. During the selection process, many aspiring astronauts had their teeth extracted,” Shukla said. Elaborating on the reason, he added that wisdom teeth are routinely removed as part of astronaut training. “You are medically trained to take care of any emergency or situation on board because there is no ready help available. But one thing you cannot do is dental surgery. So they make sure you will not have any problem before you launch,” he said.

Shukla, an Indian Air Force officer and test pilot, completed his maiden space voyage earlier this year as part of the Axiom-4 mission, a commercial spaceflight supported by ISRO and NASA and operated by Axiom Space. “I have had two of my wisdom teeth extracted,” he said, adding that Prasanth Nair had three teeth removed, while Angad Pratap had four molars extracted.

“If you want to be an astronaut, you have to give up on your wisdom,” Shukla quipped, drawing laughter from the audience.