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Episode 158 · Deep tech · 25 min

The true astronauts are down here

India's Gaganyaan astronaut-designate came to a deep-science room and argued that the scarce input in a launch is not propulsion but perspective. The real astronauts are the audience, skin for a spacesuit, Earth for a spaceship, moving at 31 km a second around the sun. His claim is that the 2027 flight is a trust instrument before it is a science project: the fourth nation to put its own crew on its own rocket, and the first, he says, that will hold space for everybody else instead of colonising it.

Founder journey India macro Deep tech & hardware

Prashant Nair

Fighter pilot, test pilot & Gaganyaan astronaut-designate, Mission Gaganyaan · with Vishal Krishna

24:52

Said in this episode

▶ 7:37

2027

Target year for India's first crewed launch

An Indian crew on an Indian rocket and capsule, from a new launchpad being readied at Sriharikota. The date is as stated on air, not a guarantee.

▶ 7:52

4th

Country to fly its own people to space

After the USSR, the USA and China. Everyone else, Europeans and Canadians and Japanese and India's own Rakesh Sharma, has flown as somebody's guest.

▶ 4:13

31 km/s

Speed of the spaceship you are already on

His figure for Earth's travel around the sun, used to argue the audience are the real astronauts; the orbital speed is more usually quoted at about 30 km/s.

▶ 5:28

300 tonnes

Propellant you are strapped to at ignition

His wife's reality check on why not everyone shares the ambition. The captions render the fuel as 'propane', but the point is the mass under the seat.

▶ 11:52

2040

The year he expects an Indian on the moon

And the moment, he argues, when the rest of the world will be glad the 2027 flight happened, because India's representative is the one who will not let the moon be colonised.

▶ 24:40

20 million

Speakers of a language that does make the label

Wash instructions on India-made shirts carry Thai, Burmese, Swahili and five European languages, including ones with twenty million speakers, and no Indian language at all.

The brief

The argument in sixty seconds

Nair's claim is that a human spaceflight programme is a cultural argument before it is an engineering one. The perspective flip comes first: the man on the tether in the photograph is not the one in space. The true astronauts are the people watching, wearing skin for a spacesuit and riding Earth at 31 km a second, and he insists this is deep science rather than a self-help line. From there the case for 2027 is geopolitical. India missed the nuclear high table and the Security Council seat; a crewed launch on an Indian rocket from Sriharikota would make it only the fourth country to fly its own people, and the reason the global south is rooting for that, he argues, is the COVID precedent: a country that shipped vaccines out before it had covered itself, without a single citizen protesting. So India will hold space for the rest of the world rather than repeat what was done 200 to 300 years ago, and the Outer Space Treaty, he warns, is about to be renegotiated. The advice to the investors and founders in the room follows from the same logic: fund the art alongside the science, hire people who read geopolitics, law and history, stop using an American metric of success that needs a villain for every Iron Man, and stop building companies engineered to be bought early by an American acquirer. His own arc, from the glint of a fighter pilot's helmet over Kuwait in 1990 through fighter pilot and test pilot to astronaut, ran on never feeling enough, he admits, until a line above a Kerala sanctum told him he already was. The stakes he names are not scientific: whether India's turn in orbit is spent copying a template or writing one.

Worth your time if you are

Deep-tech founders who think the humanities are a distraction

Investors already drafting an exit to a US acquirer

Engineers climbing a ladder because they never feel enough

Anyone who has never looked for an Indian size on a label

Students who assumed the astronaut memo was meant for someone else

Episode map

Where the conversation travels

Every block is a chapter, coloured by what it's about. Click any of it to jump straight to that minute on YouTube.

Founder journeyIndia macroDeep tech & hardwareImpact & outcomesHiring & talentLeadership & org

01The instructor who had exactly one pupil 0:00 Nair opens by thanking the air marshal who was his first flying instructor at fighter training school, a flight commander with a single trainee, and argues that in a business as serious as flying, and now spaceflight, the human being going up is the only thing separating the mission from a robot. 02Poetry, algorithms and mother's sambar 2:50 Looking at a spacewalk image, he asks whether you see mathematics or you see romance, and flips the frame: the person on the umbilical is not the one in space. The true astronauts are the audience, skin for a spacesuit, Earth for a spaceship, at 31 km a second. 03Why the first crew are test pilots 4:28 Astronauts are drawn from fighter and test pilots because a developmental vehicle is genuinely dangerous, the way a new company is, and until the mission is proven you want people wired to put the nation first, after which space belongs to everybody. 04Gaganyatri: a wing and a word 6:40 The first Indian astronaut wings were presented at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in February 2024; in 2027 an Indian crew, Indian rocket, Indian capsule and a new Sriharikota launchpad would make India the fourth nation to do it, and finally earn the right to coin its own word for the flier. 05The high tables India missed 8:56 Why an Indian must go up on an Indian rocket: the country missed the nuclear high table and the Security Council seat, yet exported COVID vaccines before covering itself, with, he notes, not one citizen protesting. 06Holding space for the rest of the world 10:48 Europe, Japan, the global south and Africa are rooting for 2027 because they trust India not to repeat the colonisation of 200 to 300 years ago, and with the Outer Space Treaty due for renegotiation, an Indian on the moon in 2040 becomes everybody's insurance policy. 07Don't borrow the American metric 12:22 His sharpest instruction to the room: use the vaccine template, not the profit template, because the American measure of success needs a villain for every Iron Man and its own poor neighbourhoods run on violence, anger and depression. 08Kuwait 1990, and the ladder of not-enough 13:56 A ninth-grader on a Kuwait rooftop hears a thousand thunders, catches the glint of a fighter pilot's helmet and decides that is God, then climbs from fighter pilot to test pilot to astronaut on what he now calls plain FOMO. 09Sabarimala, and the line above the sanctum 15:29 After 41 days of austerity he stood before the sanctum waiting for a miracle meant only for himself, read the mahavakya written above it, tat tvam asi, you are that, and realised the culture he came from was built on inclusion, not exclusion. 10The slave mentality on your sleeve 17:17 Shirts stitched in Tiruppur and Ludhiana carry US, UK, Canadian and Mexican sizes and wash instructions in Thai, Burmese and Swahili, and not one Indian language, because we have decided we are not worth labelling for. 11Purnam, and Arjuna's misunderstanding 18:46 Act from completeness rather than deficiency. Arjuna heard 'we are all one' and wanted to leave for the Himalayas, which is why Krishna needed eighteen chapters to land nishkama karma: do the work, let both sides benefit. 12Ardhanarishvara: fund the art too 19:32 Half man, half woman as the symbol for half science, half art, and a direct hint to Ankur Capital and the room to invest in people who understand law, communications, history and geopolitics, because that is how a Trump headline turns into an African market for your product. 13Why AI never gets to taste chocolate 20:40 You can write a doctorate on the smell of a rose, but nobody who has not smelled one can read it and understand. One input, a different output in every mind, which is his argument for why consciousness survives automation. 14Ganesha's three orbits 21:31 Skanda flew three literal orbits of the world, the first satellite as he jokes, while Ganesha circled his parents three times and won, a symbol of the subjective experience that Indian deep-tech teams should be willing to compete on. 15Don't build a company to be bought 23:20 The closing ask to investors: stop engineering early exits into American hands, export instead, and practise inclusion rather than China-style exclusion, so use WhatsApp and Facebook, but use Arattai, Mappls and Zoho alongside them.

Timeline

The arc, briefly

One fighter pilot's ladder, and the flight it is meant to end at, dated from the talk.

1990A ninth-grader on a Kuwait rooftop. On 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the boy playing on the roof heard what he thought were a thousand thunders, watched a tank take out the top floor of the Holiday Inn, then caught the glint of a fighter pilot's helmet and decided that was God. He names the fuel plainly: insufficiency, and the fear of missing out.

1998Commissioned into the air force. A young fighter pilot, then a test pilot, which is where the first astronauts are drawn from: people trained to marry up with developmental aircraft, where the risk is physical rather than abstract.

Feb 2024The first Indian astronaut wing. Presented by the Prime Minister at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. India still has no word of its own for the flier, because you only earn the right to coin one when your own rocket carries your own people.

TodayThe instruction to the room. Fund the art alongside the science: hire the people who read law, communications, history and geopolitics, because that is the employee who walks in and says Africa just opened as a market. And stop engineering companies to be bought early by an American acquirer. The Outer Space Treaty, he warns, is about to be renegotiated.

2027Gaganyaan. An Indian crew on an Indian rocket and capsule, from a new launchpad at Sriharikota, would make India the fourth country to fly its own people, after the USSR, the USA and China. Everyone else, including Rakesh Sharma, has flown as somebody's guest.

2040An Indian on the moon. The moment he says the rest of the world will be glad 2027 happened, because India's representative is the one who will not let the moon be colonised.

Takeaways

Ideas to carry out of this hour

The astronaut's real payload is a change of perspective

The image everyone reads as a man floating in space is, in his telling, backwards: the figure on the umbilical looks down and sees that the rest of us are the ones travelling, our skin the spacesuit and Earth the spaceship, at 31 km a second around the sun. He is emphatic that this is not a self-help line but deep science: the same facts, a different frame. It is the move he wants the room to make with everything else: perspective is the variable, not the physics.

▶ 3:44 ▶ 3:57 ▶ 4:13

You send test pilots first because the vehicle is unproven

Astronaut selection favours fighter and test pilots because they are trained to marry up with developmental machines (new airframes, a Western weapon bolted onto a Russian platform) where the risk is not abstract but physical. That, he argues, is the same risk profile a founder or an early investor signs up to, only symbolised in a way nobody can wave away. And the arrangement is temporary: until the mission is proven you need people with the nation wired into their genetic code, and after that space is for everybody, as it should be.

▶ 4:44 ▶ 4:58 ▶ 6:29

2027 is a diplomatic instrument, not a science project

India missed the nuclear high table and the UN Security Council seat, and Nair reads a crewed launch, on an Indian rocket in an Indian capsule from a new Sriharikota launchpad and fourth country ever, as the seat it can still claim. The evidence he offers for why others want India there is the COVID vaccine export, shipped out before the country had covered itself, with not one citizen protesting. The promise that follows is the whole speech in one line: this time the country that gets to space will hold it for everyone else rather than colonise it, which matters because the Outer Space Treaty is heading for renegotiation.

▶ 9:13 ▶ 10:02 ▶ 11:36

Copy the ambition, never the American metric

He has spent time in the US and says the poor neighbourhoods there run on violence, anger and depression while India's run on laughter and drama, so measure by that rather than by theirs. The cultural tell is in the movies: everyone wants to be Superman or Iron Man, but the format requires a villain, so the wish is really 'I am rich only if you stay poor'. Against that he sets the Sabarimala mahavakya, tat tvam asi, you are that, as a claim available to everyone at once, an inclusion theory rather than an exclusion one.

▶ 12:52 ▶ 13:40 ▶ 16:45

His entire career ran on not feeling enough, and that is the warning

On 2 August 1990 a ninth-grader on a Kuwait rooftop heard what he thought were a thousand thunders, watched a tank take out the top floor of a hotel, caught the glint of a fighter pilot's helmet and decided that was God. Fighter pilot was not enough, so he became a rocket scientist; commanding officer was not enough, so he became an astronaut. He names the fuel plainly as insufficiency and FOMO. He is not recommending it. The correction is purnam: you are already complete, so do everything from here as a bonus.

▶ 14:13 ▶ 14:59 ▶ 18:46

A deep-science fund should be underwriting the arts

Ardhanarishvara, half man and half woman, is his symbol for half science, half art, and he turns it into a direct instruction to Ankur Capital and the founders present. Put money into people who understand legal studies, communications, history and geopolitics, because that is the employee who walks in and says Africa just opened as a market for this product. His claim is that what makes a company investable is the investor's gut, and gut is art.

▶ 19:48 ▶ 20:04 ▶ 20:24

Consciousness is the part of the mission that cannot be automated

You can write a doctorate on the smell of a rose or the taste of chocolate, but a reader who has never smelled or tasted one cannot decode it, because the experiential field does not travel. A whole room takes in one input and every mind produces a different output that no algorithm captures. That, he says, is why AI will never replace consciousness, and why a human going up is the only thing that separates a crewed mission from a robotic one.

▶ 2:21 ▶ 20:46 ▶ 21:15

Building a company to be acquired is the thing to stop doing

His practical ask to the investors in the room is blunt: do not use the American template of exiting early and grooming a company for an American buyer, because the grandchildren will not forgive it. Build to export, and build the geopolitical advantage that comes with it. The everyday version is the label test: shirts made in Tiruppur and Ludhiana carry US, UK, Canadian and Mexican sizes and wash instructions in languages spoken by twenty million people, but not one Indian language, and the fix is inclusion rather than China-style exclusion: keep WhatsApp, and use Arattai, Mappls and Zoho as well.

▶ 23:23 ▶ 17:33 ▶ 24:09

The numbers, drawn

What the episode measures

Every figure below was said on air, with timestamps included and caveats kept.

The dates he put on the record

year

Every date as stated in the talk: 2 August 1990 in Kuwait, commissioning in 1998, the wings presented at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in February 2024. The last two are stated targets, not commitments.▶ 7:37

Who the astronaut actually is

the same spacewalk photograph, read two ways

Nair insists this is deep science rather than a self-help line: the same facts, a different frame. His 31 km a second is the figure he uses on air; Earth's orbital speed is more usually quoted at about 30.▶ 4:08

Two high tables missed, one still open

why an Indian has to go up on an Indian rocket

Nair's geopolitical case for 2027. The evidence he offers for why Europe, Japan and the global south want India there is the COVID vaccine export, shipped before the country had covered itself, with not one citizen protesting. The date is a stated target, not a commitment.▶ 9:13

What a shirt made in Tiruppur says

the label test he runs on the room

The everyday version of Nair's argument about borrowed standards, delivered to a room he told was wearing the slave mentality on its sleeve. His fix is addition rather than a ban: keep WhatsApp, and use Arattai, Mappls and Zoho as well.▶ 17:33

Worth keeping

Lines that stay

The true astronauts are down here, travelling at 31 km a second around the sun. Our space suit is our skin. Our spaceship is Earth. And I'm not talking some self-help book thing — I'm talking really deep science.

▶ 4:08

Not everyone wants to be strapped on to 300 tonnes of propellant when it's being lit up.

Quoting his wife ▶ 5:28

Unlike what the rest of the people did 200 to 300 years back, when they went out and colonised the world — this time when we go to space, we are going to hold space for the rest of the world.

▶ 11:45

I became an astronaut — but guess what, it came from insufficiency. The fear of missing out. I'm not telling you that is the way to follow.

▶ 15:15

You are all wearing the slave mentality right now, literally on your sleeve.

▶ 17:33

Clips that travel

Short on time? Start here

Deep-tech founders who think the humanities are a distraction

You are already in space

The perspective flip the whole talk rests on: poetry versus algorithms, and why the people watching are the real astronauts.

2:50 → 4:28 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Anyone who reads India's space programme as pure engineering

Why an Indian has to go up on an Indian rocket

The missed high tables, the COVID vaccine precedent, and the promise to hold space for the rest of the world rather than colonise it.

8:56 → 12:22 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip

Engineers climbing a ladder because they never feel enough

Kuwait 1990, and the ladder that never ended

The origin story he tells against himself: a helmet glinting over a rooftop, then FOMO all the way to orbit, stopped by a line above a Kerala sanctum.

13:56 → 17:17 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip

Brand and product people who set their own standards

The slave mentality on your sleeve

The label test: four foreign size systems and Swahili wash instructions on a shirt made in Tiruppur, and not one Indian language.

17:17 → 18:46 · 1 min ▶ Watch clip

Investors already drafting an exit to a US acquirer

Don't build a company to be bought

The closing instruction to the deep-science room: export instead of exiting, and add Indian products rather than banning foreign ones.

23:20 → 24:52 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Glossary

The jargon, unpacked

Gaganyaan

India's human spaceflight programme: an Indian crew launched on an Indian rocket in an Indian capsule from Sriharikota into low Earth orbit and brought back, targeted in this talk for 2027.

Gaganyatri

The Indian title for an astronaut flown by India, the way Russia's fliers are cosmonauts and China's are taikonauts; Nair floats 'gaganaut' and a vyoma-based coinage as alternatives, and says the naming right only comes once you launch your own people.

Test pilot

A pilot trained to fly and evaluate developmental aircraft, new platforms or existing ones carrying new weapons, which is why the first astronaut cohorts are drawn from this group.

Outer Space Treaty

The agreement that space belongs to everyone and that weapons stay out of it; Nair expects it to be renegotiated soon, which is the urgency behind his argument for India getting there first.

Tat tvam asi

The Sanskrit mahavakya, 'you are that', the line above the Sabarimala sanctum that he reads as a theory of inclusion rather than a private miracle.

Nishkama karma

From the Bhagavad Gita: doing the work without attachment to what it returns to you, his proposed operating principle for founders, where both sides benefit.

Ardhanarishvara

The half-man, half-woman form of Shiva and Parvati, which he uses as the symbol for a company or a fund that holds science and art in the same body.

TRL / MRL

Technology and Manufacturing Readiness Levels: the scales deep-tech investors use to grade how far a technology sits from production, referenced as shared vocabulary in the room.

Connections

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EP 138 · Enterprise

Full transcript

The whole conversation, searchable

Auto-generated captions, lightly cleaned. Click a timestamp to open that moment on YouTube.