Kalpana chawal

She was born in Karnal, a small town in Haryana in 1961. She got her primary education in a local school where she was just an average student. She had a great fascination for aeroplanes from very beginning.

She wanted to fly in the open sky like birds. Hence she joined Punjab Engineering College to study in aerospace engineering. There she was the first woman in this field. Luckily, she got top rank and then she went to the US for doctorate which she completed in 1988.

Kalpana was a genius. She wanted to do more and more. She joined NASA. NASA selected her to be an astronaut in 1994 and by March 1995, Chawla reported to the Johnson Space Center as a candidate in the 151th Group of Astronauts. Her path to the stars was paved with increasingly complex technical requirements which are difficult for any layman to comprehend, yet it did not deter her.

This was not the end of her life’s mission. She desired to make more and more missions. It was again a great moment for her when she was assigned to the crew of STS-107 scheduled for launch in 2003, January. The US space shuttle Columbia lifted. Kalpana and her six crew members on January 16, 2003 everything was alright.

Columbia’s crew completed 80-plus scientific research experiments during their time in orbit. They were really very happy as they had fulfilled their ambition. And now it was time to back on earth. Yes, on February 1st, after 16-day mission, Columbia was returning to earth. But the ill-fated shuttle proved disastrous just before its landing.

At an attitude of 207,000 feet over north Central Texas, Mission control lost contact and it exploded killing all seven astronauts on board. Columbia space shuttle was the first which got such an accident during the descent to earth.

Kalpana Chawla was such a heroic character who always craved for doing something adventurous. Her life itself was a great adventure. She had great love for her motherland. Even though she had taken U.S. citizenship she never forgot her native place and her country.

The then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee dedicated an Indian Space Research Organization, meterological satellite to her, calling it Kalpana-1. The Haryana Gorvenment too set up the Kalpana Chawla scholorship for girl students.

Kalpana Chawla is such a figure who, with her strong will power and her accomplishments rose to such a height. India is proud of her.It is not often that someone whom the newspapers and media give coverage on the front page loses her life within less than a month. It is also not often that an explosion 200,000 ft. above the ground in Texas, U.S. moved so many in India. The extent of universalization was brought here to us in the most tragic way possible when a gutsy woman from a small town in Karnal (Haryana) died along with six astronauts on a seemingly routine space flight.

Suddenly the enormous achievement of Kalpna Chawla, a woman who had stayed 760 hours in space and circled the globe 252 times dawned upon her native country. Our 24- hour news network ‘Aaj Tak’ announced that those who wished to pay homage to her could send their message to the channel for broadcast. In just 12- hours we were inundated with one lakh tributes said Aaj Tak Channel. But her fame is not posthumous.

This petite, gritty 41 year old girl, who made America her adopted home, broke all barriers to enter a unique violation and be counted as a member of the world’s most selected club of pioneers.

In 1997, after her first space flight in an interviews editor, she said “when you are up there, you feel you are not from any particular piece of land but a resident of the Milky Way.” In fact, her journey into space had given her an almost yogic dimension.”

For scores of admirers in India a number swollen by the tragedy of her death, her life was an epigraph of small town, middle class success. Having slept under a canopy of stars in Karnal, a sleepy town in Haryana, Tagore Bal Niketan School’s most famous student became the first student to study aero-nautical engineering.

Our aspirations on her slender shoulders she touched India’s soul. A naturalised American she was the space Yogini who balanced mental agility with physical endurance.

Every time a TV network flashed the image of Chawla proudly introducing herself at a National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) briefing “I am from Karnal India.” She said some one’s heart broke somewhere. Those who had taught her or had been friends with her struggled to articulate her iconic status.

For all her single-minded determination to be astronaut Chawla had a rich inner life.

Anyone whose 20-CD collection aboard Columbia included Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Ravi Shankar and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan clearly had a world outside the space station whether it was the Bharartnatyam she learnt between 1992 and 1994 at the San Jose based Abhinaiya Dance company just before she got a call from NASA to come to the space programme out of 2,962 applicants or the flying lessons she took at the university of Taxes Chawla was the antithesis of the dollar obsessed stereotypical foreign generation.

After her master’s degree Chawla moved to Colorado University to do her doctorate, which she completed in 1988. Oddly she is the second Colorado universally Almamater to perish on a space mission Her career took off when she started out at the NASA Ames Research Center. In 1993 she joined overset Methods Loo Altos, California, as Vice President.

In December 1993 NASA accepted her application and by March 1995, Chawla reported to the Johnson Space center as a candidate in the 15th Group of Astronauts. Her path to the stars was paved with increasingly complex technical requirements that are difficult for any layperson to comprehend. Space training is an arduous process where expressing gravity’s pull can increase your pulse rate from 72 to 102 within seconds where every movement can be a discovery of pain.