Reaching for the Stars
Kalpana Chawla
Reaching for the
stars talks about a rare individual
named Kalpana Chawla, who is supposed to be India’s first women astronaut which
itself is a rare feet. She was born and brought up in a very normal middle
class family with two of a sisters and a brother. She personifies grit and
determination because during her journey towards being Indian’s first women
astronaut, she came across a lot many social barriers supported excellently by
her parents. In spite of the fact that there was very low value attached to
education for a girl child in the society.
As usual there were lots of
problems with regard to her family who were not convinced of sending her to Chandigarh
for further studies, but later on she was successful in convincing her parents
for the same.
Even at Punjab
engineering collage she was persuaded not too apt for aeronautical engineering
but the determined girl that she was. She never looked back at going for other
specialization Punjab engineering collage helped her in building a strong
foundation for her future studies.
She was very committed as
an individual and by the end of her undergraduate course. She had already decided
to the University of TEXAS as it had excellent teaching and research
opportunities. The same problem regard
to her family came up and she solved it as usual and took a giant step towards
excellence in the year 1982.Everybody at the university of Texas were amazed by
her strong ambition and focus .She spent hours together at the library and at
research led to equip herself for future.
Looking at her social life,
we come to know that she got married in the year 1983 with a American. Her
fearness with regard to this decision of her got the acceptance from her family
and relatives .After getting through her master program, she enrolled herself
for P.HD In mechanical engineering but later on shifted her topic to aerospace
engineering as it was her passion and completed it in the year 1988.
After her doctorate she joined
NASA research center in California were in her work involved simulation of
complex air- flows and applied for becoming an astronaut .At the NASA space
center .Adding another further became the wise president and research scientist
in the year 1993.She was also found dancing and enroll herself as a student
Abina Dance Academy between the year 1992 and 1994.
Her passion finally got
shape when she was selected for an interview medical evaluation by NASA from
2962 applicants as one of the 122 selected in Nov, 1997. She was finally
selected to go into space as one of the six crew members on broad the Columbia
shuttle’s STS- 87 mission .AS a mission specialist. It is said that she never
forget her first sight of the earth from the shuttle .She was later on appointed as crew representative for the
STS-107 again aboard the Columbia space shuttle on the a 16 day mission in
order to research micro-gravity.
It was a perfect
launch and every crew member worked according to plan but on the 1th Feb 2003
when the space shuttle was ready to reenter the earth atmosphere, all the
communication suddenly snapped and after sometime the shuttle broke into a
series of white spots accompanied by a loud sound. It was a together beyond
imagination as there were no survivors at all.
A sad end to a
remarkable life of truly brilliant women Kalpana Chawla .She will always be
remembered for her amazing ability and more importantly faith in it. Through
her extra ordinary will power. She was able to reach where she did.
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