India mourns space heroine
NEW DELHI, India --Front pages of Saturday's Indian newspapers carried pictures of Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-born woman in space, to celebrate her expected return to earth on the U.S. space shuttle Columbia.
But the return never happened, as the shuttle broke apart more than 200,000 feet above central Texas minutes before it was to land in Florida, killing all seven crew members. (Full story)
"What can anyone say except that we are aghast at the terrible tragedy," V. Sundararamaiah, scientific secretary of the Indian Space Research Organization, told the Associated Press.
Pupils at the Tagore Bal Niketan school, in Karnal, near New Delhi, that Chawla attended as a child had gathered for an evening of song and dance to celebrate the expected landing of Columbia.
Principal Rajan Lamba said: "A happy occasion turned into an atmosphere of disbelief shock and condolence."
Press Trust of India had calculated exactly when Indians could look to the skies and wave as the space shuttle carrying mission specialist Chawla flew past in the heavens.
PTI told readers in southern Bombay and Madras which minute of the day they could hail their countrywoman.
The Times of India put her picture at the top of the front page in Saturday morning's editions, saying she and her crew mates were preparing for their homecoming.
In India, which has launched satellites for years and is preparing for a moon orbit this decade, Chawla was a new kind of heroine.
Priot to her departure on Columbia for what was her second trip to space, she told reporters that her inspiration to take up flying was J.R.D. Tata, who flew the first mail flights in India.
She told the Press Trust of India on January 16: "What J.R.D. Tata had done during those years was very intriguing and definitely captivated my imagination."
Following her first space flight, in 1997, she had told News India-Times of seeing India's Himalayan Mountains.
"The Ganges Valley looked majestic, mind boggling," she said.
"Africa looked like a desert and the Nile a vein in it."
Chawla said that as the shuttle repeatedly passed over India, especially New Delhi, she pointed it out to the other crew members and said, "I lived near there."
Chawla, 41, was born in Karnal but emigrated to the United States in the 1980s and became a U.S. citizen.
The town had planned a celebration, but were in shock and mourning on Saturday night.
She became an astronaut in 1994. On her first space flight, she was blamed for making mistakes that sent a science satellite tumbling out of control. Other astronauts went on a space walk to capture it.
India Today magazine reported that NASA had absolved Chawla, rating her a "terrific astronaut," and saying the accident had resulted from a series of small errors.
Thsi is the first thing I have read about her. The media doesn't give a shit about an Indian. It's all about the Israeli's first time in space
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how many years have they been sending shettles up? how much money has been spent? now how many crippling diseases have been cured? I think that would be a big zero. Trillions and trillions of dollars spent just for this? i think we are better off with them, and being rich.
