Chandigarh, February 2
Astronaut Kalpana Chawla now belongs to space history. She missed touchdown on mother earth by just 16 minutes. Her space vehicle, flight STS 107, broke in flames 63,000 metres up in the sky and along with six others she is gone!

Going over the tragic details in Sunday newspapers and watching pictures on TV channels, my thoughts went back to December 27, 1994, the day The Tribune first broke the news and introduced Kalpana to the nation. It read, “Rakesh Sharma will soon have a twin...” Kalpana was among 19 astronaut-candidates selected by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration for its 1995 space shuttle programme. Her training was to begin at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre, Houston, Texas, on March 6, 1995. And it is over Texas that she is lost in space!

TNS had contacted Kalpana on the telephone at her residence, “Sunnyvale”, in California on the morning of December 26, 1994. Her reaction to my question was, “It is great. I am excited”. At that moment, Syongita, her mother, was besides her. Thanks to Chandigarh-based Anil, who gave TNS a tip off on Kalpana’s odyssey into space. (Anil’s sister is married to Kalpana’s brother in New Delhi).

On the morning of December 26 1994, her father, Banarsi Lal Chawla, brother, Sanjay (Romi) and two sisters, Sunita (Pinki) and Deepa, had also expressed their “excitement and thrill” at the achievement of “dear Montu” , as Kalpana was called in the family. Her father never permitted her to become a “pilot”. But as fate would have it, she became an astronaut and created ripples. Born on July 1, 1961, at the time of her selection, Kalpana was married to Jean-Pierre Harrison, who was then flying instructor with several books on flying to his credit. “I look forward to joining my training scheduled to begin in March, next”, she had told TNS, as she gave out details about her and her family.

She was among a total of 2,962 applicants NASA had short-listed to 122 candidates, who were taken to Houston for interview and medical evaluation. She had told TNS that morning that of the selected 19 astronaut-candidates, 10 were pilots and nine mission specialists, she was one of them and also one of the six civilians. As to her academic qualifications, she was an alumnus of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. Later she did her M.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas in 1984 and her Ph.D. in the same discipline from the University of Colorado in 1988.