I think she deserves it ! http://www.siliconindia.com/tech/tech_pgtwo.asp?newsno=18482&newscat=Top India renames first weather satellite after Kalpana Chawla IANS Thursday, February 06, 2003 India Wednesday paid homage to Haryana-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla who died in the Columbia shuttle tragedy and renamed its first meteorological satellite as 'Kalpana 1' to immortalise her for posterity. NEW DELHI: Announcing this at a condolence meeting here, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said February 1, the day the shuttle carrying Chawla and her six colleagues met with its tragic end, would be marked in schools and colleges with various programmes dedicated to her memory. "Words cannot express how I feel," said an emotional Vajpayee after showering rose petals on the smiling image of Chawla in a spacesuit, frozen in the minds of millions of heartbroken Indians after her death. He recounted the determination and grit that helped this native of Karnal, Haryana, cross many hurdles and become a space traveller. The prime minister hoped that mankind's exploration of space would continue and someday Chawla's dream of going to Mars would be fulfilled. ..........
"K C" Rmembered fondly in Colorado, too... The second of 17 astronauts educated at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to die while exploring space, Kalpana Chawla was remembered here this week, and described as "brilliant," "brave," and "inspirational." http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/buffzone_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2448_1725949,00.html "'Kalpana waved good-bye and reminded us that heroes get remembered and legends never die,' said Charbel Farhat...." http://www.thedailycamera.com/bdc/city_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2422_1716626,00.html Thanks for posting your news on this thread, manjuap--a deserved honor from her native India, indeed. --Orson
Ode for Kalpana By Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill With years as first in her class She knew the fears That if you ask too much of it Metal shrieks, tears, Falls apart in pieces. A technical fact to her. All the world to us. Fire consumes a nation's heart. This Karnal girl sought the skies. Space shuttles whispered in her ear And she answered head to feet. We keep her smile in that last video. Like Seneca, she thought "The whole universe is my native land." Now more than ever, dear one. We weep. (Blackwill, who has taught poetry at university, is the US ambassador to India.) Courtesy/South Asian Journalists Association