India renames first weather satellite after Kalpana Chawla

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by manjuap, Feb 6, 2003.

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  1. manjuap

    manjuap New Member

    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.

    ..........
     
  2. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    To paraphrase Horace only slightly: "exegit monimentum aere perennius." As have all of them.
     
  3. Orson

    Orson New Member

    "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
     
  4. manjuap

    manjuap New Member

    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
     

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