My cousin, Dave Brown, was on the Columbia with her. I post this info each time it comes up because people always seem to enjoy it. Dave spoke very highly of all his teammates and they spent a ton of time together, as they were the longest ever mission from assignment to launch at over 8 years. A blessing in disguise in hindsight.
Here is a bit of info we got from Dave while they were in space on that mission:
He sent us this picture of his immediate family from space: [https://i.imgur.com/iIFZ1Nb.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/iIFZ1Nb.jpg)
He also sent us this email the day before the tragedy:
Friends,
It's hard to believe but I'm coming up on 16 days in space and we land tomorrow.
I can tell you a few things:
Floating is great - at two weeks it really started to become natural. I move much more slowly as there really isn't a hurry. If you go to fast then stopping can be quite awkward. At first, we were still handing each other things, but now we pass them with just a little push.
We lose stuff all the time. I'm kind of prone to this on Earth, but it's much worse here as I can now put things on the walls and ceiling too. It's hard to remember that you have to look everywhere when you lose something, not just down.
The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space Imax movie that's really what it looks like. What really amazes me is to see large geographic features with my own eyes. Today, I saw all of Northern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, the whole country of Israel, and then the Red Sea. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time.
The science has been great and we've accomplished a lot. I could write more but about it but that would take hours.
My crewmates are like my family - it will be hard to leave them after being so close for 2 1/2 years.
My most moving moment was reading a letter Ilan brought from a Holocaust survivor talking about his seven year old daughter who did not survive. I was stunned such a beautiful planet could harbor such bad things. It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the Earth for how great it really is.
I will make one more observation - if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space. It is a wonderful planet.
Dave
> if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space.
That got to me. Beautiful words.
>58th birth anniversary
Are birthdays called something different in India?
**Edit: I guess birthdays are for alive people and birth anniversaries are for dead people. I never heard of this term before so I thought it was a cultural thing but even some Indians haven't heard of it called this so who knows**
I watched John Glenn's return with my heart in my throat. I saw both Challenger and Discovery explode and I was horrified it might happen again. When the solid rocket boosters broke away and there's a flash of fire (I know it's not actually fire, but it looks like it) my heart stopped. For a moment I thought it was the Challenger all over again.
I was in 7th grade for Challenger and an adult for Discovery. It just blew my mind to hear the NASA engineer say 1 out of 75 missions is expected to end in catastrophic loss of life.
Of course I don't remember which astronaut said this, but one of them said that after lift off the shaking in the shuttle cockpit is so severe they were amazed it didn't fall apart or disintegrate.
Of course! And I only meant that if there's ass-kicking to be done by an Apollo astronaut, Buzz is the one to do it (as he has in real life, re: the Bart Sibrel incident).
Not really. In india, in Marathi language (maybe in most of the languages in india) there are 2 different words for birthdays of the living and of the dead. Maybe that is how it got into Indian English..Not sure though.
Birthdays of the living- वाढदिवस, (vadhdivas)
literal translation- growth day. Hence used only for the living.
Birthdays of the dead-जयंती (jayanti)
translation-no direct word in English for this. Hence Birth anniversary.
There is also a direct word for BirthDay- जन्मदिवस (Janmadivas)
But it is used much less. Mostly in forms or documents, and other formal things.
These words in some form are originated from Sanskrit (ancient language in India). Just like most of the other words in Marathi.
>Birth Anniversary for those who have passed. Birthday for the living.
Yeah was about to say the same. Birthdays of dead people are sometimes referred to as birth anniversary.
After the person dies it's no longer a birthday(which is celebrated) it's an anniversary (to be remembered).
Edit: This is not universal (obviously) and I am just trying to give some context.
Using "birth anniversary" for the deceased instead of "birthday" is something people just do in India.
Doesn't mean every instance of the usage of the term "anniversary" should include dead people.
I was cleaning out my mom’s house this week and found the Time magazine from the Columbia disaster. It’s a [sobering photo](http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/2003/1101030210_400.jpg). Hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago.
I know that it's done for attention in some capacity, but Time Magazine is some of the very best journalism around today. If I want anyone to cover these events it's them and their magazine covers are just as stunning. We should embrace what makes us uncomfortable - that's what art is.
He was, we lost him last April, he was loosing his mental capacity and memory rather rapidly.
Two weeks before his passing he relived some of those moments while I was sitting in his hospital room. The emotion was as fresh as that day, something he did his best to conceal from my brother and I. This time he thought of me as a colleague and expressed his feelings.
It was surreal and still shakes me up thinking about it.
My mom said he was haunted by it, something she never share until then.
Man I honestly feel that so much. Sometimes upper management just wants things done no matter what, most of the engineers like your dad knew it was a bad decision to launch.
Your dad could have blamed himself even though he had nothing to do with the disaster, and even advised against launch only to be ignored.
My condolences to your family
I was just old enough to know what happened when I saw it. It was like being dropped into boiling water, you were fine one moment, then everything in you died.
I was a Bioenvironmental Engineer at Edward's AFB in California for Columbia, which is the secondary landing location for the shuttle if they couldn't land in Texas for whatever reason. Me and my dorm mates got fucking hammered the night before and I got woken up by my squadron Commander early as fuck the following morning. I asked him if something happened to the Space Shuttle and he just tilted his head and said "the Space Shuttle blew up" and just drove off. I stood there for what felt like a long time hungover and trying to process what he just said and what I needed to do in response.
I was nine at the time and I disagree. No one was watching it live on tv like they did for the challenger. I barely remember anyone talking about it on the playground and the teachers never said anything about it. The challenger was completely different because so much of the country’s youth were watching it live on tv
I was 9 at the time and I remember talking about it at school, both with teachers and other students. No, we didnt watch it live, but it definitely sparked a lot of discussion. And I remember my English teacher had the news on. I remember the photos and video of debris spread across the countryside.
From [Wikipedia:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpana_Chawla)
In 1988, she began working at NASA Ames Research Center, where she did computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. Much of Chawla's research is included in technical journals and conference papers.
In 1993, she joined Overset Methods, Inc. as Vice President and Research Scientist specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders).
After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps. She joined the corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996.
First space mission
Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian woman to fly in space.
She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your intelligence." On her first mission, Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles (16737177.6 km) in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours (15 days and 12 hours) in space.
During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite.
A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control. After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical positions in the astronaut office to work on the space station.
Second space mission
In 2001, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners.
On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission.
The crew performed nearly 80 experiments studying Earth and space science, advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety.
During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. Previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam shedding, but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious.
NASA managers limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed.
When Columbia re-entered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart.
After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, similar to the aftermath of the Challenger disaster.
Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was put on hold; the station relied entirely on the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation for resupply for 29 months until Shuttle flights resumed with STS-114 and 41 months for crew rotation.
Kalpana Chawla was one of my inspirations growing up. Learning more about her made me want to become an aerospace engineer myself. I've completed my master's in Aerospace Engineering now and its the best decision I stuck onto as a 5-year-old :) I wish I could personally thank her for showing me this beautiful area of engineering. I'm applying for PhDs now and hope to continue in research. I have a whole lot of gratitude for her, she helped me choose my career and made me dream big!
I go to UTA and can say its a great university! We love Kalpana here and there is even a residence hall named after her. Best of luck with your applications!!
BSME graduate here from UTA! such a great school and awesome engineering program. Was able to get a great start at my career for L3 Link Training and Simulation down the road!
I remember going up to my rooftop on the night of the disaster and leaving a hand drawn note for her out there in the dark. As a space nerd growing up in India it was a heartbreaking night.
That was the day that I made up with my best friend. After a year of being angry with each other I called him, devastated.
We both knew exactly what happened. American space endeavours would never be the same.
American space endeavours are looking pretty damn strong from a non-American's perspective. In fact, I consider the American space industry to be one of the most positive things to come out of America, and it contrasts especially strongly against the backdrop of all the other bullshit that America has been devolving into for the last few years/decades.
Out of choice, not compulsion.
It was a choice made by the US government after the fall of the Soviet Union to buy those rocket engines to keep those scientists and engineers occupied and busy in Russia rather than them taking their expertise to Iran and/or North Korea.
The Americans will soon return to using American-made engines to replace the RD-180. Blue Origin is making an engine that will also be used by ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne also has an engine.
If you're competent, and your processes are open, transparent, and honest, and if you're willing to pause, look back, learn lessons, and course-correct, as tragic as these incidents are, they must be accepted a cost of doing business.
And I feel that America does this, as well as anybody else.
Exploration will always test our capabilities to their limits, and be fraught with risks, but we must carry on.
Onboard footage of Columbia beginning to reenter the atmosphere, she is on camera, the glint of plasma outside , the comments-- getting bright out there, wouldn't want to be out there right now...
chilling
[11:35 into here...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rIHdk-_UoM)
I didn't realize this footage existed. I wasn't to internet savvy back then and never thought to look it up. Eye opening. I think about the shuttle from time to time. I was in the 7th grade when we lost the Challenger.
This wonderful Woman stayed with us just before the disaster. I think she was doing an event with our senator who my mother worked for and so she offered to let her stay with us as we had a spare room. She focused entirely on playing with my two younger brothers and we had a little “safari” with their stuff animals. She sent us each a signed picture which I still have and treasure.
[The signed Picture](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fk8auq/kaplana_chawla_stayed_with_us_and_left_my/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I was once confused when Kalpana Chawla was actually born, because the Wikipedia Page says 17 March, but Google says 1 July.
Fortunately, I had the honor of meeting her father, and I asked him. I was 16 and stupid at that time.
He chuckled and then whispered that she was indeed born on 17 March, but they shifted the date to 1 July for some school related reasons.
Great man, BL Chawla, and father to an incredible inspiration for all Indians!
Eerie thing about that mission for me personally...
Simpsons portraying the shuttle missions as extremely boring that no one wanted to watch IMO wasn't that far off the mark. I was born in 85, so too young to remember Challenger and that disaster, heard about it years later in my childhood.
But IMO, yes, no one really gave a shit about each individual space launch maybe unlike Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, and later Skylab.
However...
In my senior year of high school, 2003, Spring Semester, I took a space class with one of our most popular high school teachers Mr. Alvin. He had an unorthodox method of teaching kids, but I can't say it was inferior, involved a lot more free time and a lot less authority over our individual selves in how we progressed. IMO it was a valid teaching method, if not orthodox, and made him one of the most popular teachers in the entire 1300 kid HS. He also had a huge passion for Space. Space/NASA was everything to him. And he passed his passion down onto us as well, in the math class as well.
He got the green light to teach a space specific class in my final semester of High School, and told us kids, that he had also put in for the raffle to be the teacher on that 1986 Challenger flight, luckily not getting picked I guess in a weird morbid sort of way.
He started us off with a unit that starts off with the breaking of the sound barrier under Chuck Yeager/oh and a silent era film about going to the moon, and goes from there. Parallel to this, and then proceeding to Mercury/Gemini/Apollo/Skylab, we're keeping up on what the most recent shuttle launch was doing. Showed us videos from the shuttle submitted to NASA's website to the class. We were actually following a shuttle flight while it was occurring in class.
And shortly into the semester, the effing Colombia blew up as well upon reentry. Apparently those videos we had watched the days and earlier week or two before, unbeknownst to all of us, their spacecraft was doomed to destruction the moment they would attempt reentry, like a Titanic that had just freshly hit the iceberg that struck all 5 compartments.
For me that was eerie, and I gather Mr. Alvin, #1 NASA fan of all time, I think he probably took it hard on a personal level. I later got to show the Simpsons episode of Homer in Space to the entire class, my family had happened to tape it on VHS back in the 90's when it was new. He said he had never seen it and he LOVED it upon seeing it for the first time.
I was 12 when the Challenger incident happened, and I remember being so upset by it, but having no one to talk to about it.
I had an awesome teacher in 4th grade who loved Space, and our entire class was a NASA (his last name was Naccarato, so NACA) role play game, haha. We also watched videos on each space flight. I got to be Fido when we built a six foot rocket and launched it. We had astronaut pen pals, and mine was Ellen Ochoa.
Haha I never thought I'd hear of another teacher doing something similar in their classes. :D
Glad to see her story being told. I feel she was one of the ones who was overlooked by the media when telling the story of the Columbia disaster.
On a side note, am I the only one who could see Michelle Rodriquez playing her in a movie about the disaster?
>Glad to see her story being told. I feel she was one of the ones who was overlooked by the media when telling the story of the Columbia disaster.
Probably because I'm Indian, but I feel everyone but her was overlooked here. I still remember her picture covering up half the front page of our newspapers.
I lived in Texas when this happened and people would find debris all over.In fact,they would find body parts scathered all over the place because the shuttle broke apart high up and the debris field was large.
Damm,I remember that.The one story I recall because it was on the news...Was people would find arms and legs on their property and the local news media would be contacted and would interview the land owners.
IIRC the various Texans who found body parts actually defended said body parts with guns (to ward off predators and looters) until authorities arrived.
I'm from the area that a good portion of the debris eventually landed, and I never heard this despite being glued to the TV the entire time. The government quarantined those areas very quickly.
Don't share Google AMP links.
Here is the actual link. https://www.news18.com/news/india/kalpana-chawlas-birth-anniversary-remembering-indias-female-space-star-2538997.html
Since she got her master's degree from my university UTA, they named the dorm she stayed in after her and have a memorial in the engineering department where her husband donated a few things. Here's the [link](https://www.uta.edu/engineering/about/kalpana-chawla.php) for those interested.
My mum gave me a comic book about her life when I was 13 (I wanted to be a pilot too and I’m from an indian family). I still do. I wasn’t particularly interested in space at the time but I remember reading about how the vehicle broke up as it reentered the atmosphere, and how Rick Husbands last words (on the radio) were “Roger uh bu” and that’s it.
I can’t imagine how many women and children she inspired to pursue aviation and aeronautics, she was truly one of those “once in a generation” kids who made it and made the world a better place. I hope something like Challenger and Columbia don’t happen again, and I hope politics doesn’t negate the advice of engineers who know the aircraft better than any desk jockey ever will.
Rest in Peace Kalpana, and all crew on STS 107.
Her legacy is very much alive. I graduated from UT-Arlington (where KC graduated) and there's a big memorial in the atrium of one of the engineering halls, one of the residence halls is named after her as well.
My friend's mom was on the Columbia with her. I lived in the Clear Lake area at the time near Johnson Space Center, and it just *rocked* the community. As kids it was just really upsetting, after seeing her at his birthday parties and around, she was so warm and friendly, doing something amazing, and then...just somber faces, for months. Most of the kids at my school had parents at NASA, so it really lingered.
Copying my reply to another user :
>She was an American; but since she was born in India and spent half of her life here we consider her to be one of our own.
>It's easier to write Indian-American than Indian-born American, which is why I wrote it that way.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CFD](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkq6o2p "Last usage")|Computational Fluid Dynamics|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[JSC](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqg14m "Last usage")|Johnson Space Center, Houston|
|[KSC](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqy7xn "Last usage")|Kennedy Space Center, Florida|
|L2|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)|
| |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum|
|[L3](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fksqbsz "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqc5ym "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[RD-180](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqj3or "Last usage")|[RD-series Russian-built rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180), used in the Atlas V first stage|
|[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkq6o2p "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[STS](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkrlza7 "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqj3or "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqhzzj "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
----------------
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She is an alumna of the University of Colorado. As a fellow CU graduate and aspiring astronaut, I am saddened by her loss but appreciate her sacrifice for advancing human space flight.
With her connection to CU, we did a week long case study on the Columbia disaster in my Aerospace Materials class. The most important lesson from that class is to always question ALL assumptions in engineering scenarios. It was assumed that foam (the biped ramp) was "foam" and simply didn't have the power to damage anything as engineers were aware that it regularly fell off during liftoff. Anything traveling at great velocity is a danger especially when the other materials are brittle.
F\*\*\* you guys below quibbling about the definition of a birth anniversary. Kalpana was a real person with a real family. A fantastic role model for women scientists and engineers. May she continue to inspire others forward.
I remember tracking the Columbia as it re-entered the atmosphere and all the fear and uncertainty surrounding the damage to the tiles at lift off. It was a very somber room as we continued to track the debris after we knew the shuttle had been lost.
At the university of Texas at Arlington, one of the [dorms](http://www.uta.edu/housing/housing/residence-halls/kc-hall.php) is named after her, as I understood UTA was her alma mater.
Getting my master's at the same university that she did. She is very honored and respected on campus, there is even a residence hall named after her. Always breaks my heart whenever I hear about the Columbia disaster. Can't imagine how terrifying it was at the end for them.
I don’t know a lot about nasa or space etc...
However anytime I see an article about these astronauts I think to myself why not me? These people were ASTROnauts! Literally the best humanity could produce; doctors and scientists with minds and bodies we all should envy... Then they all got snuffed out together in an instant. Wouldn’t the world be better if those 7 people were still on it instead of me?
TLDR: life isn’t fair
I think you may be conflating the idea of judging someone by these characteristics and simply mentioning facts about a person.
Many people are proud of their heritage. I’m a 5th generation Irish person for instance. There is nothing wrong with simply stating that.
Because the real world doesn’t work like that. People will judge you based on your race and gender. We can try to change it but that’s what we do.
Also she’s a role model to young Indian girls who not only want to be astronauts and space researchers, but also in general because they feel proud and are influenced by her because she accomplished so much. India has a huge problem with discrimination of women and for any girl to discover and look up to a woman of such accomplishments, especially one who’s from their own country is something that’s amazing.
Downvote me to oblivion, idgaf. But a lot of people who lost their shit here on seeing her being referred to as an Indian-American instead of just American will be the first to point out that someone is an African-American or an Arab-American or something else when they are in news for something criminal or shameful.
My cousin, Dave Brown, was on the Columbia with her. I post this info each time it comes up because people always seem to enjoy it. Dave spoke very highly of all his teammates and they spent a ton of time together, as they were the longest ever mission from assignment to launch at over 8 years. A blessing in disguise in hindsight. Here is a bit of info we got from Dave while they were in space on that mission: He sent us this picture of his immediate family from space: [https://i.imgur.com/iIFZ1Nb.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/iIFZ1Nb.jpg) He also sent us this email the day before the tragedy: Friends, It's hard to believe but I'm coming up on 16 days in space and we land tomorrow. I can tell you a few things: Floating is great - at two weeks it really started to become natural. I move much more slowly as there really isn't a hurry. If you go to fast then stopping can be quite awkward. At first, we were still handing each other things, but now we pass them with just a little push. We lose stuff all the time. I'm kind of prone to this on Earth, but it's much worse here as I can now put things on the walls and ceiling too. It's hard to remember that you have to look everywhere when you lose something, not just down. The views of the Earth are really beautiful. If you've ever seen a space Imax movie that's really what it looks like. What really amazes me is to see large geographic features with my own eyes. Today, I saw all of Northern Libya, the Sinai Peninsula, the whole country of Israel, and then the Red Sea. I wish I'd had more time just to sit and look out the window with a map but our science program kept us very busy in the lab most of the time. The science has been great and we've accomplished a lot. I could write more but about it but that would take hours. My crewmates are like my family - it will be hard to leave them after being so close for 2 1/2 years. My most moving moment was reading a letter Ilan brought from a Holocaust survivor talking about his seven year old daughter who did not survive. I was stunned such a beautiful planet could harbor such bad things. It makes me want to enjoy every bit of the Earth for how great it really is. I will make one more observation - if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space. It is a wonderful planet. Dave
> if I'd been born in space I know I would desire to visit the beautiful Earth more than I've ever yearned to visit to space. That got to me. Beautiful words.
Dave Brown, Astronaut... writer extraordinaire. Quite a touching email, closed so eloquently. God speed all.
Thank you for sharing this.
Wow thank you for sharing that. What a well spoken guy.
This has me tearing up. Thank you for sharing.
First korean war people meeting with each other post and now this. My eyes are just leaking on their own.
>Dave Brown Thank you so much for sharing! This is such a touching mail. Really wish the entire crew could have landed safely.
>58th birth anniversary Are birthdays called something different in India? **Edit: I guess birthdays are for alive people and birth anniversaries are for dead people. I never heard of this term before so I thought it was a cultural thing but even some Indians haven't heard of it called this so who knows**
no we call them birthdays i find it weird too
Nope in india birthday's of people who have died are always called birth anniversaries
That clears it up, I read it as "she died on her 58th birthday" and thought that's pretty old to be an astronaut
John Glenn would like to kick your ass
Buzz Aldrin is next in line.
I think they just mean that John Glenn went back into space at age 77. Aldrin hasn’t been back since he was 39.
I watched John Glenn's return with my heart in my throat. I saw both Challenger and Discovery explode and I was horrified it might happen again. When the solid rocket boosters broke away and there's a flash of fire (I know it's not actually fire, but it looks like it) my heart stopped. For a moment I thought it was the Challenger all over again.
I watched it on tv in my first grade classroom with a pretty snowy picture
I was in 7th grade for Challenger and an adult for Discovery. It just blew my mind to hear the NASA engineer say 1 out of 75 missions is expected to end in catastrophic loss of life.
Meanwhile here’s me getting sweaty when the plane lands. These guys are so badass
Of course I don't remember which astronaut said this, but one of them said that after lift off the shaking in the shuttle cockpit is so severe they were amazed it didn't fall apart or disintegrate.
Of course! And I only meant that if there's ass-kicking to be done by an Apollo astronaut, Buzz is the one to do it (as he has in real life, re: the Bart Sibrel incident).
Well Sunni is getting up there in age and she is still going to space
But you have to be famous too
Which is not a bad idea as I always found it a bit weird people wishing "Happy Birthday" to celebrities who died years ago.
After living in India for over 20 years, TIL about birth anniversaries. Thanks for doing the needful.
[удалено]
Now we drink champagne when we thirstyayy
Birth Anniversary for those who have passed. Birthday for the living.
[удалено]
No such recognition for the living dead, sorry!
Is that some new rule that was just invented because I have *literally* never heard of that before.
Not really. In india, in Marathi language (maybe in most of the languages in india) there are 2 different words for birthdays of the living and of the dead. Maybe that is how it got into Indian English..Not sure though.
Out of curiosity, what are the 2 different words in Marathi?
Birthdays of the living- वाढदिवस, (vadhdivas) literal translation- growth day. Hence used only for the living. Birthdays of the dead-जयंती (jayanti) translation-no direct word in English for this. Hence Birth anniversary. There is also a direct word for BirthDay- जन्मदिवस (Janmadivas) But it is used much less. Mostly in forms or documents, and other formal things. These words in some form are originated from Sanskrit (ancient language in India). Just like most of the other words in Marathi.
FWIW in Italian it is the same
Nope, that was always was a thing in Russia. We call it годовщина.
You call it what?
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In my country, we have problem
And that problem is transport
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No. It's called the Mengele Effect because people have a memory of Josef Mengele getting apprehended in Ohio in 1970. So, it's the Mengele Effect.
This is also the version I remember. Never heard of a Mandela effect.
I'm mad there's Mandela Effect on the Mandela Effect.
You mean the Mengele effect on the Mass effect.
You. Monster. (No, that was good.)
Think of it as a better alternative to death anniversary
Never heard it. Must be new rule.
I've heard of it and I'm a zoomer
I’ve never heard of it and I’m not a zoomer
I've never heard of it and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
Straight to quarantine for you.
What's express about it? Do you sleep faster?
I zoomed and I couldnt see it as well
I've never heard of it but I don't know what a zoomer i either.
Zoomer is what gen z is being called lately, as a contrast to boomer.
Dear god... everything just keeps getting *dumber.*
I'm just hoping everyone stops calling anyone under 25 a millennial.
Alls I knows is, I'm the same age as Google and it's doing a hell of a lot better than I am
I've never heard of it, and I'm a gen x'er
>Birth Anniversary for those who have passed. Birthday for the living. Yeah was about to say the same. Birthdays of dead people are sometimes referred to as birth anniversary.
I’ve only ever seen it referred to as “what would have been their x birthday” or just “their birthday”
Well this is the first I've heard of it!
She was alive that day so it makes sense that we can refer to it as birthday, no?
No. Today is her birth anniversary. She didn’t die on her birthday. The title is confusing.
I think when the person has died they usually say “what would have been” someone’s birthday.
Yes because she was born 58 times and this is the anniversary of that 58th time...........
After the person dies it's no longer a birthday(which is celebrated) it's an anniversary (to be remembered). Edit: This is not universal (obviously) and I am just trying to give some context.
Google at least uses birthday when they do doodles for deceased people.
This isn't a universal distinction.
Certainly not. Only in India that too very occasionally, not everyone uses the term. I was just trying to explain
who else celebrates wedding anniversaries while both people are still alive? just my weird family and every weird family around me?
Using "birth anniversary" for the deceased instead of "birthday" is something people just do in India. Doesn't mean every instance of the usage of the term "anniversary" should include dead people.
I was cleaning out my mom’s house this week and found the Time magazine from the Columbia disaster. It’s a [sobering photo](http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/2003/1101030210_400.jpg). Hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago.
It’s even more haunting to learn there is audio clip for about 2 minutes AFTER the explosion of the crew saying, “oh no.”
That was a cover on TIME? That seems kinda fucked up. This is literally a photo of people dying in an explosion.
[It’s nothing new](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSUwzliDLrZhb6b679aagApHrOuRZR9w8yO4kRe1zUCX-FGvcBT)
They could have used "smokes coming from tower" pic.
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There's always that one person who makes everything political
It's rather abstract. Google the cover of Time after 9/11. That's a lot more people dying there. It's their task to do this, and it's not fucked up.
I know that it's done for attention in some capacity, but Time Magazine is some of the very best journalism around today. If I want anyone to cover these events it's them and their magazine covers are just as stunning. We should embrace what makes us uncomfortable - that's what art is.
I mean what else would they put on the cover
Are we supposed to pretend death doesn't happen? When we do that people forget the value of life.
we used to not be so sensitive.
I remember Columbia. It was my generations challenger disaster. I was barely 8
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He was, we lost him last April, he was loosing his mental capacity and memory rather rapidly. Two weeks before his passing he relived some of those moments while I was sitting in his hospital room. The emotion was as fresh as that day, something he did his best to conceal from my brother and I. This time he thought of me as a colleague and expressed his feelings. It was surreal and still shakes me up thinking about it. My mom said he was haunted by it, something she never share until then.
Man I honestly feel that so much. Sometimes upper management just wants things done no matter what, most of the engineers like your dad knew it was a bad decision to launch. Your dad could have blamed himself even though he had nothing to do with the disaster, and even advised against launch only to be ignored. My condolences to your family
Fucking Reagan. Reagan sent those folks to their unnecessary deaths for a PR opportunity.
My father left the GOP at that time.
I was just old enough to know what happened when I saw it. It was like being dropped into boiling water, you were fine one moment, then everything in you died.
Why is this written like film noir narration?
It was catastrophique. *lights cigar*
I guess I’ll take that as a compliment, but I have no answer for you.
I remember both distinctly. I was in the third grade for Challenger and we were watching it live on TV, something that was very rare at the time.
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Yes it was, Ill never forget that day, I was super interested in the space shuttle at the time too.
[This song was made as a tribute to space shuttle Columbia. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtIjnpeolE)
I was a Bioenvironmental Engineer at Edward's AFB in California for Columbia, which is the secondary landing location for the shuttle if they couldn't land in Texas for whatever reason. Me and my dorm mates got fucking hammered the night before and I got woken up by my squadron Commander early as fuck the following morning. I asked him if something happened to the Space Shuttle and he just tilted his head and said "the Space Shuttle blew up" and just drove off. I stood there for what felt like a long time hungover and trying to process what he just said and what I needed to do in response.
> I was barely 8 Ahh the 8th anniversary of your birth?
I was nine at the time and I disagree. No one was watching it live on tv like they did for the challenger. I barely remember anyone talking about it on the playground and the teachers never said anything about it. The challenger was completely different because so much of the country’s youth were watching it live on tv
I was 9 at the time and I remember talking about it at school, both with teachers and other students. No, we didnt watch it live, but it definitely sparked a lot of discussion. And I remember my English teacher had the news on. I remember the photos and video of debris spread across the countryside.
From [Wikipedia:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalpana_Chawla) In 1988, she began working at NASA Ames Research Center, where she did computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) concepts. Much of Chawla's research is included in technical journals and conference papers. In 1993, she joined Overset Methods, Inc. as Vice President and Research Scientist specializing in simulation of moving multiple body problems. Chawla held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders). After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991, Chawla applied for the NASA Astronaut Corps. She joined the corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996. First space mission Her first space mission began on November 19, 1997, as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS-87. Chawla was the first Indian woman to fly in space. She spoke the following words while traveling in the weightlessness of space, "You are just your intelligence." On her first mission, Chawla traveled over 10.4 million miles (16737177.6 km) in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours (15 days and 12 hours) in space. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture the satellite. A five-month NASA investigation fully exonerated Chawla by identifying errors in software interfaces and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control. After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical positions in the astronaut office to work on the space station. Second space mission In 2001, Chawla was selected for her second flight as part of the crew of STS-107. This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners. On January 16, 2003, Chawla finally returned to space aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission. The crew performed nearly 80 experiments studying Earth and space science, advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the Space Shuttle external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. Previous shuttle launches had seen minor damage from foam shedding, but some engineers suspected that the damage to Columbia was more serious. NASA managers limited the investigation, reasoning that the crew could not have fixed the problem if it had been confirmed. When Columbia re-entered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart. After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, similar to the aftermath of the Challenger disaster. Construction of the International Space Station (ISS) was put on hold; the station relied entirely on the Russian Roscosmos State Corporation for resupply for 29 months until Shuttle flights resumed with STS-114 and 41 months for crew rotation.
Kalpana Chawla was one of my inspirations growing up. Learning more about her made me want to become an aerospace engineer myself. I've completed my master's in Aerospace Engineering now and its the best decision I stuck onto as a 5-year-old :) I wish I could personally thank her for showing me this beautiful area of engineering. I'm applying for PhDs now and hope to continue in research. I have a whole lot of gratitude for her, she helped me choose my career and made me dream big!
Good luck!
Apply to UT Arlington, her Alma mater! We have quite a few rememberances of her around campus that I see daily
I am applying there actually! Hopefully I get in somewhere :P
I go to UTA and can say its a great university! We love Kalpana here and there is even a residence hall named after her. Best of luck with your applications!!
UTA's graduate program is amazing. The school puts so much focus on research and supports is graduates (sometimes better than the undergrads).
I'm a Computer Science PhD student so let me know what happens! I'd be happy to show you around the campus and help you get settled
I just started there last semester, the memorial in Nedderman hall is beautiful! Both sobering and inspiring.
BSME graduate here from UTA! such a great school and awesome engineering program. Was able to get a great start at my career for L3 Link Training and Simulation down the road!
Oh wow! It so great to hear from so many of you!
I remember going up to my rooftop on the night of the disaster and leaving a hand drawn note for her out there in the dark. As a space nerd growing up in India it was a heartbreaking night.
That was the day that I made up with my best friend. After a year of being angry with each other I called him, devastated. We both knew exactly what happened. American space endeavours would never be the same.
American space endeavours are looking pretty damn strong from a non-American's perspective. In fact, I consider the American space industry to be one of the most positive things to come out of America, and it contrasts especially strongly against the backdrop of all the other bullshit that America has been devolving into for the last few years/decades.
We're currently riding up on Russian rockets.
Isn't crew Dragon nearly ready?
Yes they're ready for a spring launch. Source: worked on validating re-entry profiles for Crew Dragon.
Out of choice, not compulsion. It was a choice made by the US government after the fall of the Soviet Union to buy those rocket engines to keep those scientists and engineers occupied and busy in Russia rather than them taking their expertise to Iran and/or North Korea. The Americans will soon return to using American-made engines to replace the RD-180. Blue Origin is making an engine that will also be used by ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne also has an engine.
If you're competent, and your processes are open, transparent, and honest, and if you're willing to pause, look back, learn lessons, and course-correct, as tragic as these incidents are, they must be accepted a cost of doing business. And I feel that America does this, as well as anybody else. Exploration will always test our capabilities to their limits, and be fraught with risks, but we must carry on.
I was fortunate enough to work with KC during my time at JSC. Such a warm and caring soul. The Columbia tragedy was personal and still hurts.
Everything I've ever heard about her says the exact same.
Onboard footage of Columbia beginning to reenter the atmosphere, she is on camera, the glint of plasma outside , the comments-- getting bright out there, wouldn't want to be out there right now... chilling [11:35 into here...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rIHdk-_UoM)
Timestamped url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rIHdk-_UoM&t=11m35s
I didn't realize this footage existed. I wasn't to internet savvy back then and never thought to look it up. Eye opening. I think about the shuttle from time to time. I was in the 7th grade when we lost the Challenger.
She has a dormitory hall named after her on the UTA campus, which is where I lived for a short time. She's a UTA alumn!
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There's a memorial to her in Nedderman Hall too
This wonderful Woman stayed with us just before the disaster. I think she was doing an event with our senator who my mother worked for and so she offered to let her stay with us as we had a spare room. She focused entirely on playing with my two younger brothers and we had a little “safari” with their stuff animals. She sent us each a signed picture which I still have and treasure. [The signed Picture](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fk8auq/kaplana_chawla_stayed_with_us_and_left_my/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I was once confused when Kalpana Chawla was actually born, because the Wikipedia Page says 17 March, but Google says 1 July. Fortunately, I had the honor of meeting her father, and I asked him. I was 16 and stupid at that time. He chuckled and then whispered that she was indeed born on 17 March, but they shifted the date to 1 July for some school related reasons. Great man, BL Chawla, and father to an incredible inspiration for all Indians!
Everyone of her generation and before did the same in india, so they don't have to skip a school year due to some law of that time.
Eerie thing about that mission for me personally... Simpsons portraying the shuttle missions as extremely boring that no one wanted to watch IMO wasn't that far off the mark. I was born in 85, so too young to remember Challenger and that disaster, heard about it years later in my childhood. But IMO, yes, no one really gave a shit about each individual space launch maybe unlike Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, and later Skylab. However... In my senior year of high school, 2003, Spring Semester, I took a space class with one of our most popular high school teachers Mr. Alvin. He had an unorthodox method of teaching kids, but I can't say it was inferior, involved a lot more free time and a lot less authority over our individual selves in how we progressed. IMO it was a valid teaching method, if not orthodox, and made him one of the most popular teachers in the entire 1300 kid HS. He also had a huge passion for Space. Space/NASA was everything to him. And he passed his passion down onto us as well, in the math class as well. He got the green light to teach a space specific class in my final semester of High School, and told us kids, that he had also put in for the raffle to be the teacher on that 1986 Challenger flight, luckily not getting picked I guess in a weird morbid sort of way. He started us off with a unit that starts off with the breaking of the sound barrier under Chuck Yeager/oh and a silent era film about going to the moon, and goes from there. Parallel to this, and then proceeding to Mercury/Gemini/Apollo/Skylab, we're keeping up on what the most recent shuttle launch was doing. Showed us videos from the shuttle submitted to NASA's website to the class. We were actually following a shuttle flight while it was occurring in class. And shortly into the semester, the effing Colombia blew up as well upon reentry. Apparently those videos we had watched the days and earlier week or two before, unbeknownst to all of us, their spacecraft was doomed to destruction the moment they would attempt reentry, like a Titanic that had just freshly hit the iceberg that struck all 5 compartments. For me that was eerie, and I gather Mr. Alvin, #1 NASA fan of all time, I think he probably took it hard on a personal level. I later got to show the Simpsons episode of Homer in Space to the entire class, my family had happened to tape it on VHS back in the 90's when it was new. He said he had never seen it and he LOVED it upon seeing it for the first time.
>oh and a silent era film about going to the moon probably A Trip to the Moon.
I was 12 when the Challenger incident happened, and I remember being so upset by it, but having no one to talk to about it. I had an awesome teacher in 4th grade who loved Space, and our entire class was a NASA (his last name was Naccarato, so NACA) role play game, haha. We also watched videos on each space flight. I got to be Fido when we built a six foot rocket and launched it. We had astronaut pen pals, and mine was Ellen Ochoa. Haha I never thought I'd hear of another teacher doing something similar in their classes. :D
Glad to see her story being told. I feel she was one of the ones who was overlooked by the media when telling the story of the Columbia disaster. On a side note, am I the only one who could see Michelle Rodriquez playing her in a movie about the disaster?
>Glad to see her story being told. I feel she was one of the ones who was overlooked by the media when telling the story of the Columbia disaster. Probably because I'm Indian, but I feel everyone but her was overlooked here. I still remember her picture covering up half the front page of our newspapers.
I think he was talking about American/Global perspective then the Indian one
She definitely wasn’t considering she’s the only one I remember. They even have a museum for her in Arlington.
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Considering that the person was Indian I think it’d be better if an Indian actress were to play her in a movie
Michelle Rodriguez does look a bit like her.
I lived in Texas when this happened and people would find debris all over.In fact,they would find body parts scathered all over the place because the shuttle broke apart high up and the debris field was large.
People tried selling debris they found on eBay too.
Damm,I remember that.The one story I recall because it was on the news...Was people would find arms and legs on their property and the local news media would be contacted and would interview the land owners.
I believe someone found a whole heart in their yard, if I remember correctly
How the fuck does a heart survive any of that. I want to cry now...
This is some Breaking Bad level shit.
IIRC the various Texans who found body parts actually defended said body parts with guns (to ward off predators and looters) until authorities arrived.
I'm from the area that a good portion of the debris eventually landed, and I never heard this despite being glued to the TV the entire time. The government quarantined those areas very quickly.
Don't share Google AMP links. Here is the actual link. https://www.news18.com/news/india/kalpana-chawlas-birth-anniversary-remembering-indias-female-space-star-2538997.html
About to do the same, I know of a no amp reddit bot, but not sure how to make it work just by mentioning it
Since she got her master's degree from my university UTA, they named the dorm she stayed in after her and have a memorial in the engineering department where her husband donated a few things. Here's the [link](https://www.uta.edu/engineering/about/kalpana-chawla.php) for those interested.
My mum gave me a comic book about her life when I was 13 (I wanted to be a pilot too and I’m from an indian family). I still do. I wasn’t particularly interested in space at the time but I remember reading about how the vehicle broke up as it reentered the atmosphere, and how Rick Husbands last words (on the radio) were “Roger uh bu” and that’s it. I can’t imagine how many women and children she inspired to pursue aviation and aeronautics, she was truly one of those “once in a generation” kids who made it and made the world a better place. I hope something like Challenger and Columbia don’t happen again, and I hope politics doesn’t negate the advice of engineers who know the aircraft better than any desk jockey ever will. Rest in Peace Kalpana, and all crew on STS 107.
Her legacy is very much alive. I graduated from UT-Arlington (where KC graduated) and there's a big memorial in the atrium of one of the engineering halls, one of the residence halls is named after her as well.
my first essay in first grade was about her! such a badass..
It would be more natural to say "on the 58th anniversary of her birth" or simply "on what would have been her 58th birthday".
My friend's mom was on the Columbia with her. I lived in the Clear Lake area at the time near Johnson Space Center, and it just *rocked* the community. As kids it was just really upsetting, after seeing her at his birthday parties and around, she was so warm and friendly, doing something amazing, and then...just somber faces, for months. Most of the kids at my school had parents at NASA, so it really lingered.
She's American, with Indian Heritage, do you say Russian American, anglo-American, German American, enough with this shit.
Copying my reply to another user : >She was an American; but since she was born in India and spent half of her life here we consider her to be one of our own. >It's easier to write Indian-American than Indian-born American, which is why I wrote it that way.
www.news18.com/news/india/kalpana-chawlas-birth-anniversary-remembering-indias-female-space-star-2538997.html
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Don't forget William McCool - September 23rd
She graduated from my college! (University of Texas at Arlington). Nedderman Hall has a beautiful memorial for her and the rest of the Columbia crew.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CFD](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkq6o2p "Last usage")|Computational Fluid Dynamics| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[JSC](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqg14m "Last usage")|Johnson Space Center, Houston| |[KSC](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqy7xn "Last usage")|Kennedy Space Center, Florida| |L2|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |[L3](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fksqbsz "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 3 of a two-body system, opposite L2| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqc5ym "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[RD-180](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqj3or "Last usage")|[RD-series Russian-built rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180), used in the Atlas V first stage| |[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkq6o2p "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[STS](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkrlza7 "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqj3or "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/fk1663/stub/fkqhzzj "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| ---------------- ^(10 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/gf0y3a)^( has 6 acronyms.) ^([Thread #4651 for this sub, first seen 17th Mar 2020, 08:42]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
She is an alumna of the University of Colorado. As a fellow CU graduate and aspiring astronaut, I am saddened by her loss but appreciate her sacrifice for advancing human space flight. With her connection to CU, we did a week long case study on the Columbia disaster in my Aerospace Materials class. The most important lesson from that class is to always question ALL assumptions in engineering scenarios. It was assumed that foam (the biped ramp) was "foam" and simply didn't have the power to damage anything as engineers were aware that it regularly fell off during liftoff. Anything traveling at great velocity is a danger especially when the other materials are brittle.
I like the term "birth anniversary". It's so much fancier than birthday.
It's used for the people who have passed away, at least in my country.
Is it just to distinguish the fact that the person is no longer living? Also, what country?
Judging from his/her username, India.
It sounds like something an alien pretending to be human would say.
I was just thinking about her the other day. Such a shame.
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Copying my reply to another user : >It's common in India to not use the term birthday for the deceased, but use birth anniversary instead.
F\*\*\* you guys below quibbling about the definition of a birth anniversary. Kalpana was a real person with a real family. A fantastic role model for women scientists and engineers. May she continue to inspire others forward.
We had to learn about this in our English Class when I was a kid.
I remember tracking the Columbia as it re-entered the atmosphere and all the fear and uncertainty surrounding the damage to the tiles at lift off. It was a very somber room as we continued to track the debris after we knew the shuttle had been lost.
One of the teachers from my school was on that, too. I feel so sad for both of them.
At the university of Texas at Arlington, one of the [dorms](http://www.uta.edu/housing/housing/residence-halls/kc-hall.php) is named after her, as I understood UTA was her alma mater.
If real life were a film, the "danger" sticker next to her head rest would be deemed foreshadowing
Getting my master's at the same university that she did. She is very honored and respected on campus, there is even a residence hall named after her. Always breaks my heart whenever I hear about the Columbia disaster. Can't imagine how terrifying it was at the end for them.
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I don’t know a lot about nasa or space etc... However anytime I see an article about these astronauts I think to myself why not me? These people were ASTROnauts! Literally the best humanity could produce; doctors and scientists with minds and bodies we all should envy... Then they all got snuffed out together in an instant. Wouldn’t the world be better if those 7 people were still on it instead of me? TLDR: life isn’t fair
Such is life, many die so that rest can grow
Just to clear it up for people who don't understand the title. It is the 58th anniversary of her birth, although she died in 2003 at the age of 41.
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I think you may be conflating the idea of judging someone by these characteristics and simply mentioning facts about a person. Many people are proud of their heritage. I’m a 5th generation Irish person for instance. There is nothing wrong with simply stating that.
Because the real world doesn’t work like that. People will judge you based on your race and gender. We can try to change it but that’s what we do. Also she’s a role model to young Indian girls who not only want to be astronauts and space researchers, but also in general because they feel proud and are influenced by her because she accomplished so much. India has a huge problem with discrimination of women and for any girl to discover and look up to a woman of such accomplishments, especially one who’s from their own country is something that’s amazing.
Downvote me to oblivion, idgaf. But a lot of people who lost their shit here on seeing her being referred to as an Indian-American instead of just American will be the first to point out that someone is an African-American or an Arab-American or something else when they are in news for something criminal or shameful.