| Sajha.com Archives | |
| Username | Post |
| Biswo | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 09:11 AM
A very sorry event happened this morning over the Texan sky. Shuttle Columbia, carrying one Indian-American astronaut, one Israeli astronaut and five other US astronauts, lost its contact with the authorities in the earth. Though hopes for survival of these scientists remain slim, let's pray that the scientists will be found alive and well. For more information, please visit www.cnn.com. |
| NK | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:08 AM
Sad, Iwas listening to the news. there goes another Columbia! |
| Biruwa | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:12 AM
Nk, you mean challenger! Sad news indeed. There was also an india born austronaut- chawala. She had done her Phd from Colorado State University. Let's hope against hope that they are alive. |
| surya | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:31 AM
I am listening to the news on NPR right now as they have a live program analyzing what's happening and its so sad. The sense i get is the closeknit community of scientists working together and mourning while trying to figure out what ois happening. What a tragedy. Stepping back, I wonder how this will all play out in the larger scheme of things. In light of what is happening in the world right now, with this possible war with Iraq, the crazy stuff in the Korean Peninsula, what is happening in Cambodia between the Thai and Combodians... etc. And then here high above the earth, this team of international scientists working together to further human knowledge and solidarity, is lost. |
| Biswo | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:59 AM
Biruwa, I think Kalpana was a PhD from University of Texas Austin. Anyway, it is so sad. I don't believe any good news is gonna come out of this. It is soo sad. I also think now NASA's missions are gonna be put on hold for a few years. |
| Biswo | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 11:04 AM
Biruwa, I just saw profile in CNN which corroborates what you said. But I think probably that profile is not correct.Just probably hai. |
| Biswo | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 12:08 PM
Just saw the NASA profile. She had her MS from University of Texas and PhD from University of Colorado[Not Colorado State]. Looks like we both were wrong to some extent. |
| DWI | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 12:13 PM
In the shadow of the current terrorism, this news might not get as much priority as it would have gained if there was no fear of terrorirsm. But still the news is in the main stream and won't be forgotten by US for a while. Hopefully the congress will take these technological endeavours seriously again and allocate more fundings on such things. NASA has seen a big chunk of funding disappear in recent years. |
| Vision | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 03:06 PM
What are the chances the astronauts are actually hi jacked by space aliens and they just sent the empty shuttle down to earth? I have to speculate something....right? |
| Adirondack | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 03:41 PM
yeah..good speculation.. I hope it is true..( better than to know they free fell for 2 and a half minutes and then died).. |
| Biruwa | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:41 PM
Rediff.com has a good story about Kalpana's Dad's life and about partition in india/pakistan. Very sobering and very inspiring. http://www.rediff.com/us/2003/feb/01kalp9.htm Biswo ji, meant to say UC but somehow got CSU. |
| Madhav | Posted
on 01-Feb-03 10:49 PM
I have some update Chaula did her BSc. from Chandigad in 1982, Panjab, Came to US; join University of Texas at Arlington for her MS. She is said to be frequent visitor of the university even after her graduation. She is scheduled to give interview next week to a radio station runby UTA student. She was berated by NASA for doing mistake in her last space journey. Any way what happen is a great loss of life and mission. may many aspirations have been floating along with debris in the sky. I pray for the departed soul and share grievance with their family. |
| Biswo | Posted
on 02-Feb-03 11:24 AM
Among the obituaries written in the memory of Shuttle Columbia,I found the one in Time to be the best. An excerpt: "It's strange how we glimpse the impossible only when it fails. How can this spacecraft exist, one that leaves the earth like a ballistic missile, a fragile plane strapped to half a million gallons of explosive fuel, but two weeks later returns as a glider, swooping in wide S turns back to earth under nature's power alone? The engineers who build these things know that so much has to work so perfectly and with such precise timing that we should expect them to fail catastrophically every 100 missions or so. That's why NASA must be America's most optimistic government agency, that it can keep muscling forward in the face of such odds. Columbia was the 88th mission since the Challenger was lost in January 1986—one flight lost to the cold, one perhaps to the heat." link for the article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030210-418517,00.html |