Indian Ladies - First Kalpana Chawla and now Sunita .. we are proud of you

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=200 6121715361000.htm&date=2006/12/17/&prd=th&

Ho uston: Gearing for her maiden space walk, Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams on Saturday told Indians to dream like her, for ’’if you believe in it, it will come true’’.

’’It is a great opportunity. Its just a nice place to live,’’ a beaming Sunita, dressed in a red T-shirt said at a press conference when the astronauts shared their experiences in space from the International Space Station.

’’My new home is beautiful. It’s a little bit crowded right now with all the stuff we’ve brought over from SPACEHAB and my shuttle comrades here,’’ she said with her hair flowing uncontrollably upwards in zero gravity.

Apart from some snap shots, Sunita is carrying a copy of Bhagwad Gita, a small statue of Lord Ganesha and a letter written in Hindi by her father, representing her half Indian heritage to keep her company during her six-month stay at the space lab.

’’We all have a small amount that we can take up on the shuttle,’’ she said.

’’It’s just like your office, where you have pictures of your family or little things that are mementos to you and some of that stuff is a little extra for station crew members [as] we are going to be there for a longer period of time.’’

The photos include a special member of the Sunita’s family: her ’’crazy’’ Jack Russell Terrier named Gorby. Unfortunately, she said ’’I cannot bring my dog [with me] but there will be a lot of pictures of my dog up there.’’

41-year-old Sunita, who became the second woman of Indian descent to venture into space after Kalpana Chawla, said she was all ’’excited’’ to go out and check the planet.

To rewire ISS


Sunita will make the space walk along with veteran astronaut Robert Curbeam. They will try to complete the crucial task of rewiring the International Space Station and fix its solar array.

’’It should be pretty nice.... It is a great opportunity. Hopefully, it will go just the same and we’ll be just as good,’’ a smiling Sunita said.

Once the space walk is successfully completed, power will be fully online from the station’s P4 Truss solar array wings, which were installed in September. Also the station’s power system will be ready for additional expansion with more arrays and new laboratories to be delivered next year.

Curbeam and Sunita are expected to spend the first 90 minutes of the space walk wrangling stiff power cables.

During the critical power system overhaul, lights, smoke detectors, ventilation fans and other ISS systems will be shut off as half of the orbital laboratory is powered down while Curbeam and Sunita reconfigure the station’s power system to its permanent configuration.

A vital cooling system pump must perform properly afterward to ensure the work is a success.

Only they complete their assigned tasks swiftly, Curbeam and Sunita will be given the go ahead to inspect and tap the portside wing of the space station’s P6 solar array. — PTI