On Feb. 1, 2003, Kalpana Chawla was one of seven astronauts killed when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry. Kalpana's career, including her first flight in 1997, captured the imagination of people of Indian descent the world over who were excited to see someone born in a small city outside Delhi go into space.
Her name lives on in everyone she inspired as well as in a street in New York's Jackson Heights and even a hill on Mars.
To mark the ninth anniversary of her death, SAJA presents an exclusive conversation with her husband, colleagues and friends.
Join hosts Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) and Melanie Huff (@MGHuff) of Columbia Journalism School as they talk with Jean-Pierre Harrison, Kaplana's husband and author of "Edge of Time, The Authoritative Biography of Kalpana Chawla"; Steve Morse, Deep Purple guitarist, wrote "Contact Lost" after Columbia accident; Jane Miller, friend. Gaurav Goyal, friend; Aishwarya Stanley, graduate student who is modelling her career after Kalpana's; Karen McNally, pilot. former NASA aviation human factors researcher and flight instructor.
Call-in live or send your questions or comments via email to
[email protected] or @sree or @sajahq or #sajahq