When third-year aerospace engineering student Smitha Prabhuswamy
was 12, she decided she wanted to be the first Indian woman to go
to space.
But the very next year, Kalpana Chawla beat her to it when
Chawla flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in November 1997.
Six years later, Chawla flew on the same space shuttle on a
science and research mission. Sixteen minutes before the shuttle
was scheduled to land, Columbia disintegrated. Chawla and six other
crew members perished mid-air on Feb. 1, 2003.
As Sunday marked the one- year anniversary of the Columbia space
shuttle disaster, UCLA student Prabhuswamy remembers the life of
her hero, Chawla ““ who inspired her to pursue a career in
space exploration.
After the initial disappointment of realizing she could no
longer be the first Indian woman in space, Prabhuswamy said she
looked to Chawla as an inspiration and followed her career until
the day the accident claimed her life.
On that day, Prabhuswamy was asleep in her De Neve Plaza dorm
room when she was awakened by a phone call from her mother, who
related the bad news.
Prabhuswamy describes that day and the days of the recovery
effort as “really depressing.”
“At work (in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory), it was a
totally different atmosphere; there were several moments of silence
… it was a huge hit to the space program in general,”
Prabhuswamy said.
Several days each week, Prabhuswamy works for JPL in
Pasadena.
With a picture of the fallen Columbia crew near her workstation,
Prabhuswamy is working on a mission to Saturn, scheduled to launch
in July.
The career choice Prabhuswamy made did not come without
questioning and some resistance from her family.
“My parents wanted one doctor in the family,”
Prabhuswamy said, but added that her parents never pushed her or
her younger brother to do anything they did not want to do.
Relatives often asked Prabhuswamy why she wanted to go into a
profession considered unusual for a woman in Indian culture.
“It was weird justifying it … I justified it by saying
(space travel) was the future of the Earth,” Prabhuswamy
said, laughing at the irony of the statement.
She explains that what she means is that the future of mankind
includes space exploration and the possibility of inhabiting places
other than the earth.
“The possibilities made it intriguing, but even
that’s hard to explain to an Indian family,” she
said.
Prabhuswamy says her family has warmed up to the idea, but she
is no longer certain she wants to dedicate her entire life to the
space program ““ something that is typically required of
astronauts who are selected to go to space.
Astronauts’ chances of flying to space are lower when they
are civilians. Most astronauts who are chosen come from the Air
Force, while fewer are selected from a field of academic
experts.
Before and after astronauts go on missions, they are placed in
isolated headquarters, and the missions themselves may last several
months.
“All this time you need to be away from your
family,” Prabhuswamy said. “I’ve become a little
more practical.”
While she was in high school, Prabhuswamy said she had ambitions
of attending the Air Force Academy, but faced stiff opposition from
her parents.
She said she downloaded the application and filled out some of
it, but her parents would not let her submit it.
Still, Prabhuswamy said she is encouraged by the fact that
Chawla was chosen for academic expertise.
Chawla received a Ph.D in aerospace engineering in 1988 from the
University of Colorado.
Though Prabhuswamy said she is dedicated to the work of
exploring space, she resolves to not make it her entire life, as
she reflects on the life of her hero who was given up to that
cause.