Posted on September 23rd, 2007 by Namrata  •  Filed under: Famous Women

I’m writing about Sunita Williams because she is my idiol. She has made us proud!!

Sunita Williams is born on September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio. She is a United States Naval officer and a NASA astronaut. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15. The most important thing is Willams is the second women of Indian origin who has been selected by NASA for space mission after DR. Kalpana Chawla (First Indian American to fly the US space shuttle).

Williams is married to Michael J. Williams, a Federal Police Officer in Oregon. Although they have no children, Labrador retrievers and a crazy Jack Russell Terrier named Gorby have added their share of excitement to their lives. Her hobbies are running, swimming, biking, triathlons, windsurfing, snowboarding and bow hunting.

She received her commission as an ensign in the US Navy from the US Naval Academy in May 1987. She was designated a Naval Aviator in 1989, and graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993.

Her missions was STS-116 , Expedition 14 , Expedition 15 , STS-117. As a girl, I’m proud to say that she holds three records for female space travelers: longest spaceflight (195 days), number of space walks (four), and total time spent on spacewalks (29 hours and 17 minutes). She has logged over 2770 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft.

She completed three spacewalks from the ISS. During one of these walks a camera became untethered, probably due to failure of the attaching device, and floated off to space. On the third spacewalk, Williams was in space for 6 hours 40 minutes to complete an unprecedented three space walks in nine days. She has logged 29 hours and 17 minutes in four space walks, eclipsing the record held by Kathryn C. Thornton for most spacewalk time by a woman. She did break the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman. Space shuttle Atlantis touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base in California at 03:49 EDT on June 22, 2007 bringing Sunita Williams back to earth after a record of 195-day stay in space.

Due to poor weather at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape, mission managers had to divert Atlantis to Edwards in the Mojave Desert, forced mission managers to skip three landing attempts there over the last 24 hours. We all were tensed at that time.

Now Sunita Williams is in India. She arrived at Ahmedabad to a warm and cheerful welcome. This is her second visit to Gujarat; the first was in 1998. She planned to visit Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati and Jhulasan – her ancestral village. She is having a really busy shedule and on this monday 24th sep she is going to attend 58th International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad. I feel Indian scientist going to have lots of fun as Williams will share her space experience.

She brings back the memories of late Kalpana Chawla who met with a tragic accident while the shuttle was re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, and was burned to ashes. May be everyone remembers the TV clipping of the space shuttle burning in the upper atmosphere. We all are happy that Sunita added more pride to our contry.

Among the personal items Williams took with her to the International Space Station (ISS) are a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, a small figurine of Ganesha, a letter written in Hindi by her father Deepak Pandya and some samosas. She always does charity. She was not OK in studies. Being an Astronaut was not her number-one career choice. When she was five years old or so, she saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and she thought, Wow –that’s cool. And she decided to be an astronaut.

Once Williams said to her father, “You just sort of take what you get, Maybe you don’t get the first thing that you want. If you are good at what you do and you try hard, some things sort of fall into place”.

As an Indian, and as a woman I’m proud of Sunita Williams. Her life shows true dedication towards work. She enjoyed her work. One thing I’ve learned from her is that nothing is impossible if one tries hard enough. Dont think about anything just do your work with loyalty and dedication. Hats off to her!!

Congratulation on her great mission and welcome to India.