O J's Corner : Reflections

Signs in the Sun,
Moon and Stars

Humanity’s pursuit of knowledge has been there from the time of Creation, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Man must go on probing, inventing and finding new destinations.

He was created in the Image of God, who did not sit idle. In the Beginning God went to work, He created. Genesis focuses attention on the creative, hard-working God, who found every work of creation good.

Therefore, human beings should not sit idle. They conquered the land and explored the vast expanse of the Oceans before launching on the Space Odyssey.

President John F Kennedy had annuounced Man would land on Moon within a decade. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the  Moon on July 19, 1969.

Several missions followed before America called off their manned Moon missions.

Later manned missions have been taking off for exploring the space. Now there is an international space station occupied by Americans and Russians.

Unmanned missions have been sent out to Mars. Pictures have come from Mars.

In this indefatigable ingenuity of man, there have been disasters. Columbia had disintegrated in space wiping out all the crew members, including Kalpana Chawla of India.

That should not deter the “crown and glory of all creations” from probing beyond the known. What majesty it is to delve deep into the unknown?
Now it is the turn of another woman of Indian origin to be part of the next international space station expedition.

She is none other than Sunita Williams who can be dubbed as a sort of NRI. Sunita is an American citizen and was born and brought up there.

She will be the flight engineer in the three-member crew for this six-month long expedition to the international space station. She is expected to join the crew in the international space station in December.

The mission will be commanded by veteran astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria. The other member is Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

Sunita is endowed with a unique family background as being born to father Dr Deepak Pandya, who was originally from Gujarat. He lectures on neuro-science at the Harvard and Boston University medical schools. Her mother is Ursaline, an X-ray technician of Yugoslavian descent.

Come to think of her ambitions. Unlike Kalpana Chawla, she did not want to become a pilot, let alone an astronaut. In her childhood she wanted to become a veterinarian.

The gamut of her aspirations changed when she joined the US Naval Pilot School from where she graduated in 1993. The career graph rose when she was selected by NASA as a trainee astronaut in 1998. From then on there was no looking back. Brave woman, all of us are proud of you.

By now she has logged over 2770 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft.

She is married to Michael J Williams, a US marshal.

Jesus Christ had said of the end of the age. There will be signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars.

Our compatriots are looking for signs everywhere floating in the space.