At last, the much awaited space shuttle, Atlantis, carrying Sunita Williams, the star icon of millions of people across the globe, touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base in California. The successful landing was not less than an event to celebrate, especially to the people in India as well as abroad.
No sooner than images of the successful landing flashed onto the television screens, her relatives in Ahmedabad city (India), ‘broke into cheers and hugged each other’.
Vitthal Pandya, Williams’ uncle was overjoyed, It feels great, absolutely great. It feels like I have won. Even better than if I had done it. We are very happy that Sunita has returned safely, he told NDTV.
Created a new world record
The space shuttle landed 1.19 am (IST) on Saturday, after the cancelation of three earlier owing to bad weather. It was next to impossible to make the shuttle land in rain otherwise thousands of black ceramics, which were shielding its underside from the scorching heat of re-entry through the atmosphere would have been damaged.
Not only she created a new record by staying in space for a time period of 194 days but turned out to be the world’s most experienced woman walker in space on February 4 with four excursions clocking over 29 hours, 17 minutes to top Kathy Thornton’s 21-hour space walking record.
Williams’ space journey began Dec 9 with the launch of Atlantis. The shuttle blasted off June 8 to fetch Williams and install new solar power panels aboard the International Space Station.
Comments
The euphoria on Sunita Williams is a bit misplaced. While the Indian media in particular and masses in general, hail her as an Indian hero, the fact remains that she is as American as they come. The Indian rejoicing for the mere fact that Sunita has Indian roots shows that we’ve still not grown our desire for western acceptance.