NCERT Book Class 6 English An Indian American Woman in Space

An Indian – American Woman in Space

Before you read

In 1997, an Indian – American, Kalpana Chawla, was part of the international crew aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle, Columbia, becoming the first woman born in India to go into space. Sadly, the second mission in Columbia ended in tragedy.

1. A space shuttle is a spacecraft that is made for repeated space travel (unlike a rocket), for example, between earth and a space station.

2. Use a dictionary to do the tasks below.

(i) Find out the meanings of the following words and phrases (look up the words underlined in the phrases).

(a) naturalised U.S. citizen ———————————

(b) space ———————————————————

(c) frontiers of space ——————————————

(d) aboard ———————————————————

(e) lift off (How is it different from ‘take off ’?)————

(f) crew ————————————————————

(ii) Notice the spellings of these words in this lesson: airplane, program. This is how these words are spelt in American English. How are they spelt in British English?

A News Report

1. KALPANA Chawla said that she never dreamed, as a child in Karnal, that she would cross the frontiers of space. It was enough that her parents allowed her to attend engineering college after she graduated from Tagore School.

2. After a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering, against great opposition from her father, she went for a master’s degree to the United States of America. She later earned her Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. Kalpana Chawla was the first Indian–American woman astronaut to blast off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and participate in a successful mission in space. Her family from India cheered along with staff at the Kennedy Space Center as they watched the Columbia lift off.

3. Kalpana was born in Karnal, Haryana, but was a naturalised U.S. citizen, married to flight instructor Jean-Pierre Harrison. Besides being an astronaut, she was licensed to fly single and multiengine land airplanes, single-engine seaplanes and gliders. She was also a certified flight instructor. After qualifying as a pilot, Kalpana began to consider another challenge: applying to NASA’s space shuttle program. She was first hired as a research scientist at NASA. In 1994 she was selected by NASA for training as an astronaut.

4. When asked what it was like being a woman in her field she replied, “I really never, ever thought, while pursuing my studies or doing anything else, that I was a woman, or a person from a small city, or a different country. I pretty much had my dreams like anyone else and I followed them. And people who were around me, fortunately, always encouraged me and said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, carry on’.”

5. Kalpana’s first space mission in the space shuttle, Columbia, was 15 days, 16 hours and 34 minutes long. During this time she went around the earth 252 times, travelling 10.45 million kilometres! The crew included a Japanese and a Ukranian astronaut. The crew performed experiments such as pollinating plants to observe food growth in space, and tests for making stronger metals and faster computer chips — all for a price tag of about 56 million dollars.

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 6 English An Indian – American Woman in Space