kalpana chawla

Kalpana Chawla

 'Kalpana Chawla' ( July 1 , 1961 - February 1 , 2003 ) was an astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist of STS-107 ( Columbia ) who was killed when the craft disintegrated after reentry into the Earth's atmosphere .

 

Early Life

 

Chawla was born in Karnal , Haryana , India . Her interest in flight was inspired by J. R. D. Tata , India's first pilot.

 

Education

 

Chawla studied aeronautical engineering at the Punjab Engineering College in 1982 where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree. Thereafter she moved to the United States to obtain a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from University of Texas ( 1984 ). Dr. Chawla earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering from University of Colorado in 1988 . That same year she began working for NASA 's Ames Research Center . Kalpana Chawla became a naturalized USA citizen, and married Jean-Pierre Harrison, a freelance flying instructor. Chawla held a certified flight instructor's license with airplane and glider ratings, and has commercial pilot's licenses for single and multiengine land and seaplanes.

NASA Career

 

Dr. Chawla entered NASA's astronaut program in 1994 and was selected for flight in 1996 . Chawla's first mission to space began on November 19 , 1997 as part of the 6 astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia Flight STS-87 . Chawla was the first Indian-born woman in space, as well as the first Indian-American in space. (She was the second person from India to fly into space, after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who went into space in 1984 in a Soviet spacecraft.)

 

On her first mission Chawla travelled over 6.5 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 375 hours in space. During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which malfunctioned forcing two other astronauts to go on a spacewalk to capture the solar satellite. A five-month NASA investigation blamed the error on the flight crew and ground control. She was fully exonerated (although this did not stop some reporters from making direspectful comments about her involvement in the mishap in the days after her death in the explosion of the final Columbia mission). After being selected for a second flight, Chawla lived at the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas , undergoing extensive training. Chawla's mission got delayed in July 2002 when NASA engineers identified three cracks on the shuttle's second engine's liquid hydrogen flow liner. Over six months later the shuttle was cleared and she returned to space in the ill-fated STS-107 mission.

 

Chawla was dedicated to the scientific goals of SPACEHAB/FREESTAR microgravity research mission, for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science, advance technology development, and astronaut health and safety.

Personal Characteristics

 

Chawla was a strict vegetarian . On her mission, she carried a white silk banner as part of a worldwide campaign to honor teachers, as well as nearly two dozen CDs, including ones by Abida Parveen , Yehudi Menuhin , Ravi Shankar , and Deep Purple . She went to her first rock concert, a Deep Purple show, in 2001 with her husband. "Kalpana is not necessarily a rock music aficionado," her husband said of a Deep Purple show they went to in 2001. "But (she) nevertheless characterized the show as a 'spiritual experience.'" The administrator for the Hindu temple in Houston where Chawla attended when her schedule permitted said "She was a nice lady ... and very pious."

Memoria

 

Shortly after her last mission, India renamed its first weather satellite 'Kalpana-1' in her honor. She died a hero and a role-model for many young women, particularly those in her hometown of Karnal where she periodically returned to encourage young girls to follow in her footsteps. Her brother, Sanjay Chawla , remarked "To me, my sister is not dead. She is immortal. Isn't that what a star is? She is a permanent star in the sky. She will always be up there where she belongs."

 

Introduction of Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction

Biography	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), also known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born in Porbandar in the present state of Gujarat on October 2, 1869, and educated in law at University College, London. In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi returned to India and attempted to establish a law practice in Bombay, with little success. Two years later an Indian firm with interests in South Africa retained him as legal adviser in its office in Durban. Arriving in Durban, Gandhi found himself treated as a member of an inferior race. He was appalled at the widespread denial of civil liberties and political rights to Indian immigrants to South Africa. He threw himself into the struggle for elementary rights for Indians.
Passive Resistance	Gandhi remained in South Africa for 20 years, suffering imprisonment many times. In 1896, after being attacked and beaten by white South Africans, Gandhi began to teach a policy of passive resistance to, and non-cooperation with, the South African authorities. Part of the inspiration for this policy came from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, whose influence on Gandhi was profound. Gandhi also acknowledged his debt to the teachings of Christ and to the 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau, especially to Thoreau's famous essay “Civil Disobedience.” Gandhi considered the terms passive resistance and civil disobedience inadequate for his purposes, however, and coined another term, Satyagraha (Sanskrit, “truth and firmness”). During the Boer War, Gandhi organized an ambulance corps for the British army and commanded a Red Cross unit. After the war he returned to his campaign for Indian rights. In 1910, he founded Tolstoy Farm, near Durban, a cooperative colony for Indians. In 1914 the government of the Union of South Africa made important concessions to Gandhi's demands, including recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of the poll tax for them. His work in South Africa complete, he returned to India.
Campaign for Home Rule	Gandhi became a leader in a complex struggle, the Indian campaign for home rule. Following World War I, in which he played an active part in recruiting campaigns, Gandhi, again advocating Satyagraha, launched his movement of passive resistance to Great Britain. When, in 1919, Parliament passed the Rowlatt Acts, giving the Indian colonial authorities emergency powers to deal with so-called revolutionary activities, Satyagraha spread through India, gaining millions of followers. A demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts resulted in a massacre of Indians at class="glossary">Amritsar by British soldiers; in 1920, when the British government failed to make amends, Gandhi proclaimed an organized campaign of non-cooperation. Indians in public office resigned, government agencies such as courts of law were boycotted, and Indian children were withdrawn from government schools. Through India, streets were blocked by squatting Indians who refused to rise even when beaten by police. Gandhi was arrested, but the British were soon forced to release him. Economic independence for India, involving the complete boycott of British goods, was made a corollary of Gandhi's Swaraj (Sanskrit, “self-ruling”) movement. The economic aspects of the movement were significant, for the exploitation of Indian villagers by British industrialists had resulted in extreme poverty in the country and the virtual destruction of Indian home industries. As a remedy for such poverty, Gandhi advocated revival of cottage industries; he began to use a spinning wheel as a token of the return to the simple village life he preached, and of the renewal of native Indian industries. Gandhi became the international symbol of a free India. He lived a spiritual and ascetic life of prayer, fasting, and meditation. His union with his wife became, as he himself stated, that of brother and sister. Refusing earthly possessions, he wore the loincloth and shawl of the lowliest Indian and subsisted on vegetables, fruit juices, and goat's milk. Indians revered him as a saint and began to call him Mahatma (great-souled), a title reserved for the greatest sages. Gandhi's advocacy of nonviolence, known as ahimsa (non-violence), was the expression of a way of life implicit in the Hindu religion. By the Indian practice of nonviolence, Gandhi held, Great Britain too would eventually consider violence useless and would leave India. The Mahatma's political and spiritual hold on India was so great that the British authorities dared not interfere with him. In 1921 the Indian National Congress, the group that spearheaded the movement for nationhood, gave Gandhi complete executive authority, with the right of naming his own successor. The Indian population, however, could not fully comprehend the unworldly ahimsa. A series of armed revolts against Great Britain broke out, culminating in such violence that Gandhi confessed the failure of the civil-disobedience campaign he had called, and ended it. The British government again seized and imprisoned him in 1922. After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi withdrew from active politics and devoted himself to propagating communal unity. Unavoidably, however, he was again drawn into the vortex of the struggle for independence. In 1930 the Mahatma proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience, calling upon the Indian population to refuse to pay taxes, particularly the tax on salt. The campaign was a march to the sea, in which thousands of Indians followed Gandhi from Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea, where they made salt by evaporating sea water. Once more the Indian leader was arrested, but he was released in 1931, halting the campaign after the British made concessions to his demands. In the same year Gandhi represented the Indian National Congress at a conference in London.
	Gandhi with Followers
Attack upon the Caste System	In 1932, Gandhi began new civil-disobedience campaigns against the British. Arrested twice, the Mahatma fasted for long periods several times; these fasts were effective measures against the British, because revolution might well have broken out in India if he had died. In September 1932, while in jail, Gandhi undertook a “fast unto death” to improve the status of the Hindu Untouchables. The British, by permitting the Untouchables to be considered as a separate part of the Indian electorate, were, according to Gandhi, countenancing an injustice. Although he was himself a member of the Vaishya (merchant) caste, Gandhi was the great leader of the movement in India dedicated to eradicating the unjust social and economic aspects of the caste system. In 1934 Gandhi formally resigned from politics, being replaced as leader of the Congress party by Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi traveled through India, teaching ahimsa and demanding eradication of “untouchability.” The esteem in which he was held was the measure of his political power. So great was this power that the limited home rule granted by the British in 1935 could not be implemented until Gandhi approved it. A few years later, in 1939, he again returned to active political life because of the pending federation of Indian principalities with the rest of India. His first act was a fast, designed to force the ruler of the state of Rajkot to modify his autocratic rule. Public unrest caused by the fast was so great that the colonial government intervened; the demands were granted. The Mahatma again became the most important political figure in India.
	Man of Firm Step
Independence	When World War II broke out, the Congress party and Gandhi demanded a declaration of war aims and their application to India. As a reaction to the unsatisfactory response from the British, the party decided not to support Britain in the war unless the country were granted complete and immediate independence. The British refused, offering compromises that were rejected. When Japan entered the war, Gandhi still refused to agree to Indian participation. He was interned in 1942 but was released two years later because of failing health. By 1944 the Indian struggle for independence was in its final stages, the British government having agreed to independence on condition that the two contending nationalist groups, the Muslim League and the Congress party, should resolve their differences. Gandhi stood steadfastly against the partition of India but ultimately had to agree, in the hope that internal peace would be achieved after the Muslim demand for separation had been satisfied. India and Pakistan became separate states when the British granted India its independence in 1947 . During the riots that followed the partition of India, Gandhi pleaded with Hindus and Muslims to live together peacefully. Riots engulfed Calcutta, one of the largest cities in India, and the Mahatma fasted until disturbances ceased. On January 13, 1948, he undertook another successful fast in New Delhi to bring about peace, but on January 30, 12 days after the termination of that fast, as he was on his way to his evening prayer meeting, he was assassinated by a fanatic Hindu. Gandhi's death was regarded as an international catastrophe. His place in humanity was measured not in terms of the 20th century, but in terms of history. A period of mourning was set aside in the United Nations General Assembly, and condolences to India were expressed by all countries. Religious violence soon waned in India and Pakistan, and the teachings of Gandhi came to inspire nonviolent movements elsewhere, notably in the U.S. under the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and in South Africa under Nelson Mandela.

Words of Wisdom From St. Mother Teresa

• Will you be counted with the goats on the left hand who are deprived of life due to the manner in which you lived your life, or will you enter into the Glory of your heavenly Father.   While many would on the surface conclude that myself and Mother Teresa have little in common from a doctrinal perspective -- she being a devout Roman Catholic and my claim to being the reincarnation of the Brother of Yeshua/Jesus -- while our missions in life are very different, we share a common essence to our thoughts with respect to entering the Kingdom.   What does it mean to love -- especially to love our children.   In my article on Dead Men Walking, I agree with the words of Mother Teresa and the statement of Yeshua/Jesus that in the case of many Christians today, it were better for them "...if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt 18:6 NKJ).   And while I am in perfect agreement with Mother Teresa with respect to the fact that those who abort their young will reap what they sow and find themselves aborted from the Kingdom, I paint a much broader picture when I focus on liberal American who lacks any moral standards -- the Hollywood elite who is attempting to create a new Sodom and Gomorrah -- the Democrat Party which opposes universal school choice (see Satan Wants You To Vote Democrat) -- and a Supreme Court which has undermined the Constitutional foundations of our Nation (see The Death Of America) -- as the many faces of evil that is corrupting our children and sentencing them to death.Every year in Washington, D.C., political and religious leaders from across the United States come together for the National Prayer Breakfast. In 1994, President Bill Clinton, first lady Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore were on hand, sitting at the distinguished head table, in anticipation of honoring a diminutive nun from a far away place well known for her works of mercy to the poorest of poor.In a city that loves a good debate, this annual event is intentionally non-partisan. Speakers seem to make concerted efforts to avoid controversy. The event is attended by people of all faiths. At this particular breakfast, however, the message was anything but meek, and the speaker's talk was followed by a prolonged standing ovation from all except the president and his entourage.  
•             The Wisdom of Mother Teresa
• Mother Teresa of Calcutta, noted humanitarian and 1971 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, spoke of how precious life is and what we can learn from the poor.  She unequivocally told those present that it is imperative for all people to stand up for life.  And while many are under the grave misconception that they will escape the judgment that is to come because they are members of a certain church or religious group, and others because they have called upon the name of the Lord, it has been shown to me when I was permitted into the Kingdom that what Mother Teresa is stating possesses great truth and wisdom.   And even on that day in 1994, her words possessed a power that pierced the hearts of those who were in attendance and heard them, and they continue to resonate the truth to all who will listen today.  Here, then, is a slightly condensed version of her speech: 
• On the last day, Jesus will say to those at his right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me."  Then Jesus will turn to those on his left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me."   
• These will ask him "When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or sick, and did not come to your help?"
• And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto the least of these you neglected to do unto me!"
• Let us thank God for the opportunity He has given us today to have come here to pray together. We have come here especially to pray for peace, joy and love. We are reminded that Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor. He had told us what that good news was when he said, "My peace I leave with you, My Peace I give unto you." He came not to give the peace of the world, which is only that we don't bother each other. He came to give peace of the heart which comes from loving, from doing good to others.
• And God loved the world so much that he gave His Son. God gave His Son to the Virgin Mary, and what did she do with Him? As soon as Jesus came into Mary's life, immediately she went in haste to give that good news. And as she came into the house of her cousin, Elizabeth, Scripture tells us that the unborn child – the child in the womb of Elizabeth – leapt with joy.
• While still in the womb of Mary, Jesus brought peace to John the Baptist, who leapt for joy in the womb of Elizabeth. And as if that were not enough – as if it were not enough that God the Son should become one of us and bring peace and joy while still in the womb – Jesus also died on the Cross to show that greater love.
• He died for you and for me, and for that leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the street – not only of Calcutta, but of Africa, of everywhere. Our Sisters serve these people in 105 countries throughout the world. Jesus insisted that we love one another as He loves each one of us. Jesus gave His life to love us, and He tells us very clearly, "Love as I have loved you."
• Jesus died on the Cross because that is what it took for Him to do good for us – to save us from our selfishness and sin. He gave up everything to do the Father's will, to show us that we, too, must be willing to give everything to do God's will, to love one another as He loves each of us.
• St. John says you are a liar if you love God and you don't love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?
• Jesus makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and He says, "You did it to me."
• I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and, maybe, forgotten them. I saw that in the home these old people had everything: good food, comfortable place, television – everything. But everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on his face.
• I turned to Sister and I asked, "Why do these people, who have every comfort here – why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?" (I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people. Even the dying ones smile.) And Sister said, "This is the way it is, nearly every day. They are expecting that a son or daughter will come visit them.
• See, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty. Maybe in our family we have someone who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we willing to give until it hurts, in order to be with our families? Or do we put our own interests first?
• I was surprised in the West to see so many boys and girls given to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it like that when those in the West have so many more things than those in the East? And the answer was: "Because there was no one in the family to receive them."
• Our children depend on us for everything: their health, their nutrition, their security, their coming to know and love God. For all of this, they look to us with trust, hope and expectation. But often father and mother are so busy that they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married, or have given up on their marriage. So the children go to the streets, and get involved in drugs, or other things.
• We are talking of love of the child, which is where love and peace must begin.
• But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child – a direct killing of the innocent child – murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
• How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world.
• Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
• And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere: "Let us bring the child back." The child is God's gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved. This is the only way that our children are the only hope for the future. As other people are called to God, only their children can take their places.
• But what does God say to us? He says, "Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of My hand." We are carved in the palm of His hand – that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception, and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.
• From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy! I know that couples have to plan their family, and for that there is natural family planning, not contraception. A husband or a wife must turn their attention to each other, as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
• The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching them natural family planning, and said: "You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning, because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other." And what this poor person said is very true.
• These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have no home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich. Those who are materially poor can be wonderful people.
• One evening, we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in the most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: "You take care of the other three. I will take care of the one who looks worse." So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, and she said one thing only: "Thank you." Then she died.
• I could not help but examine my conscience before her. I asked, "What would I say if I were in her place?" And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, "I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain," or something like that. But she gave me much more – she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.
• Then there was a man we picked up from a drain, half eaten by worms. And after we had brought him to the home, he only said, "I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for." Then after we had removed all the worms from this body, all he said – with a big smile – was: "Sister, I am going home to God." And he died.
• It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man, who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel – this is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich, even when they are materially poor.
• And so here I am talking with you. I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Bear the good news to your own people first. And find out about your next-door neighbors. Do you know who they are?
• I had the most extraordinary experience of love of a neighbor from a Hindu family. A gentlemen came to our house and said, "Mother Teresa, there is a family who have not eaten for so long. Do something." So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children, their eyes shining with hunger. (I don't know if you have ever seen hunger, but I have seen it very often.) And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her.
• "Where did you go? What did you do?" And she gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also." What struck me was that she knew. And who were "they?" A Muslim family. And she knew. I didn't bring any more rice that evening. I wanted them – Hindus and Muslims – to enjoy the joy of sharing.
• Because I talk so much of giving with a smile, once a professor from the United States asked me, "Are you married?" And I said, "Yes, and I find it sometimes very difficult to smile at my spouse – Jesus – because He can be very demanding. Sometimes this is really something true. And there is where love comes in – when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy.
• If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as He loves us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world. From here, a sign of care for the weakest of the weak – the unborn child – must go out to the world. If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country stood for. God bless you!

– Mother Teresa

Introduction of Mechanical Engineering

An Introduction to Mechanical Engineers and What They Do

Mechanical engineering is one branch in the field of engineering. Mechanical engineering generally focuses on the creation and evaluation of physical things, but covers a broad range of technical areas.What is mechanical engineering? Learn about the branches of the field, educational paths and professional societies.

Mechanical Engineering Education

Because mechanical engineering focuses on the study of physical systems, the core courses in a mechanical engineering curriculum reflect this. Most mechanical engineers start their learning with basic physics and calculus courses. Later courses can include static and dynamic systems, strength of materials, fluids, thermodynamics and heat transfer. A mechanical engineering curriculum is usually rounded out with advanced classes that match the student's desired specialty.

Branches of Mechanical Engineering

• Design - Design Engineering is a broad topic that refers to the mechanical or physical design of an object or system. The primary tool for the design engineer, after paper and pencil, is computer-aided design (CAD) software.
• Manufacturing/automation/electro-mechanical - This branch of engineering is concerned with systems that combine mechanical devices with electrical controls. This can include all forms of robotics, manufacturing equipment and mechanical systems that rely on sensors for feedback.
• Aeronautical- Aeronautical engineering focuses on projects in the aerospace field, such as aerodynamics and propulsion.
• Analysis - Analytical activities focus on using numeric and computer methods to model and simulate systems. One of the main areas of analysis is finite element analysis (FEA), where a model of a system is divided into small bits, and the behavior of each bit is simulated to determine how the entire system behaves.
• Structural - This branch focuses on the design and analysis of structural systems, such as bridges, buildings and large mechanisms. Structural engineering focuses on strength and performance of materials, primarily steel, but also including concrete, composite or other metallic structures. This branch can also include studies of fatigue and failure.
• Thermodynamics - Thermodynamics is the study of how heat affects objects and systems. Thermodynamics are important in systems that generate a lot of heat, such as power plants, or systems that encounter large thermal gradients, such as spacecraft.
• Fluid dynamics - Fluid dynamics is the study of how fluids behave. Fluids are not necessarily liquids, but can be made up of gases, such as air, or solids, such as sand.
• Testing and evaluation - Engineers in this branch of mechanical engineering have a solid understanding of the mechanical behavior of things, but also have a background in instrumentation, data acquisition, and design of experiments.

Professional Societies

The primary professional society for mechanical engineers is the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or ASME. There are many other societies that focus on different niches within the profession of mechanical engineering. These include the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Many of the societies generate codes and standards relevant to their specific interests. The Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code created by ASME is one of the oldest engineering standards generated in the United States, and is still maintained to this day.

WELCOME ROYAL MECHANICAL ENGINEERING CLUB: WELCOME MESA

WELCOME ROYAL MECHANICAL ENGINEERING CLUB: WELCOME MESA