NASA astronaut - Sunita Williams.
Record-she holds three records as a woman space traveller-
longest spaceflight (195 days)
number of space walks (four)
total time spent on spacewalks (29 hours and 17 minutes).
Personal-
Born September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio.
She is the daughter of Deepak Pandya, a physician from Gujarat who migrated to the US.
She is married to physicist-turned-US deputy marshall, Michael J. Williams.
she is Indian-Slovenian American and has a pet Jack Russell Terrier named Gorby.
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 and some samosas(yummyJ)
On April 16, 2007, she ran the first marathon by an astronaut in orbit.Williams finished the Boston Marathon in four hours and 24 minutes .The other crew members reportedly cheered her on and gave her oranges during the race.
Recreational interests - running, swimming, biking, triathlons, windsurfing, snowboarding and bow hunting.
Education-
Needham High School
B.S., Physical Science
M.S., Engineering Management
Career in NASA-
She was selected as an astronaut in june 1998. Following a period of training and evaluation, Williams worked in Moscow with the Russian Space Agency on the Russian contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) and with the first Expedition Crew to the ISS. Following the return of Expedition-1, Williams worked within the Robotics branch on the ISS Robotic Arm and the follow on Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator. As a NEEMO2 crewmember she lived underwater in the Aquarius habitat for 9 days.
Seven astronauts lifted off Saturday from Kennedy Space Center at 8:47 p.m.She was one among them.
Williams was a mission specialist on STS-117. She was launched on the Space Shuttle mission STS-116, aboard the shuttle Discovery, on December 10, 2006 to join the Expedition 14 crew. In April 2007, the Russian members of the crew rotated, changing to Expedition 15. She returned to Earth on June 22, 2007 at the end of the STS-117 mission.
Her fellow crew members are Michael Lopez-Alegria, a veteran of three space flights who will command Expedition 14, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, a veteran station crew member from Expedition 3.
Special honours-
Navy commendation medal (twice).
Navy and Marine corps Achievement medal.
Humanitarian service medal.
In her words-'I think my life is a little bit more of a happenstance,' Williams has said, alluding to her career.
'I tell children not be afraid of failure because, if you fail, you learn something and it is better for you. Not that my life is full of failure, but it is full of things I potentially didn't always want. But when you do your best at something, somehow it always seems to work out. If you do your best and enjoy what you do, you will do it well.'
Let us wish kudos to the inspiring.......
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