Kalpana Chawla\'s biography released

CHANDIGARH: Feb 23, 2011,



All those who had hoped to know all about Kalpana Chawla, an Indian-American astronaut who was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, can go through her biography, written by her husband, Jean Pierre Harrison. The book is titled \'\'The Edge of Time\'\'.



Jean released the book at Punjab Engineering College (PEC) on Tuesday, the institute from where Kalpana had graduated in aeronautical engineering in 1982. She had moved to the United States in 1982 and had obtained a MS degree in Aerospace Engineering from University of Texas at Arlington in 1984. Chawla got a second MS degree in 1986 and a received a PhD degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1988 from University of Colorado at Boulder. Jean said that the students and the youth who consider Kalpana as their role model had inspired him to write a book four years after the incident. \'\'This book would be different from those earlier published as I have presented a story of her life and the time that we had spent together,\'\' he said.



It took Jean over three years to complete the book. \'\'I have summarized her factual life in the book with inputs from people she knew. I had also visited PEC twice before publishing the book,\'\' he said. The author along with her sister-in-law Anjali Chawla have presented a graphical representation Kalpana\'s life, from the day when she was a child till the time when she was in the Columbia Space Shuttle. Her favourite books were also donated to the library of the hostel named after Kalpana.



Jean added that the profit incurred through the 242-page book would be spent on providing education to underprivileged children. He said that he was approached by a few persons of the Indian Origin in Los Angles who wanted to make a movie on Kalpana. But he had refused as he preferred someone with a stature similar to Kalpana in the film.




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