Indian-born American astronaut Kalpana Chawla
Credit: NASA

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Kalpana Chawla was an Indian-born American astronaut. In 1997, she became the first Indian-born woman to travel in space. Chawla served on two missions aboard the United States space shuttle Columbia as a mission specialist and robotic arm operator.

Chawla was born on March 17, 1962, in Karnal, northern India. Karnal was part of the state of Punjab at that time. Today, it is part of the state of Haryana. She graduated from the Punjab Engineering College in 1982. That same year, she immigrated to the United States. In 1984, she earned a master’s degree from the University of Texas in Austin. She married Jean-Pierre Harrison, an aviation teacher and author, in 1983. She received her doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1988. She then went to work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1994, she was selected for training as an astronaut candidate.

In 1997, Chawla flew her first mission on the shuttle Columbia. She was the second person of Indian descent to travel in space, following Indian-born cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, who traveled on a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. Chawla’s duties involved conducting experiments in microgravity, sometimes called zero gravity or weightlessness, and launching a satellite using the shuttle’s robotic arm. Her second mission was on the same shuttle in 2003. However, on Feb. 1, 2003, as the Columbia was returning to Earth after the 16-day mission, the spacecraft broke apart high over Texas. Chawla and six other crew members were killed.

Chawla received many honors for her work in space. They included the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. In addition, an asteroid that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter is named the 51826 Kalpanachawla in her honor.

October 6, 2015

On October 5, people stand on the safety of a bridge as homes sit in floodwater in Charleston, South Carolina. Credit: © Mic Smith, AP Photo

Since Thursday, October 1, a low pressure system combined with storms related to Hurricane Joaquin have drenched South Carolina in record heavy rains. Between Friday and Sunday, 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain fell in Columbia, the state capital and hardest-hit city. Fourteen people have died in the flooding, mostly by drowning, many by being trapped in cars in flash floods. Hundreds of people have had to be rescued from their homes. Authorities, however, are advising people not immediately threatened by rising waters to stay home and avoid flooded roads.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called the record rainfall a 1,000-year storm. (Meteorologists use this term to mean a weather event that has a 1-in-1,000 statistical chance of happening in any given year.) Governor Haley and U.S. President Barack Obama (respectively) declared the region to be a state and federal disaster area.

The rains stopped this morning, but the risk of flooding is not yet reduced, as the waters continue to rise. Since Saturday, nearly 20 dams in the flooded region have been breached (water has flowed over the top of the dam) or have failed. These failures sent huge amounts of floodwater crashing down on areas surrounding lakes and rivers. Also, because the flooding has occurred in the central part of the state, the water must move to the coast to truly relieve the flooding in the midlands.

Other World Book articles

• Flash flood
• Flood

July 10, 2015

On Friday morning, July, 10, the Confederate battle flag (also known as the Flag of Dixie) was removed from the State House grounds in Columbia, South Carolina, where it had flown for more than half a century.

A crowd cheers as a South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard lowers the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds on July 10, 2015, in Columbia, South Carolina. Governor Nikki Haley presided over the event after signing the historic legislation the day before. Credit: © John Moore, Getty Images

The flag has long been a polarizing symbol in South Carolina, and many people demanded that it be taken down. In the years since the American Civil War (1861-1865), the flag had become a racist symbol of slavery to many African Americans and others. Later, in the early 1960′s, the flag became a symbol of opposition to the U.S. civil rights movement. However, many  Southerners have used the Confederate battle flag as an expression of Southern heritage and pride. Some believe the flag honors Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

The battle over the flag reignited last month after a white gunman allegedly killed nine African American worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston. Among the victims was the church’s pastor, South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney. Soon after the attack, photos surfaced of the suspect, Dylann Roof, 21, posing with the Confederate battle flag. Roof, who apparently considered the flag a symbol of white supremacy, confessed to the killings, saying he wanted to start a race war.

Early Thursday morning, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted 94-20 to take down the flag, giving final approval to a bill that passed the state senate earlier in the week. Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill into law Thursday afternoon. She used nine pens to sign the bill and said the pens would be given to the families of the nine victims of the Charleston church massacre. “It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state,” Haley said. The legislation called for the flag to be taken down within 24 hours of Haley’s signing it into law and moved to the state’s Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum for display.

At around 10 a.m. Friday, crowds cheered and broke out into song as a South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard slowly reeled the flag down and folded it. The flag was then handed to Department of Public Safety Director Leroy Smith, one of the state’s most prominent African American officials. Smith delivered the flag to the steps of the State House and handed it to a state archivist.

Other World Book articles:

• Flag
• Confederate States of America
• United States flag
• Human rights 1999 (a Back in Time article)
• State government 2000 (a Back in Time article)
• State government 2001 (a Back in Time article)

August 20, 2013

The first new species of mammal identified in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years has been unveiled by a scientist who spent 10 years trying to prove that a specimen he found in a museum drawer was, in fact, a new kind of raccoon. The new animal, which has reddish-orange fur and a bushy tail, is called a olinguito, a Spanish word meaning little, adorable olingo. Olingos are members of the raccoon family, with brownish fur and larger bodies and ears than the olinguito. At only 2 pounds (0.9 kilogram), the olinguito is the smallest raccoon known to scientists. Kristofer Helgen of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., led the team that found the olinguito in the cloud forests of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador and Columbia.

The olinguito of Central and South America is the first canivore discovered in the New World in 35 years. (Mark Gurney)

Although new to science, the olinguito is not new to scientists. That is, scientists had previously observed the animal in the wild, collected pelts for museum collections, and even displayed the animal in zoos. But they never realized that it was a separate species. Helgen first saw the olinguito in the specimen collection at the Field Museum in Chicago while working to count the number of olingo species. After spending some years trying to prove that the specimen represented a new kind of raccoon, Helgen and other scientists traveled to the Andes to search for the animal in its natural habitat. Further studies, including genetic testing, confirmed that the animal was a previously unknown species.

The olinguito, whose scientific name is Bassaricyon neblina, is about the size of a hamster. Because of its well-developed canine teeth, the olinguito is considered a carnivore. Most carnivores are meat-eaters. However, like other members of the raccoon family, the olinguito eats other foods, particularly figs, insects, and plant nectar. Although tens of thousands of olinguitos live in the northern Andes, the people of the region apparently have never named it.

Additional World Book articles:

• Coati
• Ringtail