As a child, Sunita Williams was fascinated with fantasy stories and was not into science fiction, as one would expect of a future astronaut. In school, she was interested in science and related outdoor activities like exploring nature and the environment. She participated in experiments related to marine biology. At home, she was attached to her pet dogs and spent a lot of time with them. The Pandyas were popular among the neighbourhood kids for nurturing puppies and kittens of different types. Deepak was a medical scientist and a practising doctor, so discussions at home often included questions of science and philosophy. Sunita was aware of major events like the human landing on the Moon but never thought of pursuing any career in engineering or space. Deepak remembers Sunita watching the Moon landing on television and jumping with joy. As she grew up, Sunita wanted to be a veterinarian, given her love for dogs and other animals. After graduating from school, she applied for a course in veterinary science. Swimming, not flying, was her favourite outdoor activity.
It so happened that when she was trying to make a career choice, her brother Jay graduated from the US Naval Academy in Maryland. The family drove to the academy for the graduation ceremony. After the ceremony, Jay took the family around the academy, showing them all the facilities for athletics, swimming and the like. He was captain of the academy’s swimming team and thought that the academy would be a good place for Sunita, too, to pursue her interest in athletics and swimming. Jay’s suggestion was tempting to Sunita, and she agreed to apply for a course at the academy.
There were few girls on the campus as the entry of women into the US Navy had begun just a couple of years earlier. She applied for a course in physical science. At that time, applications had to be endorsed by a congressman or senator. Hers was endorsed by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy who was impressed by the credentials on her CV – from athletics to volunteering in a local hospital. Sunita entered the academy in 1983.
As Jay had predicted, Sunita excelled in a range of outdoor activities, from swimming to biking, at the academy. “I really had fun and learned about leadership and followership going through the ranks there, and teamwork. I was on the swim team there, I was on the cross-country team, on the bike club, so a lot of sports, like my brother had suggested,” Sunita later confided to a biographer, Arvinda Anantharaman. In academics, she was not a class topper but did reasonably well. Sunita graduated in 1987 and joined the US Navy where she was assigned the beginner’s rank of ensign. After the induction training, ensigns could choose from navy air, marine or submarine services or special programmes like diving. Being an ace swimmer, her first choice was diving, but the application was rejected. She opted for the next special stream, navy air. While waiting for her air training to begin, she completed the diving programme and obtained a diving officer certificate though she was not commissioned as a diver.
At the Naval Air Training Command, she wanted to train on jets but was instead assigned helicopters. She became a naval aviator in July 1989 and was asked to join the Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 8 (HC-8) in Norfolk, Virginia. Here, a lot of exciting assignments awaited Sunita. She made overseas deployments to the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield and Operation Provide Comfort to provide humanitarian aid. She carried supplies and cargo to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990. Two years later, she was named the officer-in-charge of an H-46 detachment for Hurricane Andrew relief operations aboard USS Sylvania.
In January 1993, she changed tacks once again and started training to become a test pilot at the US Naval Test Pilot School. She graduated in December 1993 and was assigned to the Rotary Wing Aircraft Test Directorate as a chase pilot. As a test pilot, she flew some thirty different types of planes and helicopters and logged over 3000 flying hours. She discovered that she was as good in the air as she was in the water.
Meanwhile, Sunita married Michael Williams, chief inspector in the Judicial Security Division of the federal government, in 1989, changing her name to Sunita Williams. He was her batchmate in the Naval Academy.
Sunita’s life journey is full of coincidences and second options. She never got to do what she wanted as the first choice, but second options opened new doors for her. She wanted to be a vet but ended up in the navy. There, her interest was in diving, but she became an aviator. In aviation, her first choice was to fly jet planes, but she was assigned helicopters. While doing all this, a career path in space was never on the cards. However, a visit to Johnson Space Centre changed it all.
It so happened that while training to become a test pilot, Sunita had to attend a training session at JSC. The exposure was a part of the test pilot course. The class was taken by a veteran astronaut of NASA, John Young. He was among the handful of astronauts who landed and walked on the Moon in 1972 and had flown six times on the Shuttle. Before becoming an astronaut, Young was a naval officer and aviator and had been to the test pilot school. He mentioned that he had to learn to fly helicopters while training for the Moon landing. “He landed on the moon in some type of vertical apparatus – that sounds like helicopters, and I was a helicopter pilot – so it seemed like it might fit. Then, I started looking at what I needed to do to become an astronaut,” Sunita recalled later of her meeting with Young at JSC.
Soon, Sunita sent in an application to NASA for astronaut training. Though she ticked all the boxes like physical fitness, 1000-hour flying experience and team player, she did not qualify academically. A master’s degree in science and engineering was mandatory. She noticed that several astronauts were from the US Navy, particularly from the test pilot school where she had been. So, she did not want to give up and enrolled for a master’s course in engineering management at the Florida Institute of Technology. After the two-year course, she returned to the test pilot school and logged in more flying hours before applying to NASA for the second time in 1997. She was called for the interview and was finally selected. After eleven years in the US Navy, she entered NASA in June 1998 as a part of the 18th Astronauts Group.
Sunita began her space career at a time when NASA was undergoing a churn in terms of the future direction because of dwindling budgetary support. The agency’s focus was using the Shuttle to transport modules to assemble ISS in the orbit. ISS became a flagship programme of the agency, replacing the Space Station Freedom Plan which was originally designed to counter the Mir space station of the Soviets (by now it was Russian). Budgetary constraints and geopolitical necessities following the break-up of the USSR forced NASA to make the space station project “international” and engage Russia as a partner.
The America-Russia cooperation in space saw NASA astronauts transported by Soyuz to Mir for long-term stay and returning by the Shuttle. This required NASA astronauts to actively train and work with the Russians. The training in Russia was in the Russian language, so the Americans had to learn the language before the flight or spacecraft training.
The massive structure of ISS, as it stood in 2010, was put together in space like a Lego set, piece by piece, with different elements and modules developed by participating space agencies from America, Russia, Japan, Canada and the ESA. It was put together using the giant robotic arms of the Shuttle and then one of its own by astronauts and cosmonauts undertaking spacewalks. Once the habitable module was in place, humans started living in ISS for long durations.
The first module, Zarya, was launched by Russia in November 1998, followed by the America-built Unity module transported by the Shuttle a month later. Subsequently, other modules like Zvezda and SPACEHAB were attached, making ISS partially operational in 2001. Unlike Mir, which could accommodate only three crew members, ISS can support up to thirteen. It has multiple docking points for visiting spacecrafts to dock and transfer cargo or astronauts. Over the years, dozens of space missions have been executed for logistics, resupply and crew exchange at ISS by the Shuttle, Russia’s Progress and Soyuz, Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, European Automated Transfer Vehicle and commercial spacecraft – Dragon, Cygnus and Starliner. ISS took its final shape in 2010.
After her training and evaluation at NASA, Sunita was assigned to work with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, on the Russian contribution to ISS and the preparation for the first expedition crew that was sent to the station. She trained and worked in the Star City, where Rakesh Sharma and Ravish Malhotra were trained in the 1980s. Back in America, Sunita underwent additional training. NASA wanted to prepare future astronauts for long-term stays on the ISS. Unlike a typical Shuttle mission lasting a fortnight, the stay on ISS could extend for several months. Besides living in isolation and under micro-gravity conditions for long durations, it meant living with people from different cultural backgrounds since the ISS was to host astronauts and visitors from different countries.
For this, NASA designed an underwater lab project in 2001, Neemo or the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations project. Astronauts, engineers and scientists are sent to live in the undersea research station, Aquarius, for up to three weeks. The lab is located 5.6 km off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The Aquarius habitat and its surroundings mimic conditions like space, a hostile and alien place for humans to live and survive. In the Neemo missions, astronaut trainees can simulate living on a spacecraft and test spacewalks in future missions. Sunita was a part of the Neemo-2 expedition in May 2002.
With induction training at NASA, operational work experience in Russia and underwater expedition, Sunita was ready for her maiden space flight. Then NASA suffered a jolt in 2003. Columbia was lost with its seven-member crew, including Kalpana Chawla. Sunita and Kalpana knew each other, though Kalpana was already an astronaut when Sunita joined NASA. The Shuttle programme was put on hold, and all ISS-related missions came to a halt. This was frustrating for Sunita because she had been informed in late 2002 that she had been selected for a mission. Her wait for a date with ISS only got longer.
Excerpted with permission from Space: The India Story, Dinesh C Sharma, Bloomsbury India.
