Never thought I'd become an astronaut: Sunita Williams

, Apr 1:

holds a world record for the longest space flight by a woman but as a child the Indian American astronaut had never thought about voyaging into space ever. "I never envisioned to be an astronaut and had many failures, but ultimately I reached here," said Williams while interacting with students at the National Science Centre here.

Williams, has a total of 50 hours and 40 minutes of spacewalking time over seven spacewalks, the record for number of spacewalks for a female, and most spacewalk time for a female. So while she has "pretty much seen the whole of India" from space she is excited to explore more of the country which she is visiting five years after she came here last in the year 2007.

"There are places where I need to go.I have not been to south. I would like to go to Himalayas also", she said. "My father is from Ahmedabad. So I have seen that part of India. In this trip, I'm excited to see eastern side of India. I have never been there. I have been in space. So I have pretty much seen the whole of India," said the 47-year-old astronaut.

Born on September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio, her paternal ancestry originates in Gujarat and that of her mother in Slovenia. On her voyages into space, Williams said she had carried with her a copy each of the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita to reflect and read. "I also carried samosas in space during my travel, you can never have enough," she said talking about her love for Indian food. Students bombarded her with questions on her experiences in space, especially about Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian American astronaut and first Indian woman in space.

In 2003, Chawla was one of seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. Williams said disbelief was her first reaction on hearing about the disaster. "It was a most heart breaking scenario. I wish nobody will experience that in future", said Williams. Sunita admitted that she was nervous initially to do a space travel but is now excited to continue with it.

"I was nervous actually. I flew from the space shuttle after what happened in Coloumbia in 2006 and a couple of years afterwards and there was a lot of work that was to be done to make sure that the space shuttle is all ready to fly again", recounted Williams. "Space ride is risky. But the next step of exploration to space is on. Now after that incident we are going through the right phase. We are confident to continue without any problems," said the astronaut.

PTI