Chennai: “Work hard, do your best, and never give up on your dreams,” US astronaut Don told students here Tuesday.
The US Consulate General in Chennai, in association with EducationUSA and Go4Guru India, hosted a lecture by Don Thomas on his personal journey to fly aboard four US Space Shuttle missions, at the American Centre Chennai. Seventy students from schools and colleges in Chennai and Bengaluru participated, a press release said.
Thomas traced his childhood dreams from watching the Apollo Programme to competing four times before being selected in NASA’s 13th group of astronauts in 1990. He flew four Space Shuttle missions: STS-65 aboard Columbia in 1994; STS-70 aboard Discovery in 1995; and STS-83 and STS-94 aboard Columbia in 1997. He spent a total of 44 days in space and orbited the Earth 692 times.
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, US Consul General Robert Burgess recalled the excitement of watching man’s first steps on the Moon 50 years ago.
He said, “The excitement of space continues today and has grown as more students have become interested and involved in space. This summer we saw the launch of Chandrayaan-2 from India (22 July), which is now in lunar orbit preparing for its mission landing on the South Pole of the Moon. We are all looking forward to that and wish success to that mission.”
At the conclusion of the event, Thomas recognised the winners and participants in the US Consulate General Chennai’s July 2019 poster contest on ‘US-India Space Exploration.’ The Consulate received 66 submissions from across South India, which are on display at the American Centre Chennai and viewable online. S Ravi Kumar of ASC College, Bengaluru, took first prize in the 16-and-under category and Mohammed Rafiq received first prize in the 17-and-over category.