It was around 5:30AM on February 1, 2003. I was in my car, headed for the Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley, California for a morning trail run. I was glad to be awake and looking forward to the run. Unbeknownst to me, Columbia had begun her final descent towards Earth a few minutes ago. If all went well, she would touch down in Cape Canaveral in an hour or so. I had been following Columbia’s mission STS-107, not because of its mission objectives, but because astronaut Kalpana Chawla was of Indian origin, and a huge fan of my favorite band, Deep Purple. She had selected Space Truckin' and The Aviator from the Deep Purple canon as wakeup songs on her shifts. Kalpana’s husband, JP Harrison, published a regular log of Mission STS-107 on Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan’s web site, so we were kept abreast of all events leading up the mission, and the mission itself. Although I didn’t know Kalpana personally, she already seemed like a friend, and I followed Mission STS-107 as keenly as I could.
I was somewhere on the freeway, headed for Berkeley, when Columbia disintegrated over the Earth's atmosphere, bringing about an abrupt end to her mission. After I reached the park, I strapped on my chest pouch, which contained my trusty Nikon and a couple of lenses. Tripod in hand, I headed out on Tilden’s trails. It was a wonderful, crisp morning. The fresh morning air filling the lungs with each breath felt delicious. As I ran, I saw another day dawn. Mother Nature played out her daily ritual, unfurling a breathtaking light show in the eastern skies. It reaffirmed why I loved Tilden’s trails as much as I did, and why I felt such a deep, almost spiritual affinity to it. During the latter half of my run, I spotted a wild flower growing by the side of the Seaview Trail, which I stopped to photograph. After running a couple of hours, I reached my car exhausted, and when I switched on the radio, the tragic news of the Columbia disaster was on National Public Radio. Although I still remember reading newspaper reports on the Challenger disaster many years ago, and being shocked by it, the Columbia loss somehow seemed very personal. On the drive back home from Berkeley, Kalpana’s radiant smile kept flashing in my mind. I felt like I’d lost a friend.
When I got back the processed film roll from my morning run, the picture of the wild flower stood out on the light box. A personal memory of the morning when Columbia fell, it is my humble tribute to Kalpana and her brave comrades.
