I want to see you going to the Moon: Sunita

NEW DELHI: Having created a new record with her space odyssey, Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams' message to a group of school kids here on Monday was they should not be afraid to step out and aim for the Moon.

"I want to see your beautiful smiles on the Moon. I want to see you going to the Moon," this is what Williams told a group of around 200 children.

"Don't be afraid to step out and try something new, your future is going to be bright," she said in an interaction with the students at the American Center.
   
Clad in her NASA uniform, the 42-year-old Williams was given a warm and cheerful welcome by the kids.
   
"Everybody is worried about how things are happening in the world. I think the new generation is powerful enough to achieve so much," she said.
   
Asking the children to be ready for opportunities, Williams said she was not the smartest kid in school and had never thought she would become an astronaut.
   
"Life is going to give you a lot of opportunities and don't turn your back to those," she said.
    
Williams, who is the second woman of Indian origin to have been selected by NASA for a space mission after Kalpana Chawla, said the new generation has the power to achieve something 'very special'.
   
Sharing her experiences from the space journey, she said, "It's great living in the space, but I missed my dog".

Williams was flooded with queries from the children such as what she ate during her space sojourn and was she nervous taking off.
   
"Some things are really funny like putting your drink into a shelf or where to put your tooth brush, hair brush etc. You need to be very organised in space," she said.

She also showed a video to the children to give them a feel of the daily routine of astronauts.

When a child asked her what was her feeling while coming back to earth, Sunita said, "I felt a lot more attached to everybody, but the idea of border and limit did not come to my mind. It never came to my mind that my mother is of Slovenian heritage and my father is from India".
    
Williams said she was hopeful that mankind will be able to build a permanent base on Moon by 2019 and on Mars after that.

When a kid asked her whether she believed there could be a civilisation in space, she said, "I did not see any alien in space, but yes there might be some civilisation out there".
   
Students from many schools of the capital participated in the interaction.