Is there anything in this world that women can't do? You just have to name it and there would already be a woman getting it done and remarkably so.
Talking about extraordinary women, the team responsible for building the rocket for Jeff Bezos' space venture Blue Origin also includes a 30-year-old woman from Mumbai's Kalyan named Sanjal Gavande.
On July 20, 2021, space venture ‘Blue Origin’ will launch its first crewed spaceflight from the company’s ‘Launch Site One’ in Texas via its ‘New Shepard’ rocket and capsule.
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A milestone mission for the space tourism company, the flight will be carrying the billionaire founder of Amazon and Blue Origin – Jeff Bezos.
Indians will be interested to know that among the people who helped build New Shephard (an unmanned suborbital rocket) is a young engineer from Maharashtra’s Kalyan: Sanjal Gavande.
“I am really happy that my childhood dream is about to come true,” 30-year-old Sanjal, a systems engineer at Blue Origin, told the Times of India.
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Sanjal Gavande’s parents said that their daughter achieved what she aimed for. Her father, Ashok Gavande said, "She always wanted to build a spaceship and that is the reason she chose aerospace as a subject while pursuing her Master's degree at Michigan Technological University. She worked with Mercury Marine after finishing her Masters at Wisconsin. Then she went to work with Toyota racing development at Orange City in California.”
He added, "She even got a commercial pilots license in the US. She wanted to join Blue Origin. She would look on the website and then apply whenever she saw some openings. After her application was approved, she cleared the interview and joined Blue Origin. We just supported her and she achieved everything on her own.”
Sanjal’s mother said, "She was a silent girl since childhood and good in studies. She was also good in drawing and won many accolades, which helped her in mechanical design when she chose mechanical engineering."
She added, "People told us that she is a girl and why has she opted for mechanical engineering? I also thought sometimes about whether she would be able to handle such hard work. She has now made us all proud. She had a dream of designing aerospace rockets and she has achieved it.”