Outlining the Assam connection in Nasa-SpaceX’s latest space voyage

Nearly three decades ago, a friend excitedly called to tell me our fellow Assamese American, Jhuma, had gotten engaged...to an astronaut.

- S Mitra Kalita

“Is he Assamese?” I asked.

“How many Assamese astronauts do you know?”

Good point. None. Like many of us second-generation Assamese born and raised on US shores, hers would be a blended marriage and, eventually, family.

On Friday, August 1, at 11.43am, the husband of Renita Saikia, my lifelong friend I've only ever called Jhuma, soared into space as a member of Nasa’s Crew-ll, on a six-to-eight-month mission. This week, I joined a few dozen of their family and friends at the Kennedy Space Center to wish Mike Fincke well. We began with a “wave across” staged in a parking lot, a rope separating the four quarantined astronauts from loved ones, allowing us to say goodbye and good luck at a safe distance. We ended with the actual launch, the second attempt to send the SpaceX Dragon up after clouds and the threat of lightning thwarted the first try. In between were parties, photo ops, tours of space facilities, impromptu lunches and dinners, and late-night gatherings among disparate friend groups suddenly united.