An Indian-American computer scientist is hoping to become the first woman to skydive from the stratosphere at an altitude of 42.5km above the Earth, and shatter four records.
Ms Swati Varshney is one of three candidates selected by the Hera Project of United States non-profit Rising United, which seeks to empower women in science and technology.
If she makes it to the skydive in 2025, Hera Project expects her to break four current records: The free fall record by 1.1km from the highest altitude, endure the longest free fall time, breaking the sound barrier unaided by 264kph, and the highest crewed balloon flight by over 1km.
Ms Varshney has a PhD in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has made over 1,200 jumps with a speciality in vertical free fall, according to Space.com.
Billed as the “first female mission to the edge of space”, the project seeks to have minority women smash the records. The other two contenders are of Latino descent – Eliana Rodriquez and Diana Valerin Jimenez.
The final candidate will be picked after 18 months of training, and the other two, who don’t make it, will provide ground support and educational outreach.
The project will include educational programmes for schools to increase interest in science and technology among girls, especially from minority groups.
Ms Varshney told Space.com that for her, skydiving “is a lot more similar to my scientific training than I ever thought it would have been in the first place”.
She added: “It was just another avenue for me to pursue this goal of lifelong learning. My academic progression and career trajectory have been intertwined with skydiving as it went along, so I started skydiving.”
Ms Varshney tried tandem jumping and found it such a “blast”, that she took it up as a hobby.
“I really just wanted something that was totally different, and as a release to – this is a really cliche way to say it – cut away right from what I was doing in my day-to-day life,” she told Space.com.
“It became this never-ending journey of another pursuit of knowledge that went alongside my academic career.”
On what she hopes to get out of the experience, Ms Varshney said: “It’s a perfect combination of some of my most key interests. It’s science and engineering, my career. It’s skydiving as a hobby, and then also my passion for representation and inclusion in both of those spheres, actually.
“I’ve done a lot of work on highlighting diversity and underrepresented minorities in the outdoor sports community, as well as trying to engage women and underrepresented minorities to pursue Stem careers.
“To have all three of those interests in one spot and one project – and to have a single thing to work on instead of my brain split in three different directions – it’s really incredible.”
The stratosphere is from about 6km to 50km above the Earth, where it gives way to the mesosphere.
Indo-Asian News Service
