During the coverage of the loss of STS-107 on NPR, I heard a quote
from an interview with Indian-American astronaut Kalpana Chawla,
recorded on Wednesday, January 29. The only news article which I have
found with a reference to it is located at:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_update_030129.html

   Several introductory sentences of the quote played are paraphrased
in the above article. The quote ends: "In the retina of my eye, the
whole earth and the sky could be seen reflected. So I called all the
crew members one by one, and they saw it, and everybody said, ‘Oh,
wow!’"

   I am looking for a recording of the entire quote, including the
earlier section which I can't recall. Specifically, I want to know:

   1) Where I can obtain an audio recording: a downloadable file is
preferable (not just a source for an audio stream), although I'd also
accept a source for a physical recording of the quote.
   2) What the original interview was (i.e. who conducted it and who
are they associated with)
   3) What entity (corporate, governmental, or otherwise) owns the
rights to the audio? I'm a music composition student, focusing
primarily on electronic music, and for my senior rectial later this
semester, I'd like to create a tribute to STS-107 using this quote
audio -- and would therefore need to request permission for use from
the copyright holder.

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Request for Question Clarification by tlspiegel-ga on 02 Feb 2003 16:26 PST

Hi jehannedaix,

It would be helpful for any researcher who wants to answer your
question to know if the quote you heard on NPR was a direct recording
of Kalpana, or was one of the NPR announcers citing the quote.

If you heard it on NPR, then it's possible one of the NPR programs
have it archived on NPR's site (http://www.npr.org).   I looked
briefly this morning, but didn't find it because I did not know which
program you heard it on.   (For instance, was it Morning Edition, All
Things Considered, or one of the other programs?)

If the recording _is_ contained on NPR's site, there are ways of
'recording' NPR's real audio playback into a file.

As for ownership rights, if it's an NPR recording, then NPR owns it;
you can obtain permission by contacting NPR:
http://www.npr.org/contact.

tlspiegel
Google Answers Researcher

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Clarification of Question by jehannedaix-ga on 02 Feb 2003 19:23 PST

Thanks; As I recall, I heard the quote between 6 and 8 pm EST on
Satuday, during NPR's "special coverage" of the Columbia disaster -
the segment was a tribute to each of the astronauts individually. All
my attempts to search the NPR site for that particular clip have been
unsuccessful - they don't seem to have put up the special coverage for
later listening as they do for most of their programs. That one
instance on Saturday evening was the -only- time I have heard that
quote. The profiles first broadcast on Weekend Edition Sunday (which
-are- available from the NPR stream) don't have the quote I want...

The quote was, actually, first brought to my attention during the
afternoon. For part of the afternoon, NPR had a special call-in
segment, and one of the callers brought the quote to the host's
attention - the host then said that they'd try to locate the audio.
Several hours later, I heard the original version of the Kalpana
Chawla quote, and I haven't heard it since.

I also get the sense (from the above, from the article I referred to,
and from the fact that the only news stories that I pull up on a
search for "kalpana chawla" on NPR's site are from -after- the
disaster) that it wasn't an NPR interview -- hence the question about
original ownership.

The quote played on NPR was a direct quote from Kalpana Chawla (i.e.
her voce)  -- not a restatement of the quote. I'm looking for her
actual voice.

I would -far- prefer to find a genuine source for the audio, rather
than bootlegging it off of a real audio stream, even if that means I
have to pay for the recording. I do not feel that recording off a
stream is really acceptable.

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Request for Question Clarification by tlspiegel-ga on 02 Feb 2003 21:26 PST

Hi jehannedaix,

Because of the special programming, it appears NPR is not indexing
their programs in their usual way.  You are probably aware that even
their usual indexing does not contain all the words in a story
segment, but a human-generated, one-paragraph summary - and it is only
_those_ summaries which are searchable.

Something which you may be interested in for future reference is a
research project from HP Labs, called speechbot:
http://speechbot.research.compaq.com, which records audio from a few
dozen radio and TV programs and provides a searchable index of all the
words spoken (the word transcripts are generated via speech
recognition, which is not 100% accurate, but is useful for locating
the correct audio segments). Unfortunately, the NPR news programs
aren't included in speechbot's archives, so the quote you seek is not
included.  (The only NPR programs are Fresh Air, Car Talk and maybe
one or two more.)

Perhaps contacting NPR directly may be your only successful
alternative.

Best regards,

tlspiegel
Google Answers Researcher