President Abdul Kalam in his autobiography, Wings of Fire, says Tipu was revered in America too, and recalls his own experience at NASA. He had been to the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia, which was a base of NASA's sounding rocket programme, and had seen a painting displayed prominently in the lobby there. It depicted a battle scene with rockets flying in the background. Later, he came to know it was Tipu Sultan's army fighting the British. He writes: "The painting depicted a fact forgotten in Tipu's own country but commemorated here on the other side of the planet. I was happy to see an Indian glorified by NASA as a hero of warfare rocketry."
