"A bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women."
This was said by the first woman to have gone to space – Valentina Tereshkova – in 1963.
Today, a little over 60 years later, 100 women have gone to space.
I wanted to share that tidbit fact of the day on this end-of-year 2024, and hopefully, inspire us all to dream even bigger – and do better – in 2025 and beyond.
“If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys.”
– Sally Ride, first American woman to got to spaceIt seems like such an obvious statement by Sally, and I’m not sure when she said that, but in the decade-plus since she left this world, we are still struggling to find this equilibrium and fairness between boys and girls pertaining to STEM fields and education.
There are however some incredible, inspirational, powerful women in this field of aerospace (in all fields, but my focus today is on that), and I would like to showcase a few of them here.
I read on LinkedIn yesterday of a mother of a young daughter who was starting to see patterns through parenting of stereotypes and the lack of STEM inspiration for her young child.
“You can’t be what you can’t see.” (Another quote Sally Ride once said.)
If you have daughters, if you are teachers, grandmothers, aunts, neighbors or friends of young girls (and boys! We need to inspire and cultivate this fairness and equality mentality in ALL!) show them this list of women, inspire them to dream big and know that they too can do any of that!
These are women in leadership in the space industry (search them out if you don’t know of them and watch or read interviews about them with your kids – there’s nothing more inspiring as a young child to see a woman in STEM that fascinates and inspires so much due to her career path.
Pamela Melroy: former NASA astronaut, currently the Deputy Administrator of NASA
Vanessa E. Wyche: Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Nicola Fox: Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
Laurie Leshin: Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Makenzie Lystrup: Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Center
Nathalie Cabrol: Director, Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute
Dava Newman: director of MIT Media Lab (formerly with NASA, but she does cool things!)
Christina Koch: NASA astronaut and will be going to the Moon with the Artemis missions
From Canada, here are some more:
Lisa Campbell: President of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
Roberta Bonda: former and the first for Canada, female astronaut, and first neurologist in space
Farah Alibay: aerospace engineer working at JPL who was responsible to coordinate the Perseverance rover, as well as Ingenuity helicopter on Mars!
Kristen Facciol: aerospace engineer, Supervisor, Training (ISS and Gateway Robotics) – basically she trains every astronaut-to-be, from Canada, US, Europe… prior to their mission – yes, that training is all done in Canada!
Jenni Gibbins: CSA astronaut and backup crewmember to Jeremy Hansen for Artemis mission II
The list is endless and is from literally all over the world!
Society might be a little slow to show that kind of representation daily; toys are gender-based, education is still not prioritizing this equality, more work needs to be done.
But on your own, you can inspire your daughters, and sons, to see that they too can be and do anything they dream of with stereotypes and limitations non-existent!
(You can read an article I wrote last year after my experience being at Spaceport America with the Virgin Galactic “Galactic-05” spaceflight and all the inspiration surrounding the event, here.)
Dare Mighty things! (Motto at NASA’s JPL)
By the way, in the relatively new industry of Suborbital flights, many women have flown to space and with many firsts:
Youngest woman ever to fly to space
Oldest woman to fly to space
Mother-daughter duo
Wife-husband duo (and they went twice!)
First Egyptian person and the first Arab woman and African woman to travel into space
First Mexican-born woman in space
Some of these women are actually aerospace engineers.
Indeed, many have either won their trip through some sponsorship program or have paid to be on one of those spaceflights, and not necessarily professional astronauts or women in STEM.
I do mention them in this article because you can be sure if they have gone to the edge of space, even for a short hop there and back, they have not returned the same way.
Most come back with the most awe and admiration for our planet and they all come back as ambassadors for doing better to the Earth; from practicing sustainability, to acknowledging the fragility of all things living, and to advocation for peace, equality, and for a better today and tomorrow for all humanity.
Here are just some of these women from a photo montage I had made a while ago - many more have flown since.
Left to right:
Top row: Wally Funk, Laura Shepard Churchley
Middle row: Audrey Powers, Sara Sabry, Katya Echazarreta
Bottom row: Vanessa O'Brien, Sharon Hagle
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