International Women’s Day (IWD) has been celebrated since the early 1900s, but it was in 1977 that the United Nations officially marked 8 March as Women’s Day – it is now celebrated yearly, and globally (more about why on that date specifically, the movement and history, HERE.)
Every IWD has a theme, and when researching about 2023’s theme, the International Women’s Day website showed #EmbraceEquity as theme. Then later, I learned the UN Women’s theme was: “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”, and with “#PowerOn” to be used on social media.
My focus on this Women’s Day is, “Women in STEM & Space”, and originally with “equity” in mind. But as I found out the UN Women, as part of their theme, have “innovation and technology for gender equality”, it clearly also pertains to my blog’s theme.
The word “equity” is defined simply as: “the quality of being fair and impartial; freedom from bias or favoritism” (of gender, color of skin, religious background, and more).
The space industry is booming and thriving like never before, and startups and companies of a varied expertise are now intermingling in the space sector as it is now possible – in an unprecedented way – for a diversity of tech companies to become players in the “New Space” ecosystem, and ultimately, the economy – one which is predicted to become a trillion-dollar industry by 2040!
Women are now part of this New Space industry (and economy) like never before – quite literally! In the first “Space Race” of the 1960s, women were so few, we can almost count them with two hands, and names of the heroines of the time, like Margaret Hamilton, Judy Sullivan, Frances “Poppy” Northcutt, or Katherine Johnson are still recognized and celebrated today – rightly so!
It is not precisely a new Space Race we are in (as the Space Race of the 60s was of which nation would be first to the Moon), but there is definitely a massive boom in the industry, from developing sustainable rocketry, including the rocket that will bring humanity (and women specifically) back to the Moon, to sending a range of satellites to help matters here on Earth (like Global Warming, understanding forest fires, etc.), to building new spacecrafts and telescopes for the fields of astronomy and cosmology, and everything in between, really.
That is what the Space Industry is about, and these days, it is not only big players with space agencies like NASA; it is thousands of new players of all types and sizes – and globally!
But the focus here is Women’s Day, “Equity” and “innovation and technology for gender equality”.
The world of engineering and many technology-related fields and industries are still male dominated (including in education of those fields), but that is beyond the scope of this piece.
There are however innumerable women who are indeed in the space industry holding a wide range of positions, from engineering to flight controller, to astronauts (more on that later), and everything in between. I don’t know each’s personal story and background, and how they got to be where they are today, but that they succeeded, and in innovation and technology, that is their story of “equity”.
Here are a few power women with executive positions specifically from NASA (all photos taken from their Twitter/LinkedIn or public domain accounts).
From top left and clockwise:
- Nicola Fox, the newly appointed NASA’s Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate
- Vanessa Wyche, Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
- Pam Melroy, NASA’s Deputy Administrator
- Kathy Lueders, Associate Administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Laurie Leshin, Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab
- Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, launch director for NASA's Exploration Ground Systems Program
Outside of NASA, here are more women in high roles within the Space Industry:
- Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO at SpaceX (right)
- Flavia Tata Nardini, CEO at Fleet Space Technologies in Australia (top)
- Vanessa Clark CEO at Atomos Space (bottom)
(There are clearly many more, but I only selected a few to showcase here.)
From the science side of the Space Industry, there are so many female scientists, I can’t possibly begin to even pick a few to name, and from all the many branches of the sciences.
As for astronauts, “As of March 2023, 72 women have flown in space” - taken from this thoroughly detailed article:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/womens-history-month-2023-celebrating-women-astronauts/
The article speaks of all the first female astronauts, from all nations, all cultural backgrounds, and all the firsts that ever happened for women astronauts.
Along with those professional female astronauts (trained by NASA or other space agency), there is a relatively new form of astronauts: the private citizens who have flown on a suborbital flight. These women and men (although, my focus here is with women specifically), have been inspiring the world over in just the last couple of years with these types of flights made possible by companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic (and more variation of suborbital or near-space vehicles coming soon!)
Here is a montage of all these women:
From Blue Origin, from left to right:
- Wally Funk
- Audrey Powers
- Laura Shepard Churchley
- Sharon Hagle
- Katya Echazarreta
- Vanessa O’Brien
- Sara Sabry
(Both Katya Echazarreta and Sara Sabry were selected with the Citizen Astronaut Program by the non-profit organization Space for Humanity. )
**See bonus posts at the end of this blog about Katya Echazarreta and Sara Sabry.**
From Virgin Galactic:
Beth Moses (left) and Sirisha Bandla (right)
Then there are Hayley Arceneaux and Sian Proctor (seen below), also private citizens, but who have gone beyond suborbital, to low Earth orbit (LEO), in a SpaceX capsule called Dragon, that mission was Inspiration4.
And THAT inspires young people looking on.
THAT is the path for future generation!
Because…
“You can’t be what you can’t see” – Marian Wright Edelman
“More women should demand to be involved. It’s our right. This is one area where women can get in on the ground floor and possibly help to direct where space exploration will go in the future. – Mae Jemison
“Astronauts don’t have to be either very feminine or very masculine women, or very superhuman males, or any other color or anything. It’s about people in space. – Judith Resnik
See more below about Katya and Sara from Space for Humanity.
You can follow Katya on Twitter and Instagram at @katvoltage, and Sara Sabry on Instagram at @astrosarasabry.
Above is a video with Sara Sabry shared by Frank White (of the Overview Effect) speaking at an event earlier this month in Colorado. The attached video is filmed by me. Frank White's speech was of course on the Overview Effect.
Happy Women International Day 2023!
Comentarios