NASA's newest class of
astronaut candidates
has just been announced, and it includes five inspiring women! NASA
received a record-breaking number of applicants for this astronaut class
— over 18,000 in all — and the class itself has twelve members, their
largest since the year 2000. "These women and men deserve our
enthusiastic congratulations," said retired astronaut and Johnson Space
Center Director Ellen Ochoa. "Children all across the United States
right now dream of being in their shoes someday. We here at NASA are
excited to welcome them to the team and look forward to working with
them to inspire the next generation of explorers."
The astronaut candidates have two years of training in front of them
before they're ready to break Earth's atmosphere, but in the meantime,
space-loving Mighty Girls have five new role models to look up to! In
this blog post, we introduce you to these five remarkably talented
women. And, to inspire children who dream of their own careers in space,
at the end of the post, we've showcased a variety of girl-empowering
books and toys about shooting for the stars!
Women in Space: the 2017 Female Astronaut Candidates
Kayla Barron, Engineer and Navy Officer
Kayla Barron already knows something about what it's like to live in
tight spaces, where a vessel wall is the only thing protecting you from a
dangerous environment: the 29-year-old Navy lieutenant from Richland,
Washington was one of the first class of eleven women to join the
submarine service after the men-only restriction was dropped. "I really
felt at home [in the submarine service]," she says. "Everyone is really
talented and team-oriented."
The same aptitudes will suit Barron, who has a bachelor's degree in
systems engineering and a master's degree in nuclear engineering, well
as an astronaut candidate. She says her math skills weren't the best for
her confidence, however, as she worked her way into the 120 people
selected for interviews and the 50 finalists: "Like a good engineer, I
was always doing the math in my head and calculating the probabilities,"
she recalls. "It seemed like a steep slope to climb." Barron wasn't
even able to take the call from NASA telling her she'd been selected,
because as the aide to the superintendent of the Naval Academy, she was
on the review stand for the color parade. Her reaction when she was free
and finally heard the news was appropriate: "I was just over the moon."
Zena Cardman, Marine Scientist and Microbiologist
To accomplish her research in microbiology, Zena Cardman has already
been to some of the world's most remote environments, from Antarctic ice
to caves where no daylight penetrates to hydrothermal vents at the
bottom of the ocean. "I’m especially interested in life that lives in
oddball environments on Earth, the extremophiles," says the 29-year-old
from Williamsburg, Virginia. "For me, that’s a good analogy for
environments that might be habitable on another planet."
Cardman is a multitalented scientist whose bachelor's degree in
biology included minors in chemistry, marine sciences, and creative
writing, and she hopes that her flexibility will make her "that
scientific Swiss Army knife in the field." Having also earned a Master
of Science degree in Marine Sciences, she was a National Science
Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Pennsylvania State University
when she was selected as an astronaut candidate — doing research work
focused on "cave slime," which she says lives in "a really interesting
environment. It’s totally dark all the time. Life there is not fueled by
normal things we look outside our windows and see." She's thrilled to
be joining NASA just as they begin looking to longer missions, further
away from the planet we call home. "There is a lot of change happening,
so we are not sure where this current class is going to end up going,"
she says. "That’s almost more exciting than knowing."
Jasmin Moghbeli, Helicopter Pilot and Aerospace Engineer
Jasmin Moghbeli has dreamed of being an astronaut since she was a
child; she was inspired by a sixth-grade project about first woman in
space Valentina Tereshkova. "We had to dress up like the person in
class, and I had my little space outfit that my mom helped me make,"
recalls the 33-year-old from Baldwin, New York. "That was the first time
I remember definitely saying 'hey, I want to be an astronaut' and
started looking more into what I needed to do."
She earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace
engineering and joined the Marines, becoming a helicopter pilot and
rising to the rank of major, but she didn't give up on her dream of
joining NASA, so this year she decided to apply — and found the first
step of process surprisingly anticlimactic. "The first part is you just
submit a resume," Moghbeli says. "So that part's a little underwhelming,
you're like 'that's it?'" Fortunately, hearing the news that she had
actually been selected to start astronaut training was everything that
she'd been dreaming of for all of those years: "When I first got the
call, I could tell you, my hands were shaking afterwards and I could
barely dial the numbers to call my parents to tell them."
Loral O'Hara, Research Engineer and Wilderness First Responder
Loral O'Hara knows something about persevering until you reach your
goal: the 34-year-old, who is a research engineer at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute, applied to the astronaut program twice before
getting the good news; "Third time is the charm," she says. O'Hara has
dreamed of being an astronaut since she was a child: growing up in
Houston, her second-grade class grew tomato seeds that flew in one of
the space shuttles, and "in high school I used to watch the space
shuttle debriefings when they used to do those in the space center."
However, she tells students who dream of space not to feel bad if
they struggle with some subjects: "my worst subject was actually math,"
she says. "I struggled with math the whole way through." Those
struggles, however, didn't stop her from getting a bachelor's degree in
aeronautical engineering or a master's degree in aeronautics and
astronautics. O'Hara is also a private pilot and an avid outdoorswoman,
and has been serving as a wilderness first responder, using her
certified EMT skills to help people in trouble in remote places. She's
excited to return to her hometown for training and even more excited
about the possibility of a Mars mission: "That's been something that I
think we've all been dreaming out for ages, just stepping foot on
another planet!"
Jessica Watkins, Geologist and Curiosity Collaborator
Jessica Watkins wanted to be an astronaut so much that she started
her university career in mechanical engineering — but then she
discovered a passion for geology! "One thing that people have said to
me... was that you want to make sure you are passionate about and
fulfilled by what you do in your career, outside of being an astronaut,"
says the 29-year-old from Lafayette, Colorado. "[Astronaut] selection
is so rigorous and the statistics are so small, you want to pursue
something that you really love and that you would love to do for the
rest of your life."
Her doctorate in geology led to a postdoctoral fellow in the Division
of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of
Technology, where she started working with NASA's scientific division as
part of the team working with the Mars Curiosity rover. An avid athlete
and a former national rugby sevens team member, she's also been acting
as a volunteer assistant coach for the women's basketball team at
CalTech. Watkins is an advocate for women, especially women of color, in
STEM, and she hopes that she can provide an encouraging example to a
generation of Mighty Girls: "[I like] being able to be a face to others
who may not see people who look like them in STEM fields in general, and
doing cool things like going to space."
www.amightygirl.com
