An astronaut’s story
Sitting in entrance of the TV as a toddler, Wendy Lawrence watched the Apollo moon missions, which sparked her 25-year journey to make it to area. In that journey, Lawrence grew to become a Navy captain, helicopter pilot, and in 1992, was chosen by NASA to trek into area. Lawrence mentioned her first mission to area was a dream come true for her.
“The rocket experience was unbelievable,” Lawrence mentioned. “First view out the window was a fairly emotional second. For me, particularly, it was 25 years, however I lastly did it. I am up right here now. And I am residing my dream.”
Lawrence has logged 51 days, 3 hours, and 56 minutes in area. As a retired NASA astronaut, she spends a few of her time inspiring others by the Kennedy House Heart Customer Complicated’s Astronaut Encounter program. She mentioned she needs younger folks to understand they’ll turn out to be an astronaut too.
“Each time you are right here, you see these children which might be dressed within the flight fits,” Lawrence mentioned. “And so they have the identical dream. And also you notice, I’m right here, to nurture that dream to encourage it. Put a little bit water on the seeds.”
The historic battle for American girls to be astronauts
Wendy Lawrence made her first journey to area in 1995, greater than a decade after the primary American girls, Sally Trip, made her historic flight on the House Shuttle in 1983.
The hassle to get girls within the astronaut corps began even sooner than that. College of Central Florida area historian, Amy Foster, focuses on expertise and gender and has chronicled the story of ladies astronauts.
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Johnson House Heart
Foster mentioned that the House Shuttle opened doorways for ladies that weren’t accessible in the course of the peak of the Chilly Warfare
“By the point we get to the 70’s, extra girls have had that chance that these ranges of training and are actually eligible to fly on the area shuttle, which is new within the 1970’s,” Foster mentioned. “And so, because the mission at NASA modifications from that Chilly Warfare mentality within the area race, now it turns into one thing extra about science, which isn’t deemed as excessive threat because the area race was. And so, this actually opened up alternatives, so long as the astronauts now who had been educated within the sciences that they’re now eligible.”
