These are some of the stories of the women who made our recent #Apollo50th anniversary possible: NASA’s mission to land a human on the Moon for the very first time took hundreds of thousands workers. The first satellite dedicated to x-ray astronomy, UHURU detected, surveyed and mapped celestial X-ray sources and gamma-ray emissions. At NASA, she became the first female spacecraft project manager, overseeing the development and 1970 launch of the UHURU satellite. She started college at age 15 and became the first woman to earn an engineering degree from the George Washington University when she graduated in 1951. Marjorie Townsend was blazing trails from a very young age. With limited options for promotion, computers had to prove that women could successfully do the work and then seek out their own opportunities for advancement. Women working as computers at Langley found that the job offered both challenges and opportunities. These women did all the mathematical calculations – by hand – that desktop and mainframe computers do today.Ĭomputers played a role in major projects ranging from World War II aircraft testing to transonic and supersonic flight research and the early space program. After the United States entered World War II, the NACA began actively recruiting similar types to meet the workload. The NACA hired five women in 1935 to form its first “computer pool”, because they were hardworking, “meticulous” and inexpensive. Young was the first woman hired as a technical employee and the second female physicist working for the federal government. These women worked on the X-1 project, which became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound. Women were also involved with the NACA at the Muroc site in California (now Armstrong Flight Research Center) to support flight research on advanced, high-speed aircraft. Pearl Young was hired in 1922 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA’s predecessor organization, to work at its Langley site in support in instrumentation, as one of the first women hired by the new agency. Here are just a couple of examples of pioneers who brought us to where we are today: Just last week, we celebrated our very first #AllWomanSpacewalk with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. Ride’s accomplishments paved the way for the dozens of other women who became astronauts, and the hundreds of thousands more who pursued careers in science and technology. Sally Ride joined NASA in 1983 and five years later she became the first female American astronaut. Since the 19th century, women have been making strides in areas like coding, computing, programming and space travel, despite the challenges they have faced.
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