Making Space for Women
Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA's Johnson Space Center
Description:... Most girls incorrectly assume that they don¿t have the skills to work for NASA, because they don¿t have sufficient technical, scientific, or engineering training. Space missions, however, require thousands of people with many different backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives. In this vein Making Space for Women is intended to encourage and inspire the next generation of female explorers and attract readers in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) disciplines. Designed for high-school and college age girls, their instructors, and parents, this book takes readers where no previous books have, a look at the female experience at NASA. Using oral history narratives, this path-breaking work provides a look at NASA career opportunities for women over the past 50 years and highlights the changes witnessed by female employees over the years at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). This volume includes interviews conducted for several NASA Oral History Projects. Gathered within its pages are voices from astronauts, mathematicians, engineers, secretaries, scientists, trainers, managers, and more. Those featured not only discuss leadership, teamwork, and the experiences of being ¿the first,¿ but reveal how the role of the working woman in a predominantly white male, technical agency has evolved. Featured in this book are women who spent decades in the midst of the nation¿s human spaceflight program but until now, their thoughts and contributions have remained relatively unknown. Their memories and experience provide a deeper understanding and a different perspective of some of the key events of their time: America¿s first lunar landing and the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents. Together, the women offer a unique view of the past fifty years of human spaceflight, while also providing a broader understanding of changes in American culture, society, industry, and life. For girls who face barriers to studying STEAM, they will learn how the women of JSC overcame challenges, worked through hesitation and even fear, all while making an impact on those around them and paving a path for others to follow.
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