More hidden figures: 10 women who helped take us to space – The Guardian

Mae Jemison the first African American woman in space. Photograph: NASA/Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

Female scientists provided the rocket fuel that launched the space race into orbit, but it wasnt until Hidden Figures was released that these women or, at least, three of these women gained global recognition. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson have since been rightly lauded as pioneers, but the history of women in space is long and filled with shining stars. Here are a few more names we ought to remember.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1925, Nancy Grace Roman was a stargazer from an early age. When only 11, she formed an astronomy club with her classmates, going on to gain a PhD in astronomy. She followed her guiding star all the way to Nasa where, as chief of astronomy, she became the first woman to hold a managerial position. Leading the Hubble Space Telescope project was among her most famous achievements, earning her the Mother of Hubble nickname.

Valentina Tereshkova took up skydiving in her early 20s, and it was this expertise that led her to be selected, from among 400 applicants, for space travel. On 16 June 1963, aged 26, she was sealed inside the Vostok 6 and launched into space, where she spent almost three days, completing 48 Earth orbits.

Without the software created by Margaret Hamiltons team, the 1969 moon landing would never have taken place. In recognition of her contribution to space exploration, Hamilton has been given both the Nasa Exceptional Space Act Award (in 2003) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 2016). She is also credited with creating the building blocks for modern software engineering.

Unlike the two Soviet Union women who preceded her, the then 32-year-old Sally Ride was already an experienced astrophysicist when she undertook her first space mission. During a pre-launch press conference, Ride was subjected to such inane questions as: Will the flight affect your reproductive organs? and: Do you weep when things go wrong on the job? Her smiling response: How come nobody ever asks Rick [crewmate Captain Rick Hauck] those questions?

Few people remember the second woman in space, so its lucky for Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya that she has another record to her name: in July 1984, two years after her first space flight, Savitskaya became the first woman to complete a spacewalk. In a 1995 interview she described the sexism she encountered upon first entering the Salyut 7 space station, when a male crewmate presented her with an apron and told her to get to work.

One of Dr Helen Sharmans pre-astronaut jobs involved improving the flavour of chocolate for Mars confectionery, but her space mission didnt take her quite as far as the Red Planet. She did, however, spend an eight-day mission aboard the Mir space station, having been selected live on television. After returning to Earth, Sharman dedicated herself to inspiring others, later publishing a childrens book called The Space Place.

I remember being irritated that there were no women astronauts, Mae Jemison said of her reaction to the 1969 moon landings, as a then 12-year-old. People tried to explain that to me, and I did not buy it. Twenty-three years later, the engineer and physician became the first African American woman in space. She took several symbolic objects along for the ride, including a photograph of Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to fly an aeroplane.

Anousheh Ansari has said she prefers spaceflight participant to space tourist, but whatever you call it, this Iranian American entrepreneur blazed a trail when she self-funded her way to the International Space Station (ISS). She has since become a proponent of the privatisation of space and has announced plans to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles for commercial use.

At time of writing, 57-year-old Peggy Whitson is actually in space, serving aboard the International Space Station. On 24 April 2017, she broke the record for the longest total time spent in space by any Nasa astronaut (534 days) and, in recognition of her achievement, received a televised phone call from the Oval Office. President Trump expressed his hope that a Nasa astronaut would land on Mars during my first term or, at worst, during my second term, to which Whitson responded: Well do our best.

On 5 November 2013, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars, making India the first nation in the world to do so on its first attempt. Nandini Harinath, a 20-year veteran of ISRO and mother of two, was one of several female scientists to work on the project, working 20-hour days during the launch.

Hidden Figures is launching on Blu-ray and DVD on 3 July, and is available on Digital Download now.

Read the original:

More hidden figures: 10 women who helped take us to space - The Guardian