Ellen Ochoa

Lofty goals

By Nancy Miller Barton
Austinwoman magazine

There is a link on the NASA webpage that says simply “NASA In Your Life.” Read further and you’ll learn how “NASA satellites provide allergy relief,” or that you can thank NASA’s satellite technology for the clear sound on your cross-country cell phone calls.

They’re credited with development of the smoke detector – and please don’t forget NASA’s contribution to Michael Phelps. The Olympian’s space age Speedo was made of fabric tested for drag reduction by – you guessed it – NASA. With such an impressive portfolio, it’s almost hard to believe it’s been just 50 years since the space agency came into being.

Plenty has changed in science and our society since 1958. It wasn’t until 1983 that the first American woman was able to launch into space, giving Sally Ride her place in history. Judith Resnik and later, Kathryn Sullivan, the first American female spacewalker, followed Ride.

These women and others forged a path to the stars for Dr. Ellen Ochoa, who, in 1993, became the first Hispanic woman in space. Ochoa’s flown four space missions, logging 978 hours in space, and says looking back at earth from that vantage point is something you never get used to. Today, Ochoa is Deputy Director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

This mother of two young boys sat down with austinwoman recently to kick off the new To the Moon exhibit, now showing at the LBJ Library in honor of NASA’s 50th Anniversary. The stars must be aligned, as the anniversary coincides with the Centennial of President Lyndon Johnson’s birth. Johnson co-sponsored the legislation that created NASA.

From one giant step for man – and woman – to NASA’s current plans for the future, Ochoa tells us there is still, well, excitement in the air.

Q: I remember my Mom waking me up to watch the first man stepping onto the moon. In light of all its accomplishments, it’s hard to believe NASA is so young. What do you see for its future?

Ochoa: At Johnson Space Center, what we really focus on is space flight. We are continuing to use the shuttle to assemble the International Space Station. We have 10 shuttle flights left before we retire that vehicle. Next year we are doubling the crew size … Beyond that there is the new Constellation Program which is the one that is going to move humans beyond Earth’s orbit and take us back to the moon and on to Mars. We have the Orion Space Craft in development that will take people back to the moon hopefully around 2020. We have a prototype lunar vehicle that astronauts can use to maneuver around on the moon when we return, called the Chariot. A lot of development activity … Both the International Space Station and an outpost on the moon are going to move us to understanding what it’s going to take to get to Mars and to survive there for a longer mission – a several-year mission.

Q: The goal is to stop on the moon, then go on to Mars?
Ochoa: We’ll build-up to an outpost where astronauts can stay six months-at-a-time.
We’ll have a habitat. The number one point is to understand what it takes to live away from the earth … the moon is a couple of days away, but Mars is months away. You want to learn what you can when you’re still in Earth’s neighborhood, so to speak. There are many fascinating reasons to spend time on the moon from a scientific point of view and to understand what sorts of resources the moon can offer people here on Earth or as we think of exploring out further. We won’t even know exactly what we can get from it until we’re there.

Q: As young women today look toward careers in science, times and options have changed since NASA was created in the 1950s.

Ochoa: Women weren’t selected as astronauts until the space shuttle was developed. The first six women joined in 1978. I was selected in 1990. Clearly, any woman in a position like I’m in now owes a great debt to the women who came before me. They did open doors, not only the first six women astronauts, but the women before them who said it’s important that women have these opportunities, who pushed for equal rights, who pushed for Title IX, allowed women to enter all different kinds of fields.

When I was in high school looking at colleges … I looked into the military academies, and at that time they weren’t selecting women. The year after I started college was the first year the academies were open to women. I was sort of right on the wave of a lot of opportunities opening up for women … On one of my space flights I took a flag from the National Women’s Party that they used in the early 1900s as they were pushing for the right to vote and unfurled it in the middle of the space station that was being built. Clearly, a lot of people had worked for a long time to provide women the opportunities that we have today.

Ochoa says her interest in being an astronaut came from her studies in math and science. As deputy director at Johnson Space Center, she works to encourage young women, and others, to study those fields. Dr. Ochoa is a very businesslike, obviously knowledgeable, woman. She has little time for the curious questions about doubts and second thoughts the moment she first blasted off into space:

“Mostly what you’re concentrating on is that people are depending on you to do your job,” or about what it’s like gazing out the window orbiting earth: “you can’t totally prepare for what it’s going to feel like, what it’s going to look like.”

She doesn’t think twice about her survival training in the wilderness – she had to turn her parachute into a tent. Her focus is clearly on the big picture now, literally on the stars and beyond. She likely won’t be on the mission to Mars, but is laying the groundwork for the men and women who will.

There is a 1958 quote by then Senator Johnson on the wall of the To The Moon exhibit at the LBJ Library that reads, “We must look upon outer space as a challenge to the creative impulse of mankind. And if we meet that challenge properly we may find the road to lasting peace truly lies in the stars.” With a caretaker like Ellen Ochoa, no dream seems too lofty.