Eileen Collins and Spacewoman, a documentary about breaking glass ceilings

Eileen Collins knew she wanted to be an astronaut at nine years old. It didn't matter that no astronauts were women at the time. She determined she would be a "lady astronaut." Collins went on to become an accomplished military pilot and the first woman to pilot the space shuttle in 1995, and the first woman space shuttle commander in 1999. Collins storied career included commanding Discovery on NASA's "Return to Flight" mission in 2005, where she performed a historic rendezvous pitch maneuver. 

By Robert Markowitz - Great Images in NASA (archive)
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6449908

Collin's book, Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission, which chronicled her journey to NASA and space, was released in 2021. In 2024, director Hannah Berryman, alongside Eileen Collins and co-writer Jonathon H.Ward, created the documentary Spacewoman. The documentary has enjoyed a limited release in the UK and was screened at the DOC NYC film festival. It is expected to be released for general viewing in 2026. 

In a BBC interview in October, Collins spoke about her years breaking glass ceilings to become a space shuttle pilot and commander. She notes the pressure and importance she felt being the first woman, knowing she was creating a path for others to follow.

"As the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, I worked very hard at that because I didn't want people to say, 'Oh look, the woman has made a mistake'. Because it wasn't just about me, it was about the women to follow me," she says. "And I wanted there to be a reputation for women pilots that was: 'Hey, they're really good'."

Read the rest of Collins'  thoughts from the BBC interview at the BBC website. View the trailer for Spacewoman on YouTube. And if you can't wait until the release in 2026, you can always read the book first! Find out more at eileencollins.com. 

4th of July Stars of All Stripes

Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1921)
Image Credit: William Henry

On the 158th anniversary of her birth, we celebrate Henrietta Swan Leavitt and other stars. 

Swan Leavitt was one of the many Harvard computers who catalogued hundreds of thousands of stars and made important contributions to advances in Astronomy. Her particular contribution was measurements of the relative brightness of Cepheid variable stars, which helped scientists to determine distances to stars. After her death from cancer in 1921, her work was used by Edwin Hubble to determine that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the observable universe. Exercises utilizing the Leavitt Law are common in Astronomy classes around the world.

It seems appropriate that Henrietta was born on the 4th of July. Afterall, Cepheids get brighter and fainter in the sky just like fireworks.

Happy Birthday, Henrietta!

(L) Shannon Lucid on Mir.
(R) Susan Helms in the Spacelab module.

In 1996, two women astronauts unknowingly donned the same celebratory socks, as they flew in space on different stations on the 4th of July. Shannon Lucid was aboard the Russian space station Mir, and Susan Helms was in the Spacelab module during the STS-78 mission. 

The sky never fails to deliver a fantastic show, even if clouds get in the way. Check out some of the July 4th posts at Astronomy Picture of the Day.

• 2017 APOD: Celestial Fireworks 
• 2013 APOD: Starburst Galaxy
• 2007 APOD: Red, White, and Blue Sky
• 1998 APOD: Firework Nebula

Be safe out there.

AASWomen Newsletter for December 8, 2023

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 8, 2023
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]

Evelyn Fox Keller
(Image: Rick Friedman/Corbis, via Getty Images)

This week's issues:

1. Repost: Don’t Masculinize the Letter of Recommendation: Towards a Truly Gender-Brave Science Community
2. Astronomy Award Winners Announced
3. Reimagining the Astronomy PhD for the 21st Century
4. Mary Cleave, ‘trailblazing’ astronaut, dies at 76
5. Evelyn Fox Keller (1936–2023), philosopher who questioned gender roles in science
6. "For Women in Science" celebrates the first hundred Mexican scientists supported by the L'Oréal-UNESCO national programme
7. STEM gender gap shows no signs of closing with Gen Z
8. Brite 2024 Application Now Open
9. Job Opportunities
10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter 

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

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Crosspost: NASA astronaut Sally Ride statue to be unveiled in Los Angeles on July 4

By Elizabeth Howell for space.com

Image from space.com article.
Image credit: Steven Barber via collectSPACE.com

An Independence Day ceremony will bring a little more space to a presidential museum.

A statue of former NASA astronaut Sally Ride will be unveiled July 4 outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, situated west of her hometown of Los Angeles, as part of a series of female-focused monuments designed by filmmaker Steven Barber.

"There's just so many great science female icons that we can build," said Barber, who also designed a bronze statue of Ride that was dedicated in June 2022 at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, in the greater New York City area.

Read more here.

Eds Note: Sally Ride (1951-2012) was the first American woman to fly in space, on STS-7 in 1983. She earned a PhD in Physics from Stanford in 1978, and she was selected as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8. In her class of 35 astronaut candidates, she was one of six women.

AASWomen Newsletter for September 25, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of September 25, 2020
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]

Spacesuit engineer Kristine Davis, item 1.
Credit: JOEL KOWSKY/NASA

This week's issues:

1. Government Executive: The Future of Space is Female

2. Major Physics Publisher Goes Double Blind

3. Diversity in science: next steps for research group leaders

4. The US National Academy of Sciences can now kick out harassers. So why hasn't it?

5. Fixing the Leaky Pipeline: Hispanic Heritage Month

6. COVID's Surprising Toll On Careers Of Women Scientists

7. Boiling points: 8 ways in which The Leadership reveals STEMM’s gender problems

8. Math-intensive fields have a gender problem: The men are worse at math

9. Job Opportunities

10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for January 24, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of January 24, 2020
eds: JoEllen McBride, Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and Alessandra Aloisi

The Sensoria 1 crew, from item 3 (Image credit: SENSORIA Program)

This week's issues:

1. Call for Information: Publication Policy and General Codes of Conduct for Consortia and Mission Teams

2. Hester Pulter's 17th-century Spaceflight of Imagination

3. The first all-woman Mars analog crew just 'returned to Earth' in Hawaii

4. Scientific Meetings for All

5. Want more women in leadership roles? Recognize their accomplishments

6. NextProf Science 2020 Opportunity at the University of Michigan

7. From Pixel to Cosmology in the 2020s

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for July 19, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of July 19, 2019
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[AAS has migrated their email system to Microsoft Exchange, so please check your spam folder if you did not receive the newsletter this week. It is no longer possible to subscribe or unsubscribe to the AASWomen newsletter by means of Google Groups. We have updated our subscribe and unsubscribe instructions below. Please follow us on social media for updates and thank you for bearing with us as we work out all the kinks.
Twitter @AAS_Women Facebook https://bit.ly/2PkU9of

Margaret W. "Hap" Brennecke in 1964, Credit: NASA

This week's issues:

1. Your Memories of Dr. Margaret Burbidge

2. Margaret "Hap" Brennecke: The woman who welded Apollo's rockets

3. Women of Apollo

4. A Woman's Place is in Space: Meet Eight Asian American Women Reaching for the Stars

5. The Black Women Food Scientists Who Created Meals For Astronauts

6. To Make It to the Moon, Women Have to Escape Earth's Gender Bias

7. While NASA Was Landing on the Moon, Many African-Americans Sought Economic Justice Instead

8. Three generations of space experts react to the Moon landings

9. SETI Institute Collaborates with Girl Scouts to Develop New Space Science Badges

10. Science history: Esther Conwell 'jump-started the computer age'

11. The universal Universe or making astronomy inclusive

12. Jeffrey Epstein liked palling around with scientists - What do the think now?

13. How Coding Has Changed (And Not) For Women In The Past 30 Years

14. Girls' superb verbal skills may contribute to the gender gap in math

15. At STEM Competitions, Gender Norms Still Hold Girls Back

16. Astronomy Club Sets Netflix Sketch Comedy Series With Kenya Barris Producing

17. Job Opportunities

18. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

19. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

20. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for June 21, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 21, 2019
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[AAS has migrated their email system to Microsoft Exchange, so please check your spam folder if you did not receive the newsletter this week. It is no longer possible to subscribe or unsubscribe to the AASWomen newsletter by means of Google Groups. We have updated our subscribe and unsubscribe instructions below. Please follow us on social media for updates and thank you for bearing with us as we work out all the kinks.
Twitter @AAS_Women Facebook https://bit.ly/2PkU9of

Sally Ride, from item 2

This week's issues:

1. Crosspost: Symposium in Honor of the Legacy of Vera Rubin

2. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space 36 years ago today

3. A Push For More Inclusivity In Science

4. US science agencies report ‘shockingly low’ rates of harassment complaints

5. NIH should ask both institutions and investigators to report sexual harassment findings, advisory group says

6. Unintended consequences of gender-equality plans

7. Psychology Today: It’s Not You, It’s Them

8. Where Are All the Working Mothers in STEM?

9. Making space for female scientists' voices online, in the media and in person

10. Why women in tech are being Photoshopped in instead of hired

11. What it's like to be a trans scientist with imposter syndrome - Lady Science

12. An interview with the CLEAR Lab’s Queer Science Reading Group

13. Job Opportunities

14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

16. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

The First Lady Astronaut Trainees: Time for a Congressional Gold Medal

The Congressional Gold Medal, our nation's highest civilian honor, has been given over 200 times. Fewer than 10% of the medals have been received by women and just five (5!) have been awarded for outstanding contributions in air and space exploration. The good news is that legislation to award Gold Medals to the “Hidden Figures” is moving forward and the better news is that momentum is building to also support a nomination for the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs), also known as the “Mercury 13”.

I first learned about these women when I read Martha Ackmann's book and had the privilege of meeting both Martha and Wally Funk, one of the FLATs, when they visited Albion College in 2008. As a result of this visit, I have started a campaign to nominate this group of 13 women aviators for the Congressional Gold Medal. 

The FLATs were tested for “the right stuff” by NASA doctor William Lovelace almost 60 years ago and proved themselves to be just as good as, if not better than, the Mercury 7 astronauts in withstanding extreme physical and psychological tests. Results of the tests eventually lead to the inclusion of women within NASA’s astronaut corps, with Sally Ride paving the way for American women in 1983 and Eileen Collins becoming the first female pilot to command a space shuttle in 1995.

Members of the FLATs, at the launch of shuttle pilot Eileen Collins in 1995 (NASA image).

In the current era of renewed interest in space exploration, and in the spirit of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, I believe it is imperative to recognize the 13 FLATs, six of whom are still alive, for their trailblazing accomplishments that demonstrated women are just as capable and qualified as men in the exploration of space. These women are:

Jerrie Cobb (Oklahoma)

Wally Funk (New Mexico)

Myrtle “K” Cagle (North Carolina)

Gene Nora Stumbough [Jessen] (Oklahoma)

Rhea Hurrle [Woltman] (Colorado)

Sarah Gorelick [Ratley] (Kansas)

Irene Leverton (Illinois, now deceased)

Jane B. Hart (Michigan, now deceased)

Jerri Sloan [Truhill] (Texas, now deceased)

Bernice “B” Trimble Steadman (Michigan, now deceased)

Jan Dietrich (California, now deceased)

Marion Dietrich (California, now deceased)

Jean Hixson (Illinois, now deceased)

To support the nomination of the FLATs for the Congressional Gold Medal, sign the petition and/or contact your local representative. Thank you!

Read more:

about the nomination

from the NASA History Office

about the 2018 Netflix documentary

AASWomen Newsletter for September 28, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of September 28, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

This week's issues:

1. Women in Space Conference

2. A Hologram of the First Woman of Color in Space Debuted on Museum Day

3. Women much less likely to ask questions in academic seminars than men

4. Portrayals of female STEM characters in TV and film haven't improved in 10 years

5. The People Who Could Have Done Science Didn't

6. A lack of digital skills could be hurting young professional women

7. Google's Notable Women app uses AR to put women on any US bill

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Cross-Post: 35 Years Since Sally Rode ...

The US Postal Service recently
issued a Sally Ride "forever stamp".
Image from collectspace.com.

June 18, 2018 marked 35 years since Sally Ride's historic flight into space. 

I was a young girl at the time of Sally's flight, and I don't recall much of the hype surrounding the launch. However, looking back and seeing how she and her five female astronaut classmates (and 29 male classmates) changed - in fact, equalized and enabled - spaceflight probably had some effect on my career trajectory. I do know that by working on the ultraviolet telescope mission, STS-67, and meeting Tammy Jernigan (astronomer) and Wendy Lawrence (pilot), two astronauts who flew on that mission, my plans to do research in space science were solidified. 

Read more at

https://campus.albion.edu/nzellner/2018/06/25/35-years-since-sally-rode/

and/or tell us how these female astronauts influenced your career in the comments below.

Are Times a Changin?

There is a side of me that is celebrating the many advances of my female colleagues in recent months. As a former NASA employee I am truly heartened by the leadership roles taken by women in two of my favorite projects, the Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory where the NASA Headquarters Program Scientist, the NASA Goddard Project Scientist and Deputy Project Scientist are all women and on the new Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX (GEMS) mission where most of the leadership roles are occupied by women.

Then we hear that Space shuttle Discovery launched recently to deliver spare parts and science experiments to the international space station contains among its crew three women.

With its crew of seven astronauts, this mission is carrying supplies and science equipment for the international space station's laboratories. The 13-day mission includes three planned spacewalks, replacing an ammonia tank assembly and retrieving a Japanese experiment from the station's exterior. NASA said Discovery's mission will mark the first time four women have been in space at one time: Three women -- mission specialists Stephanie Wilson, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger and Naoko Yamazaki -- comprise part of the Discovery's crew, while NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson is already at the space station.

I cannot help but ponder the question. Is something going on here? I know over half of these women and I am here to tell you that they were selected based on merit and competence, without question. These are not connected events and yet it would seem to be a significant advance. My overwhelming reaction is to be disappointed in myself for even wondering about it because just perhaps we are getting closer to the point where the gender of the participants will no longer hit the consciousness of male old timers like me. Then why is NASA making such a big deal out of it? Maybe I should be wondering why the latest Shuttle crew only contains three women if I give it a thought at all.