Making Space for Women

Name: Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Price: 27.90 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal
ISBN: 9781623499938

Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center

From the creation of the Manned Spacecraft Center to the launching of the International Space Station and beyond, Making Space for Women explores how careers for women at Johnson Space Center have changed over the past fifty years as the workforce became more diverse and fields once closed to women — the astronaut corps and flight control — began to open. Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal has selected 21 interviews conducted for the NASA Oral History Projects, including those with astronauts, mathematicians, engineers, secretaries, scientists, trainers, managers, and more. The women 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.

The narratives highlight the societal and cultural changes these women witnessed and the lessons they learned as they pursued different career paths. Among those included are Joan E. Higginbotham, mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery; Natalie V. Saiz, first female director of the Human Resource Office; Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space; Estella Hernández Gillette, the deputy director of the center’s External Relations Office; and Carolyn Huntoon, the first woman director of the Johnson Space Center. With their unique view of the history of human spaceflight, the women featured in this book demonstrate that there are no boundaries or limits to a career at NASA.