10 women who have made space history.
On July 20th as we all should know (and be registered for) is Code Club’s favourite day of the year Moonhack!
Moonhack is a world record breaking event for the most kids coding on the one day. It is celebrated on the anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module landing.
This was a significant day for humans everywhere, as we defied the odds to send the first people to the moon, and has paved the way for space travel and exploration!
But what about the incredible women who have been vital to space exploration and discovery throughout history and today?
Here is just a handful of the females that have made their mark on Earth, and in space, setting the path for future generation of female coders, scientist and astronauts!
At 81 years old Susan Finley is the longest serving women at NASA, working for the agency since 1958. She began as a human computer performing trajectory computations for rocket launches by hand!
Finley has played a role in nearly every U.S. and international unmanned space probe to date, developing incredible software and space communication innovations that continue to be crucial to space missions today!
A professional skydiver, with no piloting experience Valentina Tereshkova was the first women in space, launching into orbit in 1963. She was chosen over more than 400 candidates to make the journey, circling Earth 48 times over three days. She endured 18 months of training, paving the way for the other 59 women who have made the journey into the great unknown.
Margaret Hamilton led the team of inflight software developers for the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. She created the code by hand that would go into the onboard computer systems of the spacecraft. Before this, there was no such thing as software, so by creating the command module, Hamilton had created the entire software industry that we know today and the first mobile computer! (all while being a mother we might add).
In 1987 Mae Jemison became the first African American women to be admitted in to the NASA Astronaut Training Program, shortly after earning the title of science mission specialist. She became responsible for conducting crew-related scientific experiments on the space shuttle, and in 1992 she made the journey into space becoming the first African American women to enter space. After leaving NASA a year later, she founded her own company that researches and develops advanced technologies.
A trained doctor, Chiaki Mukai, is the first Japanese female astronaut, with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Traveling to space in both 1994 and 1998, she is the first Japanese women to go to space twice, spending 566 hours in space altogether. Mukai also assisted in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, which continues to bring us amazing pictures of space to this day, inspiring kids and future astronauts everywhere.
Andrea Boyd is the only Australian who works for the International Space Station!
Stationed at the European Astronaut Centre in Germany, when astronauts on the ISS contact the command centre, her voice is the only one they hear. As the Flight Operations Engineer, Boyd assists with any issues that the astronauts face on anyone of their 200 experiments that they run at the same time!
Planning to be Australia’s first female astronaut and fourth Australian in space Beth Jens works at the famous Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which develops much of NASA’s rocket technology. Jens is currently working on new ways of fuelling small space vehicles and on a new science system for the next space rover.
Vera Rubin, an american astronomer world famous in her field for her incredible discovery of evidence of dark matter (a form of matter that is believed to account for approximately 80% of the matter in the universe essentially holding it together). Her discovery has lead to many more discoveries and investigations into the wonders of the universe. Throughout her life she continued to advocate and campaign for women in science.
Field geologist Abigail Allwood is the first Australian and first female to lead a team at NASA, and is one of the seven principal science investigators in NASA’s next mission to Mars in 2020. In 2014, Allwood invented the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), which would be used to analyse very small, grain-sized portions of rocks to look for traces of organic material, which will be mounted to the next Mars rover to look for life on Mars!
An Irish astrophysicist, Jocelyn Burnell is credited with discovering radio pulsars, which is one of the most significant discoveries of the twentieth century. Scientist use radio pulsars, which are rotating neutron stars to search for planets beyond our solar system. At different times in Burnell’s career, she was president of the Royal Astronomical Society, president of the Institute of Physics, and was the first woman President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh!
We could go on forever about all the amazing women that have made a significant contribution to space discovery and understanding. These incredible women paved the way for not only each other but future generations to follow their dreams, work hard and reach for the stars.
So this Moonhack and every Moonhack after, we remember and thank these amazing women and work towards a future where even more girls can make their mark!
