Space For Women (1981)

for [Music] see there are many things in the history of the world that were once thought to be [Music] impossible we see a Healy 4 and V this time notmc at all [Music] as our Earth speeds around the Sun at over 60,000 mph we are coming to realize more and more that many of the obstacles and problems that daily confront us are in reality merely opportunities opportunities to break free of our fears and ancient taboos and we are discovering too that the very process of freeing ourselves forces us to learn more and more about ourselves and the world in which we live for an awful long time 2,000 years people assumed that there was a Schism between the mind and the body there was the intellect and there was emotion but only until recently do we realize just how much of the time we actually influence the ongoing physiological activity in our own bodies by what we think about well every every stimulus every stimuli in your environment that impinges on an organism is reflected to some extent physiologically at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration a number of scientists are deeply involved with programs that Foster the development of the Mind as a psychophysiologist I study the ways in which people adapt adjust to stressful environments and uh working within the uh space agency really affords a rather unique opportunity for a psychophysiologist to see people working at the the limits of human capability um if it's possible to understand the ways in which people adapt to the unusual environment of zero gravity and sustained weightlessness uh sustained long duration man space flight then it's possible to understand really how people adapt to unusual environments on the [Music] airc there are many lessons to be learned from nature and from the universe through which our world spins Chief among these is the fact that the world is changing rapidly and at a rate faster than our most sophisticated technological inventions can perceive or record as we humans strive to keep pays with these changes the development of the human mind becomes increasingly crucial to our survival what I began to study in graduate school was psychosomatic Health if the mind can make you sick the mind can make you well and that's essentially the basis of the research that I and several hundreds of researchers now are working on within an area called Behavioral Medicine MH what are we measuring here well well you know we're measuring EKG here but you remember that the major symptoms that you showed in the first and second tests were heart rate changes and you showed uh significant constriction of the blood vessels in your hand so if you just remember those two exercises and keep your breathing paste you should be okay on this test okay but you know you just do the best Dr Patricia cowens is a psychophysiologist whose specialty is Behavioral Medicine she's one of a growing number of women working at the highest levels of responsibility in the scientific community of NASA her research will help to unravel some of the mysteries of survival in outer space SCA pilot Fitz Bolton has called out proper separation Al ude 5 4 3 2 1 we do have separation Chase planes are calling clear the Orbiter has nosed over and is now on its way to the final descent to the runway it was in the early days of the Space Shuttle when it was first testing its wings that women and minorities began entering the professional ranks of NASA truly Phillips was one of those women pilots in the Orbiter are Jole and Dick truy the Orbiter cre has pitch the nose of the should be making a final [Music] decision the Orbiter is coming in over the runway at Edwards we should have touchdown [Music] momentarily the more you think about it the more apparent it becomes that human intelligence will be of increasing importance in the future survival of the human race on this spaceship called Earth we are learning to respect that intelligence in whatever form or color it appears when the first space shuttle was tested in the mid 1970s the director of the Space Shuttle operations at dren was an x-air force test pilot named Ike Gillum since that time Gillum has been promoted to the position of director of the Brion Space Center in California it was from him that the first female and minority group astronauts received their introduction to the Enterprise NASA's first space shuttle and from wing tip to wing tip is Baseline to Baseline on a tennis court got about capable of standing about 700° of temperature and the highest temperature resistance portion that we have is the Leading Edge of the wing that's reinforced carbon carbon and you'll notice when we get around front the tip of the nose in the 21st century the ranks of our space Travelers must be filled with people of not only High Intelligence but great stamina because the challenges of outer space will be many each one of those challenges will represent a seed of opportunity for human [Music] growth to achieve this growth all prejudices taboos habits of human thought must be cast aside for the safety and survival of a spacecraft depend on the Excellence both mental and physical of all on [Music] board how do these newer space Travelers feel about being astronauts [Music] when you were first made aware of the fact that you had been selected how did you react to that well you have to appreciate I was in the middle of writing a PhD thesis and uh that tends to swamp out a lot of other things and I was obviously very excited um and I remember the morning and the whole day in fact quite well and was just very happy and very excited but then all the Press activity took off at such a tremendous rate too that um um that sort of masked over personal celebrations and personal reactions it was an incredibly busy and exciting day but it was just a great big blur too I happened to go to a school for my bachelor's degree where grades were not actually given you were given a pass or a fail and you were a critique was written by the professor how well you had done in the class you didn't get just a letter grade by the authority vested in Me by the Senate of delhusa University I admit you to the degree of doctor of philosophy with all the rights and privileges there to retaining and I congratulate you but still I always found that my performance in the class was best my results from the professors were best when my only motive was to learn the most I could and as I say I never aimed for the space program as such all I really thought about was that nothing was worth doing unless you were willing to do what was needed to do the job well self-discipline I think is the top the most important factor and I think it's also important to realize the responsibility that each person has towards all the other people around them waxing philosophical I think we show each other many many lessons just in day-to-day life and we can learn a lot from each other we can give a lot to each other and that will only be that will only reach its highest point if each each of us individually tries to do the best we can that's true for a high school exam or a PhD or being an astronaut you can't you can't just do it for yourself it does count reaching reaching the highest point this is the dream that has sailed across the skies of the human mind for a very long time that highest point is the point at which we achieve excellence in whatever we do but that Excellence must start here on Earth in the objects and structures we build and in the many jobs we perform at Nasa there are numeral jobs each crucial to the space program as a whole [Music] I monitor hazardous operations such as uh construction sites making sure that they're following OA standards the occupational safety and health act we're mostly concerned with investigating potentially hazardous situations on the job for both contractor and NASA Personnel most anything that's potentially hazardous I became a safety specialist through a specialty training for entry professionals and we go through the process of just applying for the job then we'll evaluate it and select it Brenda Willis is one of a growing number of women who are deeply involved in the various programs and projects of NASA is it necessary for a person to have a PhD to advance in the workforce of NASA not at all there are so many different ways in which a person person can pursue a new career within this organization how did you get your start Miss Willis in high school they had the program you know where they would go around and recruit students that were interested in the secretarial field who had had some experience in typing and shorthand and things of that nature and I started out in the clerical field with NASA and by taking the civil service exam you know I became came into NASA as a Clerk typus and just worked myself you know right up through the ranks by going to college in the evenings I've worked on the shuttle program since I've been working here at Nasa over the 5 and 1/2 if you count the contractor time 6 and 1/2 years that I've worked here and it's very fascinating especially when you watch the shuttle and that uh Orbiter just Glides in and lands On Target it you get you get goosebumps knowing that you were an active part in making history happen well the space program has always held a Fascination to me I can remember that when they first landed on the moon we sat up all night uh my mother was making hot chocolate and she was sitting there and we were all of us kids were sitting around the television said waiting for purple people to come out and eat up the astronauts so I have to admit that I never believed that I would actually be here taking a part in all of uh this technology and and all of this going to the moon and and a unique happiness Shirley Shaler is an electrical engineer or on the space shuttle Shirley chalier how did you become an engineer uh I graduated from a high school that had a senior class of about 38 people and it's a a central Texas town of about 2,000 people so if you were considering a profession you either had the Doctor Who was a role model or you had the school teachers who were role model and I was afraid of the sight of blood and teachers didn't make enough money so uh my oldest brother was in his sophomore year in college majoring in civil engineering when I graduated from high school so I um about that time he asked me well what are you what are you going to do I said well I imagine I'll go to college he said well what are you going to major in I said I don't know maybe engineering he said well forget it said I'm a fellon and Engineering is rough for me he said I don't think you could make it an engineer and I said well I think I can he said anyway what which one are you going to major in and I said well how many cans do they have and he says well that's civil engineering architectural uh mechanical and electrical and I said which one is the hardest and he said electrical engineering so I said okay I'm majoring in electrical engineering and uh I graduated in May of 1971 with a degree and electrical engineering [Music] today women are pursuing a wide variety of careers in Space and Science take Su Norman for example she first came to NASA as a research scientist since that time she has worked in several other fields her current job involves work in aerial and satellite photography but we use both aerial photography and satellite imagery to help in analysis vegetation analysis there are two YouTube pictures which were taken from a side looking angle at 65,000 ft they're color infrared pictures and we use color infrared because it tells us um more about the vegetation on the ground whether it's healthy or whether it's diseased or it's state and uh these pictures are of Northern California the Eureka humble Bay Area and you can see the mountains in the background that have snow on them and if you look closely you can also see it a little bit of the curvature of the earth okay well I think let's see we have two maps this one is a map of the state of California that shows the places where as the satellite passes over it takes sort of one picture what uh made you think initially of a career in space well there were quite a few number one when I was going to school we didn't I didn't belong to a very wealthy family and uh so I really wanted to get a job and go to college and you know have something where I could could make some money so to speak and they had the space act you remember where they would give students loans if you would go into science and I didn't really have enough money to go to school and my family didn't have have enough money either so by taking science classes and well just the whole impetus of the Space Program in the early 60s I was able to get loans to go to school so that was part of it because they would uh give me loans as long as I was in science but I also wanted science you know I felt a natural inclination toward that as opposed to English I'm I'm not a very good speller and I can't write very well so it seemed like my what was me was really science I kept flunking English and other types of things like that what about the business of your being a woman here I mean do you feel you have encountered any kind of well special problems working here because you are a woman well any special problems I think the answer is yes I mean if you're if you're going to be honest you have to say yes they are just not that many women in the professional or scientific field so you find yourself being a minority in the midst of uh in a sense not a minority women are half the population but when I first came to Ames uh there was one other woman in my group of about 30 men and no minorities um the present group I'm in as you can see there are a lot of women and just having the the opportunity to talk with other women and share experiences at least for me as been really helpful and um kind of fun too and I think in that sense it is changing the world is changing changing rapidly and so are our thoughts about ourselves and those around us this is Sharon oransky she's a computer specialist at Nasa how did she begin her career when I went out looking for a job I had sent out 85 applications and I went to a lot of different companies in the area and a lot of the companies were production oriented and you do one thing to fit the needs of the company and when I came here I mean I'm seeing simulators and wind tunnels and animal centrifuges and all kinds of um neat planes Lear Jets I mean that's that's just really exciting for me to work on it and every job is different I can't say that I've ever had a job that repeats a second job I mean they're they're also very different and I enter a new field every [Applause] [Music] time what happened was when I applied here there was a um a person in front of me I couldn't get in there's like the veteran points and I have no veteran points or any kind of points so they were going to bring me in on a special 5x5 program that's where you work halftime and go to school halftime and get paid full and so I applied for that and I applied to Stanford University got accepted but then NASA had a regular position for me so I just came in as a regular NASA employee NASA as employee do you find that you have encountered any problems working at Nasa I mean because you are a woman um I would say maybe not having the background that a lot of the men have had as as um as children you know you grow up and your dad shows you how to fix a car or to fix the stereo I never had that kind of training as a child and I feel I mean I never I never did anything with circuits until I got into engineering I mean I just never you know toyed around with it and that really holds me back I mean just getting out there and getting your hands dirty I am a little slow at I I'd see that maybe as being a woman holding me back um as far as dealing with people I'd almost say they're more willing to deal with me because I'm I'm a little bit different you know and they want to see oh what's a woman engineer really like since you have been a part of the NASA team have you found that um you encounter any problems being a woman I think I have more problems by virtue of the fact that I'm short I'm the shortest person in my lab um most of the people who work here are older than I am uh the majority of them are men I really don't have that much of a problem working with people who are older than I am and who are men because uh as it turns out they realize that I'm the princip investigator and I'm the one that's directing this program and you can get people to work with you without being pushy and telling them what to do you simply explain to them that it's the best idea you know or that uh it's for all of our mutual benefit uh being short is a little difficult though you know do this do that everybody seems to be taller than me but what are you going to do I'll wear heels a lot [Music] as we approach the 21st century there is much to learn about our world and ourselves this learning occurs best in a climate of equal opportunity in that Sunny climate human intelligence trust and total commitment can prosper we become a winning team for purposes of testing equipment and we no longer had a need for that we gave that up about 3 years ago but that is where the water immersion facility will be built that you will be I would like to go into space for a couple of reasons uh the Space Program meets my particular academic needs gives me something that's intellectually challenging also physically challenging but much more important I think that man needs something to dream about uh We've explored our world fair Fairly thoroughly I realize that the oceans remaining that the next three quarters of our world but there's really just two Frontiers left the ocean and space and I'd like to be part of that effort I certainly feel that women are are here to stay as part of the Space Program um you know this time all the women selected were selected as Mission Specialists uh I certainly feel that in future selections with women training as Pilots that there will be uh women selected as Pilots um I think we're here to stay who is to say who will succeed or fail in any task we earthlings undertake for is there really any difference between the minds of males and females the women of NASA don't think so and neither does NASA for it is generally agreed that differences in performance occur when there is a difference in opportunity to learn and to gain experience when I was picked about a year or so ago to be um a backup payload specialist on a on a dress rehearsal of a space Shadow flight I was I was afraid at that time because I thought well maybe maybe I really can't do it but as it turned out uh I was picked because of the investigators who had submitted experiments just as it'll be for an actual flight um the the payload specialist the scientist astronauts are chosen because maybe there's some particular characteristic of their own experiments that would make them themselves be the the best person to conduct that experiment and also because their background their educational background is varied enough to be able to adequately uh carry out other people's experiments on board and as we went through the uh simulation I found out that I I could learn what I had to learn that I was doing just fine fire [Music] and so as we approach the 21st century drifting through the universe at almost 1,000 mes per minute increasingly we are coming to realize that equal opportunity intelligence excellence and teamwork rather than race Creed color or sex are the keys to success in space travel whether we happen to be aboard the space shuttle or on board our mother ship Earth [Music] for