No Glass Ceiling

11/4/07 – 11/10/07

by C. Zaitz

When I was visiting my parents in Rochester, NY, I saw a headline in the local paper about Pamela Melroy, a retired US Air Force Colonel. She was a local girl, one of the very few female pilots who had made it successfully through the astronaut training program. She is only the second commander of the Space Shuttle, and most likely the last.

Melroy got degrees in physics and astronomy from Wellesley College, a female-only institution patterned after Mount Holyoke Seminary (College in 1893), the first of seven famous colleges for women. These so-called “seven sisters” were chartered in the late 1800s when women had little opportunity for the excellent education that men had from the so-called Ivy League schools. Currently only five of the seven are still private women’s colleges, but those five still strive to give women an excellent education and the self confidence of succeeding in often male-dominated fields. Apparently it worked for Pamela Melroy. As she herself said in a commencement address, “The environment gives women a place to dream without being restricted or blinded by culturally generated limits.”

One of a very select group of shuttle pilots, Melroy is definitely a minority at NASA. She is one of 18 female astronauts out of a group of 91. Strangely, and for the first time ever, she is one of the two women in charge on the current mission. While she commands the space shuttle Discovery, her colleague Peggy Whitson will serve as the Station Commander on board the International Space Station. The fact that for the first time in the 50 year history of spaceflight that two women will be commanding is a rare coincidence, NASA says. The fact is, Melroy is most likely the last shuttle commander, and the only female test pilot left at NASA.

The shuttle’s days are numbered. NASA is phasing out the shuttle in favor of an updated launch vehicle, Orion. From the first flight of the Columbia in 1981 to the recent launch of Discovery, the Space Transportation System, NASA’s official handle for the shuttle, has been an astoundingly reliable workhorse of our space program. Of the120 flights of the entire fleet, Discovery has flown 33 of them. However, the loss of even one vehicle means the loss of the astronauts within it. Out of the original five shuttles built, only three remain. Considering the danger of launching and landing such an unwieldy vehicle, the statistics of 2% death rate per astronaut-flight seem like a small risk. But each one of those twelve deaths in the two shuttle disasters was painful and very difficult to overcome.

It is the tragedy of loss that spurs us on to build a bigger and better space exploration vehicle. And it is the spirit of adventure and the willingness to risk her life that allows people like Pam Melroy to follow her dream against the odds to become an astronaut, and to command the Discovery.

The last trips planned for the remaining shuttles are in 2010. After that, Orion will take over for the return to the Moon and possibly one day to Mars. Astronaut tryouts are coming, and astronaut school begins in 2009, in case you want to clear your calendar!

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.