The feat of the first flyby of Pluto probe controlled more than 4.828 million kilometers away is also due to a group of 32 women. They represent 25 percent of the team of scientists and technicians who dealt launched almost nine years ago and then control the New Horizons probe. Even one woman, Alice Bowman, played a leading role in the team. She is the director of operations. Informally, they call it the “mother” of the NASA mission.
“We did it,” Bowman said Wednesday when he received the message of the probe and found to be still in operation after having flown the dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. The project manager of the mission, Glen Fountain, the woman said in a lecture to an auditorium with adults and children: “Alice, you guided the spacecraft through the solar system.” And the guys started yelling “Alice, Alice, Alice” and applauded. The head of NASA, Charles Bolden, also greeted and embraced.
Bowman is the first director of operations of a space mission in the history of NASA. Since childhood, I was determined that I was going to be like the characters he admired TV series in the sixties: Star Trek and Lost in Space.
Wednesday announced with tears of joy to his team: “We have a warehouse in good condition.” The probe had passed just 12,430 kilometers of Pluto and sent him the message that he confirmed that moved smoothly to dwarf planet. Bowman revealed: “I can not explain what it means to achieve the dream of my childhood. I want to tell children and their parents: make your passion. Although not easy, even hard, do what they think they have to do. Now, let out of the solar system. ” The woman, which is mother and plays the clarinet in his short time freely spent many hours of work devoted to monitoring the probe for years.
Other women of the mission is Fran Bagenal, who began working at NASA’s Voyager 1 mission to Jupiter and Saturn in 1977. At that time, there were very few women on campus. She concentrated on particles and plasma was his “way of exploring the solar system.” Has been working on the New Horizons mission since I was only on paper, in 1989. Leslie Young also brings its commitment: was responsible for assigning the priority list to the observations made both houses of the New Horizons spacecraft when he was very near Pluto.
The successful flyby of the probe could not have happened without the precise work of Guo Yanping, who is the lead designer of the mission launched in 2006. It was the woman who set the whole course of the mission, including both flyby of Jupiter in 2007 as Pluto Tuesday. “My job was to make New Horizon reaches Pluto,” he said simply. In the coming years, the probe will overflights Kuiper belt objects. Also in the team Adriana Ocampo Uria, who was born in Colombia and raised in Argentina to 14 years. He then moved with his family to the United States, and 21 years, having joined NASA in decoding the Viking probes to Mars were.
It is no coincidence that the New Horizons probe count on greater female participation in previous missions. His principal investigator Alan Stern, is actively recruiting young scientists and women to the team ranked. In the sector of the youngest of NASA, there are more women now than 40 years ago.
At present, 6,000 women work in the US space agency in a total of 17,345 employees. The authorities have acknowledged that more women are missing from the federal institution and want to increase their presence. “We are not as successful in employing women and minorities on campus. And it’s not intentional, “said Charles Bolden, the general manager of NASA. They opened or website to make visible the contributions of women scientists and astronauts (women.nasa.gov) and are developing initiatives that encourage children and teenagers to choose more study careers related to astronomy and planetary science.
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