Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center

by Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal, Barbara Morgan (Foreword)

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 twenty-one 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. Making Space for Women offers a unique view of the history of human spaceflight while also providing a broader understanding of changes in American culture, society, industry, and life for women in the space program. The women featured in this book demonstrate that there are no boundaries or limits to a career at NASA for those who choose to seize the opportunity.

Genres: Nonfiction

464 pages, Hardcover

Published January 17, 2022

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, this book is essentially an edited collection of oral histories previously recorded by NASA. Does that lessen the importance? Absolutely not. In this book, you get a variety of women's experiences working for NASA at JSC. Some were scientists, administrators or astronauts. You get a lot of different perspectives from different points in the space program. This would be a great choice for someone interested in women's roles at NASA and in STEM.

[Kristen Holland Shear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of autobiographies. Edited by the historian at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the collection includes chapters from all ranks and divisions of service. Some of the entries are dense, so it took me a bit to read the entire collection. I really enjoyed learning more about how NASA in recent decades has encouraged and supported women to pursue all roles, including those that were once oy available to men. All these women are heroes in my book. They enabled those after them to have better access and opportunity.

[Cassy]

Who recommended this book to me: Her interesting and inspiring anecdotes at Texas Book Festival '22, still leery of format

[Sharon (Christy) Gentry · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you love your work, you never work a day in your life. Perhaps you have heard this before? This is on display at NASA, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas. Dr. Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal’s “Making Space for Women” shows us that NASA JSC is fundamentally a very good employer for women today. But as a NASA Historian, Dr. Ross knew the path was not always easy for women to work in society, much less NASA, and she gave voice to the history of our nation’s space program and its impact on women in their own words, through interviews.

This book spans our nation’s space program beginning with how it was originally formed, its original selection of astronauts, and the events of our Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, Space Shuttle and the newest Space Launch System Programs. Women not yet seen in motion picture films today are the secretaries, administrative assistants, technicians, astronauts, and upper management featured in all of these programs. Some stories told by employees actually interweave in time.

When our space program was young, there were no “space stores” to buy equipment. There were no instruction manuals on anything. There are women contributing to these functions. Women were mathematically proving where our astronauts could go. There are women making sure our astronauts suits are safe for their tasks, whether they are designing to sew and create the suit or fitting the suit on the astronaut in preparation for an actual mission. There are women building our space vehicles. There were women helping with the tragedies of the loss of the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia. There were women on the Investigation Boards examining the cause of the tragedies. Obviously, there are women astronauts, and you will read about their missions, learning something you did not know about our space program. And there are women in upper management positions at both Space Centers (Texas and Florida), and there are women at NASA Headquarters in Washington. You meet them. You hear how much fun they were having. You learn that scientists took a back seat to technicians to allow them to design processes and products used by the Agency, and you learn about technicians with design patents because of this.

Being a space nerd from the Teacher in Space era, I learned things I never knew in this book. Not only were the stories interesting, but the untold stories illustrated by photo about other secretaries and astronauts were equally as interesting. Because of the fullness of the End Notes, further research is made possible with information provided by Dr. Ross.

Not only is this book new and thought provoking for space nerds, but I believe it will be helpful to teachers, school administrators, and everyone working with young people in the STEM (Science, Technology and Math) disciplines.

If you are interested in our nation’s space program and would like to work for NASA, do not underestimate your potential to contribute. Dr. Ross’s book will encourage, inform, educate, thrill, and keep you reading without putting the book down.