IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2011 16 1942-065X/11/$26.00©2011IEEE

I

Making Space for Women

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2011.942437

Date of publication: 14 October 2011

BY KATIANNE WILLIAMS

OCHOA AND

ANSARI ENSURE THE FUTURE

OF HUMAN SPACE

FLIGHT

IMAGE: NASA/TONY GRAY AND TOM FARRAR

In 1981, Ellen Ochoa, a Stanford graduate student studying optical information processing, watched as the space shuttle Columbia orbited the Earth 37 times. It was the first manned American flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project six years earlier, and the excitement among Ochoa’s predominantly male classmates—many of whom had been in contact with NASA for years in hopes of one day becoming astronauts themselves—was contagious.

Becoming an astronaut was not something Ochoa, born in 1958, had considered or even thought possible while growing up, but when she learned how NASA was using the shuttle as an onboard research lab, she was hooked.

Twelve years later, Ochoa boarded space shuttle Discovery for her fi rst of four trips into space. Today, Ochoa is the deputy director at Johnson Space Center.

DECEMBER 2011 IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE 17

While Ochoa didn’t dis-cover her life’s path until graduate school, Anousheh Ansari had always dreamed of going into space. Fascinated by the stars as a young girl in Iran, she would sleep outside in the summer, gazing up at the night sky. Years later, after immigrating to the United States and growing a successful telecommunications business, the dream still remained.

In the late 1990s Ansari’s dream sud-denly became that much more attainable when millionaire Dennis Tito announced that he had brokered a US$20 million deal to become the fi rst space fl ight participant. Forty years to the month after Russian Yuri Gagarin became the fi rst human in space, Tito planned to fl y aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, thus beginning a new era of commercial space fl ight. Ansari knew then that if she had the funds, she could fl y. In 2006, fi ve years after Tito’s fl ight, Ansari joined the Soyuz crew and realized her dreams. Since then, Ansari has been instrumental in funding and advancing low-cost space fl ight.

Back in the 1950s when NASA fi rst began its search for astronauts, require-ments stipulated that candidates have a bachelor’s degree in engineering or

its equivalent and that they be a graduate of a test pilot school with a minimum of 1,500 hours of fl ying time as a qualifi ed test pilot under their belts. Women, not yet permitted by the U.S. govern-

ment to be test pilots, were thus auto-matically excluded from consideration. As the clamor for female astronauts grew, NASA debated the risks to a female astronaut’s reproductive system while newspaper editorials made sexist jabs about a woman’s ability to survive with-out curlers and primping.

But times have changed, and in speak-ing with Ochoa it is obvious how much respect she has for the work environment at NASA, to the point where it seems equal treatment of women is almost a strange topic to discuss—Ochoa can eas-ily rattle off names of women who hold prominent positions at NASA, including Deputy Administrator Lori Garver.

Ochoa is the world’s fi rst Hispanic fe-male astronaut, Ansari the world’s fi rst Iranian citizen astronaut. Yet, neither Ochoa nor Ansari set out to be the fi rst of anything. It just happened—but the end result is that together Ochoa and Ansari have inspired countless numbers of His-panic and Iranian girls.

Furthermore, Ochoa and Ansari, both now at the forefront as science and tech-nology’s best and brightest, work to bring the world into a new era of space travel, demonstrate that regardless of back-ground, it requires tenacity, intelligence, and spirit to actually reach the stars.

Inspired by ResearchGrowing up in La Mesa, California, Ochoa enjoyed math and imagined she might one day major in business, but she also was a classical flutist and thought perhaps she would major in music. She didn’t study much science—she didn’t have exposure to it—but what she re-members is a family environment that, thanks to her mother, fostered a love of education and learning.

Engineering wasn’t on her radar un-til she went to college and decided on a physics degree from San Diego State University. A senior project in optical information processing led her to think about specializing in graduate school. She decided on Stanford, where Dr. Jo-seph Goodman, a pioneer in the fi eld of photonics, would become a mentor. Ochoa secured her fi rst patent, using an optical system to selectively enhance features in an image of an object that has repetition, as part of a collaboration

Ochoa and fellow astronaut Carl E. Walz work the

controls of Canadarm2, the robotic arm that functions as a “construction crane” on the

International Space Station.

Dr. Ellen Ochoa

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2011 18

that grew out of her dissertation with Goodman.

After completing her doctorate in 1985, Ochoa applied to the astronaut pro-gram. She was one of the few invited to interview at Johnson Space Center two years later. While she was not chosen by NASA in that selection year, the trip to Houston showed Ochoa two important things: she wanted more than ever to be a part of the human space fl ight program, and she had a good chance of making it.

While waiting for the next application period, Ochoa earned two more patents as part of her work at Sandia National Labo-ratories, one an optical system to recog-nize objects in an image no matter what orientation or size they appear, and the other an optical system to remove random types of noise in images. With three pat-ents under her belt and now an employee of NASA at Ames Research Center, Ochoa reapplied to the astronaut corps. She was selected two years later, in January 1990, after which she and 22 other candidates spent a year in astronaut training.

Once offi cially an astronaut, Ochoa was assigned various jobs within the astronaut offi ce supporting ongoing human space fl ight programs, including supporting fl ight software and robotics development, testing,

and training. It wasn’t long until Ochoa be-gan preparing for the fi rst of four fl ights she would make as an astronaut. As part of her preparation, she received specialized train-ing on the shuttle’s robotic arm.

Ochoa’s fi rst two missions were part of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth, a pro-gram focused on learning more about the Earth’s environment. The fi rst mission, in April 1993, focused specifi cally on the atmosphere and ozone depletion, and the crew measured constituents in the atmo-sphere that contribute to the creation and destruction of ozone. On this mission, Ochoa used the robotic arm to deploy and capture the Spartan satellite, a science sat-ellite measuring parameters of solar wind. On her second mission in 1994, Ochoa fl ew as payload commander, using the robotic arm to retrieve the CRISTA-SPAS atmospheric research satellite.

Ochoa says, “Both of these missions illustrated the collaborative role that the shuttle could play with unmanned sci-ence satellites. We carried up freshly cal-ibrated instruments of the same design as those on satellites; the resulting data comparison provided correction factors that improved the accuracy of the satel-lite data and greatly increased their sci-entifi c value. On a more personal note,

the requirement from one instrument team to videotape each sunrise and sun-set meant that I got to spend a lot of time on the fl ight deck. I would usually pick up our pair of gyro-stabilized binocu-lars and watch, fascinated as the layers of the atmosphere changed in number and color in an incredible spectacle that repeated itself every 45 minutes as we or-bited the Earth at 17,500 mi/h.”

Next, in 1999, Ochoa was a member of the fi rst shuttle crew to dock with the International Space Station. There, the crew delivered four tons of materials to the space station in preparation for its fi rst inhabitants. She returned in 2002 to transfer more materials to both the inter-nal and external space station. This time, the crew brought up the fi rst part of the space station’s truss structure, a 40-ft long truss off of which now hang four solar ar-rays. This fi nal mission marked the fi rst time the station’s robotic arm, operated by Ochoa and two other crew members, was used to move space walkers as they worked outside the space station. Ochoa says, “As we used the robotics workstation inside the U.S. Laboratory, it was amazing to hear noises coming through the struc-ture from our space-walking crew mates moving around on the outside of the lab.”

Ochoa was named deputy director of fl ight crew operations at Johnson in 2002 and director of fl ight crew operations in 2006. She became deputy director of the center in 2007.

An Unconventional PathGrowing up in Tehran, Ansari had an early love for the nighttime sky. She be-lieved from an early age that “all the an-swers to our existence are in space among the stars.” It was this passion that first got Ansari interested in math, science, and engineering at a time when, she says, “despite Iran’s comparatively progressive political environment, society still placed many limitations on women.” Luckily, Ansari lived in a family where she was encouraged not just to study hard but to study what she wanted. Ansari says, “I

Ochoa looks out the Earth observation window on the International Space Station. The space shuttle Atlantis and the Canadarm2 robotic arm are both visible.

DECEMBER 2011 IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE 19

was fortunate. Not everyone in Iran would have the same fortune in their families.”

Ansari immigrated to the United States in 1984 at the age of 16. She settled with an aunt in Northern Virginia, outside Wash-ington, D.C., where she began school the day after she arrived. The move to this new country was an adjustment for Ansari, who, having attended a French Catholic school in Tehran, did not speak English. It was challenging, she says, but at the same time, she liked her new environment, and with the help of intensive language classes over the summer, Ansari graduated from her new American high school on time.

Ansari majored in electronics and com-puter engineering as an undergraduate at George Mason University and went on to receive her master’s in electrical engineer-ing with an emphasis in communications from George Washington University. At this point, although Ansari’s interests included physics and astrophysics, her focus was on fi nding a good job and a secure career. An-sari says, “I came from Iran with my family. We basically came with nothing and started life with the help of my aunt. So, the fi rst thing on my mind and the fi rst thing my mom reminded me every day was, ‘You need to get a job.’” At the time, the telecom-munications fi eld was growing rapidly and Ansari used an internship at MCI Telecom to springboard into a full-time job.

Still, Ansari never lost sight of her desire to go to space: “I had no idea how I was going to make my dream come true, but, nevertheless, that didn’t stop me from inquiring into possibilities, looking for ways to get into space, and creating an environment around me—at work with posters, pictures, and ar-ticles—to try to stay in touch and satisfy that part of my life and that passion that I had.”

Then, in 1991, Dennis Tito an-nounced that he was going to fl y to the International Space Station on the Russian Soyuz. It is a mo-

ment Ansari remembers vivid-ly and she recalls how she was watching CNN while getting ready for work. After the news report, she knew one thing: “If there was no other way I could

participate as a space fl ight participant, all I needed was a lot of money, which I didn’t have at the time.” This became “the mo-tivation and inspiration” Ansari would use to become a successful entrepreneur.

When MCI’s engineering department relocated to Richardson, Texas, Ansari and her husband opted to stay behind. Instead, they left MCI and in 1993 started their own consulting company. It quickly gained momentum and soon MCI was one of their largest clients. Ansari laughs as she says, “Ironically, to grow our company and make it successful, we had to be where our customers were.” She and her husband relocated to Texas where they continued to grow Telecom Technologies, branching into custom software development and ul-timately developing fi ve product lines.

With the successful sale of Telecom Technologies, Ansari became a multimil-lionaire and began looking seriously into the Russian Space Program.

In 2006 Ansari traveled to Star City, home of Russia’s cosmonaut training cen-ter, to train as the backup to Japanese fl yer Daisuke Enomoto. Although not sched-uled to fl y, she was thrilled to be sitting in the same classroom as other astronauts just the same. You can still hear the excite-

ment in Ansari’s voice as she talks about “walking in the same place that Yuri Gaga-rin had walked.”

She trained for almost seven months, learning Russian as well as studying the different systems onboard the Soyuz and the International Space Station. She had to understand how the systems func-tioned, how to troubleshoot, and how to make small repairs. In addition, there was the physical training to prepare the body for space fl ight—she underwent a medi-cal examination and, as she says, “par-ticipated in lots of centrifuge, zero gravity fl ights, and survival training.”

Three weeks before the launch, while Ansari was packing her suitcases and pre-paring to leave Star City, a medical condi-tion arose that prevented Enomoto from fl ying. When Ansari received the phone call asking her if she’d like to take his seat, she says she almost fell out of her chair. As a result of the short turnaround, Ansari did not have a chance to prepare any special experiments or research, but she did have two small experiments to conduct by herself and she also participat-ed in four experiments for the European Space Agency. Perhaps even more impor-tantly, Ansari’s blog, detailing the minu-tiae of “everyday life” aboard the shuttle, was a huge hit back on Earth.

Of her time in space, Ansari says, “It touches you on so many different levels. It makes you feel empowered and hum-bled at the same time. It makes you feel

you can do anything, that the world is not so big, so you can accomplish anything you want.... You have a better sense of how small and insignifi cant we are compared to the entire universe. We have a dream of being the center of the universe, and when you’re out there you understand your place better, but at the same time you are part of something much bigger, and to me that was a very good feeling, being part of a universe much bigger than the world I know around me.”

Anousheh Ansari

Ansari communicates with her family before her flight.

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2011 20

Ansari’s goal is to “continue to try to be helpful in making sure that space be-comes more accessible and open to regu-lar people.” She would like to make sure that more people “know the importance of space in our everyday lives and in our future.” Ansari, whose memoir My Dream of Stars begins with the words “Call this a love story,” uses her experiences to inspire others, especially young girls, to become involved in space, science, and technology.

As for being the fi rst Iranian citizen in space, Ansari says it didn’t play any role in her decision to go to space or in the timing of her travel. Yet, she says, it made her happy, it made Iranians living abroad happy, and it especially made those in Iran happy. Ansari received “a tremendous amount of support” from those in Iran, especially from the young, from those who were thrilled to see “a positive story about Iran in the press for a change.”

Preparing for the FutureAs deputy director at the Johnson Space Center, Ochoa focuses on preparing NASA for the next era of space flight. As she says, her job is to focus on “getting the Johnson Space Center through the transitions with two major programs closing down and some new ones starting.” Her job is to en-sure that as NASA begins to look toward “specific exploratory programs,” that the Johnson Space Center not only “has the right skills” but can also ensure that “there is meaningful work for the folks here.”

With the ending of the space shuttle program, a main job at Johnson is now to support private companies as they develop commercial spacecraft. A NASA program

leads that development by setting the processes by which companies can get de-velopment funding and by creating the re-quirements that the companies must meet to achieve certifi cation. In addition, at the Johnson Space Center, NASA shares not only expertise but also its facilities and test-ing capabilities with individual companies.

Ansari has been especially helpful in this area. Never losing sight of her dream of “fi nding ways for more people to fl y to space for a lot less money,” in 2002, An-sari and her husband made a multimillion dollar donation to the X Prize Foundation, a space competition with a US$10 million prize to the fi rst company to launch a re-usable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. The prize, renamed the Ansari X Prize, was awarded in 2004 to Tier One’s spaceplane SpaceShipOne. Of equal value, 26 other private companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on devel-oping new technologies in pursuit of the prize. Since then, the X Prize Foundation has launched many other competitions aimed at promoting development of low-cost space fl ight.

Beyond commercial development, Ochoa is excited about many other pos-sibilities, including NASA’s development of a multipurpose crew vehicle that would be used for exploratory fl ights. Ochoa envisions “a variety of missions and des-tinations including circumnavigating the moon, going to the moon, going to asteroids, some sort of in-space assembly and servicing in geostationary orbit or la-grange points, or even travel to Mars.”

In addition, Ochoa says Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot being developed in

partnership with General Motors, was brought to the International Space Sta-tion early in 2011. Before it can be put into service, astronauts must fi rst prove that it can work in microgravity and that it can work safely near humans. In the fu-ture, Robonaut 2 will be used for routine tasks on the station to free time for astro-nauts to do more complicated tasks.

Ochoa believes that NASA faces a spe-cifi c set of challenges in the decades to come, and she is motivated by “the idea that we must continue to push boundar-ies.” Of NASA’s future goals, Ochoa says, “The missions we currently do are so much more complicated than the missions when I fi rst joined the astronaut offi ce. Our abil-ity to accomplish things in space has in-creased dramatically in the time I’ve been at Johnson. We need to continue to push boundaries and frontiers, to do things we haven’t done before, and to carry out more complex tasks.”

One of the main reasons to look to the stars is because NASA’s work has a great and immediate importance right here on Earth. From Robonaut 2 to spacecraft that run on green propellant to the sustainable life support system that would be neces-sary for a longer fl ight, Ochoa says, “You can see how a lot of these technologies have relevance to issues and industries that we have here on Earth. For example, a sustainable life support system can help you bring clean water and fresh air to peo-ple in remote areas of the Earth.”

Ansari, remembering the view from the space shuttle window, refl ects on the fragility of our own planet, calling to mind the need to push forward: “Be-ing able to see Earth from space is one of those memories that stays with you. You appreciate the planet and see with your own eyes how we are vulnerable in a way and how the only thing keeping us from dying is that thin layer of blue glowing light around our planet and how every-thing else is just dark around it.”

— Katianne Williams is a freelance writer living in Massachusetts.

Ansari in the International Space Station.