Breakfast With Astronaut Sunita Williams
This morning, I had the privilege and pleasure of having breakfast with an astronaut. Admittedly, there were 74 other people having breakfast as well, but that takes nothing away from a very memorable experience.
Sunita Williams has a CV that reads like a novel, except every item is true:
- BS in Physical Science from U.S. Naval Academy
- MS in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology
- Naval Aviator, graduate of Naval Test Pilot School
As an astronaut, Williams has set two records: longest single spaceflight by a woman, and the most spacewalk time logged by a woman. (That record has since been broken.) She has accomplished amazing things in her career, which shows no sign of ending soon. (She also managed to run the first marathon by an astronaut in orbit.)
What can I say about her? She was surprisingly humble. Williams mentioned the fact that one of the reasons why she ended up at the Naval Academy was because she didn’t get into Harvard. She says she had good grades, but not great ones. She wasn’t all that keen on math and engineering and wondered “Am I ever going to use this?” when studying differential equations. (Is there an engineer on the planet who hasn’t thought that at one time or another about some aspect of our grueling curriculum?) She flat out stated that she didn’t get interested in true engineering until her late 20s, and that was a direct result of being a test pilot and wanting to know why - as well as how - the things she was repairing actually worked. In her own words, she considers herself an operator, not an engineer.
And yet she’s an astronaut. What’s inspiring about her is her attitude. Listen, I’m never going to be an astronaut. (If I sneeze up a few tens of millions of dollars, I might be able to go into space, but I won’t be an astronaut.) Can I emulate her attitude? Hell, yes. And if I’m going to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself, I’ll have to. I made a comment to her about women working in fields that have been dominated by men, and her response was a very positive “why not?” as if to say the only success in life comes from first making the attempt. *That’s* inspiration.
Two things that Williams mentioned were surprising to me. One was that, in her estimation, only 40% of astronauts have military experience. I thought that number would be higher. Also, most of them have flight experience - as a former test pilot, Williams said that many of her colleagues were pilots. She attributed that number to the design of the crafts in use - the space program grew out of our understanding of flight, which is why the systems on the shuttles (soon to be retired) are so similar to the avionics of planes. That made me wonder if future space travel could be improved by stepping outside of that model and attempting to create something new.
Overall, I’m *very* glad that I managed to attend the event. Her presentation about her time on the International Space Station was informative, and the Q&A afterward was enlightening. I’ll try to get some more info posted about her in the coming week.
[Note: Sunita Williams’ presentation was hosted by the Portland State University Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science as part of the commencement celebration on June 13, 2008.]
Edited for errors and continuity on 15 June 2008.
Related posts:
- Women In Space: NASA’s Explorers
- Women In Space: Kathryn Hire On NASA’s Endeavour
- Open Source Bridge Presentation: “Faking It Til I Make It”
- Ubergeeke on BlogHer: The Title IX Debate
- More From Irene Klotz: NASA Leaving Space Station
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