Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

“That’s one small step for man,” astronaut Neil Armstrong famously began. So I think these stories are important for inspiring and being role models that are so much needed for women today.Nathalia Holt, author of Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us from Missiles to the Moon to Mars. And even for women that are working in science today, it's about half of all women that leave midcareer. In 1984, 37 percent of all bachelor's degrees in computer science were awarded to women, and today that number has dropped to 18 percent.

It's a difficult time for women in technology right now. Holt: My hope is that these women serve as role models, not just for my daughter of course, but for all of the women that are interested in science. On what Holt hopes her book will accomplish And that was all the equipment that I had.Īs I look back on so many things, I get more excited now than I did then. And I worked most of the night, through the night, at JPL with my mechanical pencil and graph paper and light table that I was working on. I was asked to graph the results coming back from the Explorer 1 satellite. And that would've been after Sputnik had been launched. Paulson: Well, Explorer 1 was launched Jan. And right from the beginning, Barbara had these amazing stories and incredible memory. But when I found the real Barbara Paulson, the one I was searching for, it was so wonderful. In fact, I think it was over 40 Barbara Paulsons I talked to before I found the right Barbara Paulson. Holt: It was quite difficult to track down this group and find their stories. On tracking down the Jet Propulsion Lab women And so what I found is that there was this group of women who, starting in the 1940s, worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. And I was stunned by this picture because I hadn't realized that women even worked at NASA at this time, much less as scientists. And there was this beautiful picture of her at NASA in the 1960s accepting an award. We googled the name, and the first Eleanor Frances that popped up was a woman named Eleanor Francis Helin. And my husband and I were just having a terrible time coming up with a name. Holt: In 2010, I was expecting my first child. On how Holt first learned about the women who worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab

Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt