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hi everybody josh barley here inside

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mission control houston i'm joined by my

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friend camille elaine how are you doing

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camille i'm great thank you you know all

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this week we're talking about and

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actually all this month more

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appropriately we're talking about the

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anniversaries of valentina tereshkova

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who was the first female in space and

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sally ryan it was the first american in

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space one was 50 years ago and once 30

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years ago

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um

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who more appropriate to talk about it

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than you you know your background is

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quite extensive when it comes to

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education you've got a bachelor of

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science in mechanical engineering from

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howard university a master of science in

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mechanical engineering from florida a m

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university master of science in

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aerospace engineering from university of

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maryland and a doctorate in educational

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leadership from the university of

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houston so you've had some some

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schooling in science

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but i think what's even cooler she's

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actually a private pilot

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which is amazing to me but one of you

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look at these these anniversaries you

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know what does it mean to you and what

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are kind of your thoughts on it

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um i think in the last 30 to 50 years

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we've made significant strides and and

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um we've come a long way with the

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inclusion of women in human spaceflight

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um to date i think we've had about 57

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women from diverse backgrounds both

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cultural

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social national different nationalities

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who have

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flown in space

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from american perspective since dr sally

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ride we've had the first

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african-american woman

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dr mae jemison in 1992

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who flew

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our own senate director dr ellen ochoa

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who's the first hispanic uh woman

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american woman to fly in space in 1993

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and then the first asian-american woman

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and dr kalpana challa who flew in 1997

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for the first time we lost her in

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colombia but um these women have really

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blazed a trail and inspired countless um

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women who have come behind them and

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willed for generations from a global

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perspective we've had a number of women

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who have flown in space from japan

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canada europe china of course russia

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and we've had an iranian-american space

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tourist so we've made significant

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strides um including women in human

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space flight you know we try to always

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reach out to students and and kids who

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are going into science and whenever you

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take a look back at the school that

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you've gone through you know what made

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you pick the courses that you that you

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took and when did you know

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um i was really good in math and science

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in my early years of schooling and um i

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had a passion

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for

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i also

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was very passionate about space from an

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early age i grew up in the caribbean a

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small island nation of trinidad and

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tobago and i remember at the age of six

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and seven

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sitting on the trunk of my dad's car

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many nights and just being awe inspired

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by the vastness of space not really

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knowing what that was all about um but

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being really mechanical and analytical

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in my thinking when i decided that i was

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going to go to college of course i

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decided to study aeronautical

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engineering because of my passion for

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airplanes

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but then when i migrated to the states

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as a freshman and i'm dating myself

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the challenger accident happened and

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that just changed my life like in those

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moments i decided this is what i wanted

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to do so i switched from aeronautical

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engineering to aerospace engineering and

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you read my bio so the rest is history

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um spent 18-year career designing

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rockets and spacecraft systems both the

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department of defense and nasa so

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whenever you talk to boys and girls that

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are going into you know if they they

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kind of have a hankering for for science

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is that really the key it's just for

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them to to go with what interests them

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what you know what their passion is

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rather than trying to say okay you know

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the end of my career i want to be here

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is it more important to say well here's

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what i really like to do and is that the

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key yes it is the key i i think you have

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to follow the things that you're

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passionate about um

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specifically for girls though

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encouraging them to go into science

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requires exposure

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right and so

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having opportunities as a high schooler

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to go and work in a lab alongside a

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professional scientist or researcher

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engineer and getting that exposure and

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those opportunities to see what the real

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world of science and engineering is like

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has been shown to really sustain the

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interest of females

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continuing their careers in those areas

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so you work in the program science

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office i do you know sort of the uh the

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brain trust of all the science we've got

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going on on board uh the orbiting

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laboratory whenever you take a look at

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it you know you were talking about all

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the different uh you know legendary

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females that we've had one of them just

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walked back in the room anna fisher's

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over there's our capcom today

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she's part of the original group of

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astronauts but we've had

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dozens of astronauts that have flown up

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to the space station females and males

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obviously uh peggy whitson was a

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commander of the space station back on

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expedition

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yeah

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whenever you take a look at the space

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station itself and a lot of these pis

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and principal investigators are are

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females and two very diverse

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you know when we look at the experiments

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what what do you think is probably the

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most promising thing that that the space

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station offers

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uh for scientists and researchers and

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all the things that are going on what

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they're working on i think it's the

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amazing discoveries and breakthroughs

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that we have had and continue to have on

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the space station

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you know all the biological chemical and

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physical processes

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that

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a function of our terrestrial in

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environment is a function of the

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gravitational force right our ecosystem

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functions because of that gravitational

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force and so when you take that variable

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out of the equation then amazing things

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happen to those same processes both in

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biology chemistry and physics and so the

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space station really serves as a

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platform for us to do the investigations

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in those areas and and see what those

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changes are and and have those

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discoveries and breakthroughs that you

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know we didn't know um really could

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happen or exist and a perfect perfect

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example of that is microbial virulence

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you know when we flew the salmonella

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bacteria and as a result of

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the microgravity environment it became

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more virulent or the disease-causing

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potency increased

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and so

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researchers also were able to identify

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the genetic pathway that cross caused

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that virulence and so they as a result

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potentially could develop vaccines

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for those bacteria-causing diseases that

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will have an impact on our life here on

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earth

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another one is

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after 40 or 50 years of human

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spaceflight we recently discovered um

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the vision degradation of astronaut

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astronauts and so just recently we

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started that investigation called ocular

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health examining um how that vision

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degrades during long duration space

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flights and so all these investigations

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um in addition to the countermeasures

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that researchers develop as a result um

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will have significant impacts and

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benefits to improving the quality of our

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life here on earth so last question is

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kind of a big one out of all the things

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we've done on the space station you know

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what is your favorite experiment you

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have to explain what it is but what is

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what's your favorite i have two okay

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i'll give you two

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the first is ams the alpha magnetic

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spectrometer which is the largest

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particle physics detector in space and

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up to date it's been up there for almost

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two years and it's gotten over 16

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billion hits of cosmic rays

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um and so

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that

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instrument and the in from the data we

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get from that instrument could answer

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the question of what is the origins of

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of our universe and from a physical and

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spiritual perspective i think human

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beings are curious about that how did we

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evolve um and so i think

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the

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that investigation is really really

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promising

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the second one is um sally ride earth

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cam yeah developed by dr sally ride and

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it's one of the longest running

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investigations it first started back in

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expedition 2.

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and what she

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facilitated was the opportunity for

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middle school students to be able to

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program the earth cam camera that's on

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board the space station to take images

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of various geological features of our

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earth and use that in their studies of

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science of math of pre-engineering

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geography social science studies and

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history and so it's

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and it's one of our global education

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programs so we've been able to reach

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countless millions of students around

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the world just with that investigation

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so that's really one of my favorites

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well even if sally or i would have never

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been the first american female in space

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that is

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students and they touch it you know all

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the time absolutely i think that's

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probably one of my favorite ones too so

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thanks for joining us can we always

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always good always good to talk to you

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camille elaine

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if you would like to learn more about uh

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the office that camille works in which

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the program science office and all the

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experiments that they help run onboard

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the international space station just log

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on to the nasa website at

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www.nasa.gov

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station take a look at the left hand

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side of the page under research and

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technology and you can take a look at

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all the different experiments that the