1
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,880
When instrumentation controller JoAnn Morgan\h
was in Firing Room number One for the historic\h\h

2
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:20,800
moonshot in 1969, she was the only woman. NASA\h
has come a long way since. Today, the very same\h\h

3
00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:27,200
firing room is led by a woman, and 30% of the\h
engineers supporting NASA's Artemis moon program\h\h

4
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:33,920
are women, too. So, what's it like to be a woman\h
with a career in STEM today? We'll sit down with\h\h

5
00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:41,040
three female employees at NASA to find out. I'm\h
Derrol Nail and that's next on The Rocket Ranch.

6
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,720
EGS Program Chief Engineer,\h
verify no constraints to launch.\h

7
00:00:44,720 --> 00:00:48,480
Three, two, one, and lift off.
Welcome to space.

8
00:00:53,120 --> 00:00:57,440
Three women at NASA with careers\h
in STEM, which stands for Science,\h\h

9
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:02,240
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.\h
We'll talk with a space station engineer\h\h

10
00:01:02,240 --> 00:01:05,920
about her experience during the early\h
days of the space shuttle program.

11
00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:10,000
When I started working with\h
NASA on shuttle, there was\h\h

12
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,000
many, many times I was the\h
only female in the room.

13
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:19,120
And we'll hear from the woman NASA has charged\h
with helping send the first woman to the moon.\h\h

14
00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:20,960
About what she's learned along the way.

15
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:26,320
That is something that I have learned\h
over my career. Probably didn't do it\h\h

16
00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:30,880
that great in the beginning, because I\h
was a woman who worked with mostly men.

17
00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:33,760
We'll get advice from a young astrophysicist\h\h

18
00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:38,400
who is part of the team that sent the\h
Perseverance Rover to the planet Mars.

19
00:01:38,400 --> 00:01:43,440
I need to make this trail for the person\h
behind me. So, I'm going to keep going.

20
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,800
But, we begin with the woman\h
who will give the go-to-launch,\h\h

21
00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:51,520
the world's most powerful rocket, Launch\h
Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson.

22
00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:56,800
When you were a young girl, what did\h
you dream about doing when you grew up?

23
00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:06,880
I'm probably a different case, right? I talk\h
to young students and young people all the\h\h

24
00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:11,440
time. It's one of the things that I really\h
enjoy doing. What I hear from a lot of them,\h\h

25
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:17,360
is, "I know exactly what I want to do."\h
I think that's fantastic. That's awesome.\h\h

26
00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:24,880
But, that was not me. I did not know what I\h
wanted to do. I, at one time, thought that\h\h

27
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,720
what I wanted to do was to own\h
a professional sports team.

28
00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:32,880
I wasn't quite sure what the path to that was.\h
I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do.\h\h

29
00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:38,000
So, I was that kid in high school that wasn't\h
sure. Didn't know what I wanted to study.\h\h

30
00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:41,760
I had a fantastic teacher, so shout out to\h\h

31
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:46,000
all the teachers out there who are\h
encouraging our youth, every single day.

32
00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:51,920
I had a fantastic teacher. If you think about\h
the timeframe that this was happening in,\h\h

33
00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:58,560
it was in a time where there were no women in\h
engineering. My high school physics teacher\h\h

34
00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:03,840
asked me one day, "Charlie, what are you\h
going to study when you get to college?"\h\h

35
00:03:04,640 --> 00:03:09,680
I said, "I don't know." He said, "Have you\h
ever thought about studying engineering?"\h\h

36
00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:17,840
And I said, "Well, what would I do with\h
an engineering degree, Doc?" He said,\h\h

37
00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:23,840
"What couldn't you do?" At the time, I\h
honestly didn't find that terribly helpful.\h\h

38
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:26,400
It wasn't like what you could\h
do this, and this, right?

39
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:28,240
Right, right. You were hoping for a list.

40
00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:35,200
But, he was absolutely right. What couldn't\h
you do? It was because of that nudging, kind\h\h

41
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:41,360
of in the arm, or, "Hey, think about this." That I\h
decided to, to pursue engineering when I went off\h\h

42
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:48,160
to school. That's what I did. I never changed my\h
major, stuck with it the whole way through school.

43
00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:51,760
Were there obstacles in your\h
path, as a woman coming up,\h\h

44
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:55,840
getting an education in STEM and then a career?

45
00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:02,880
I don't know if I would say in school there were\h
specific obstacles, other than there weren't a lot\h\h

46
00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:13,840
of women. There was maybe that piece of it, where\h
you questioned, "Is this the right field for me?"\h\h

47
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:22,400
But, no specific obstacles. I would say the first\h
really tough obstacle that I felt like I came\h\h

48
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:28,320
upon, was when I started having my kids.\h
Now, keep in mind the timeframe, right?

49
00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:35,840
This was before there were the family-friendly\h
policies that are pretty mainstream today.\h\h

50
00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:43,840
The ability to flex your time, to telework.\h
Those things were unheard of, in the early days.\h\h

51
00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:52,960
So, to me, that was an obstacle, because I'm\h
a mother of three kids. I love my children,\h\h

52
00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,240
I want to be involved with all\h
of the activities that they have.

53
00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:02,160
And for me, that was the\h
first time that I felt like\h\h

54
00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:11,760
an obstacle or a challenge. That I had to make a\h
choice or concessions between, maybe, my family\h\h

55
00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:22,960
and my work. That was kind of tough. I was lucky\h
in that I had a great program manager at the time,\h\h

56
00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:29,680
because there did come a point where I felt\h
like, "I don't know how to do the shift work\h\h

57
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:35,600
and the weekends and everything, and then do all\h
the things that I need to take care of at home."

58
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:44,080
That was really tough. I had a program\h
manager who kind of took a chance on me and\h\h

59
00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:49,040
let me work, again, unheard of at\h
the time, but let me work part-time.

60
00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:51,040
Part-time?

61
00:05:51,040 --> 00:06:00,080
Part-time. And I'd look at that today and I\h
think how pivotal that was for me, because,\h\h

62
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:06,640
he allowed me. I didn't have to make\h
a choice between my work or my family.\h\h

63
00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:14,320
It was something that was pretty uncommon\h
at the time. I'm forever indebted to him for\h\h

64
00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:21,440
thinking about what those options might be\h
and allowing me to do the part-time work.

65
00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:25,447
You got a special consideration there, which is-

66
00:06:25,447 --> 00:06:30,800
I did. It ended up being something that got\h
opened up even wider, as we went forward, because\h\h

67
00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:36,400
we proved that it could work, right? It could\h
work in the environment that we were in.

68
00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:43,120
When you compare the environment now, versus\h
what you had then, how would you compare it?

69
00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:50,880
I think it's really different. I think the\h
first part is that, when you look around,\h\h

70
00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:56,720
from when I started, and of course, when I was\h
in the workforce, if you were talking to Joann\h\h

71
00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:02,960
Morgan, and she's the only woman in the Firing\h
Room of 450, my experience was really different,\h\h

72
00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:06,960
probably, from hers. I would say that\h
young women today's experience is probably\h\h

73
00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:13,040
different from mine, but I think we\h
have a lot more women in the workplace.

74
00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:18,000
A couple of things that I think are\h
different, that I really applaud is,\h\h

75
00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:24,240
we do have family-friendly policies. We\h
do have flexibility in our work time.\h\h

76
00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:29,120
We talk a lot about work-life\h
balance. That's not just for women,\h\h

77
00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:34,080
that's across our workforce, which, back in\h
the eighties, you didn't really talk about\h\h

78
00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:41,360
work-life balance a whole lot. I see that\h
as a big change, and in something great.

79
00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:50,160
I also think the mentoring that we have is\h
fantastic. When I came in to the workforce,\h\h

80
00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:52,880
I came in, I was in the contractor\h
workforce when I started here.\h\h

81
00:07:53,760 --> 00:08:03,440
When I came in, you were assigned a mentor and I\h
had a great mentor. But, his job was to show me,\h\h

82
00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:07,200
sort of, "Here's the training materials\h
that you need to cover or you need to do.\h\h

83
00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:11,040
Here's where the restrooms are, the cafeteria."

84
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:18,400
It was kind of a workplace orientation, if you\h
will. But, it wasn't the kind of mentorships,\h\h

85
00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:22,960
I would say, that we really encourage today.\h
Where you can go seek out someone in your\h\h

86
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:28,640
senior management, or maybe in an area that's\h
completely different from where you work. You\h\h

87
00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:38,000
can get some very one-on-one personal mentorship.\h
I think that's different than maybe how it was\h\h

88
00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:44,160
when I started. I think that's a great\h
thing, because I am a mentor. And for\h\h

89
00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:52,080
everything that you give, you get back. I learn\h
something every time I have a mentor session.

90
00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:57,600
I think that's different. I think\h
that training is different. I think we\h\h

91
00:08:58,240 --> 00:09:04,480
talk about, when I started work, your training\h
was centered on technical training. It was, "What\h\h

92
00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,120
are your access requirements to get into this\h
facility? What are the technical training?" And\h\h

93
00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:14,400
those are still really important and we do that\h
today, but we couple that, today, with leadership\h\h

94
00:09:14,400 --> 00:09:20,800
training. Leadership development training. I\h
think that's wonderful for both men and women,\h\h

95
00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:26,240
but I do see those kinds of changes as being very\h
different than maybe where we were 30 years ago.

96
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:31,200
Are there ways in which we can continue\h
to improve the workplace? Absolutely.\h\h

97
00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:38,800
I think the way in which you approach\h
that is in listening and understanding.\h\h

98
00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:45,120
It’s being able to talk about issues that\h
might be out there for women or men or\h\h

99
00:09:47,600 --> 00:09:52,880
anyone. And it’s working your way through that and\h
addressing it. And I think that you have to have,\h\h

100
00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:58,640
and I think we do at NASA, have a culture in\h
which we can talk about any kind of issue. And\h\h

101
00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:03,600
I think you have to be able to do that. I think\h
you have to be able to listen, and take that in.\h\h

102
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:10,560
But I believe that there’s always ways in which\h
we can continue to improve, across the board.

103
00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:16,320
It was a little more than 20 years ago\h
when engineer Rayelle Thomas joined\h\h

104
00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:21,760
thousands of NASA engineers working to\h
help build the International Space Station,\h\h

105
00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:27,520
where humans have been living and working\h
in space continuously for the past 20 years.\h\h

106
00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:30,800
At first, it was a challenging time for her.

107
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:40,000
Well, I remember being very, very ill.\h
Unfortunately, at the time, it was a\h\h

108
00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:47,760
four-story building that we were doing testing\h
in. I kind of related to the movie Hidden Figures,\h\h

109
00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:51,280
when she had to run across the campus,\h
in order to go to the bathroom, because\h\h

110
00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:56,640
there were no women's bathrooms, except on the\h
fourth floor of the test facility that we were in.

111
00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:04,640
On the fourth floor of the test facility, it\h
was, the folks who owned the facility kind of\h\h

112
00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:10,880
didn't want the women in the other restrooms. I\h
was really not feeling well and we were trying to\h\h

113
00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:18,720
get testing done. I had to run up to the fourth\h
floor in order to go and be ill and then come\h\h

114
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:25,040
back down and finish the testing that we had to\h
do. There was a lot of trials and tribulations.

115
00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:31,600
So, you have a unique perspective,\h
being a woman during that time,\h\h

116
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,400
which I take, it was male-dominated at the time?

117
00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:41,040
It has changed a lot, in the years that\h
I've worked for NASA. When I started working\h\h

118
00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:50,560
with NASA on shuttle, there was many, many times\h
I was the only female in the room. Even at the\h\h

119
00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:57,520
start of ISS, there weren't that many women.\h
But, I think things have changed significantly.\h\h

120
00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:06,160
As we progressed, even in the time we were\h
building ISS, there became a lot more women.

121
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:14,080
Things did change. Even in where we were testing\h
in Colorado, the facility did make arrangements\h\h

122
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:19,920
to make it a little easier, in the process\h
of the year we were out there to do testing.\h\h

123
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:23,840
That they made it a little more\h
available for women to have a bathroom.

124
00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:33,360
Sometimes you have to make the place for yourself.\h
And you have to show that you are capable. And\h\h

125
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:45,520
that, this is where your specialty lies. I think\h
everybody has a specialty, a trait, or a part of\h\h

126
00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:52,160
them that is best. And sometimes it takes a little\h
bit of work to get there to know where it is.

127
00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:54,800
But believe in yourself because\h
I believe you said you may\h\h

128
00:12:55,360 --> 00:13:01,040
have people who tell you otherwise, so there’s an\h
internal voice that has to keep you going, right?

129
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:05,040
Oh yeah. Oh, I’ve had teachers telling me,\h\h

130
00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:13,440
in particular, my university told me,\h
basically no woman has ever graduated\h\h

131
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:18,320
from the aerospace engineering department. And\h
as long as I’m the head, no woman ever will.

132
00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:19,520
Oh my.

133
00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:29,760
Oh yeah, it was hard. I mean after I got over my\h
bout of crying, and thinking I’m never, because he\h\h

134
00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:37,360
also happened to be my counselor, the person I was\h
supposed to go to for help. After I got over that,\h\h

135
00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:43,200
had my bout of being very upset about it,\h
my mother actually told me, she goes, “well,\h\h

136
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:48,720
what are you going to do about it?” That was what\h
she asked me and I said, “Well, I don’t know.”\h\h

137
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:57,680
And she said, “Well are you going to let him tell\h
you that or what are you going to do?” “Well, I’m\h\h

138
00:13:57,680 --> 00:14:02,320
not going to quit.” And she goes, “Well, that’s\h
all you need to do is just keep your head down and\h\h

139
00:14:02,320 --> 00:14:12,400
keep going and you will persevere if you don’t let\h
anybody stop you.” And so, she was right. I did.

140
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:14,400
And you got that degree?

141
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:20,880
And I got that degree, yes I did, with the help of\h
other professors who were in the same department.

142
00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:26,480
Dr. Moogega Cooper is a young astrophysicist\h
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.\h\h

143
00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:30,080
She helped prepare the Perseverance\h
Rover for its mission to the Red\h\h

144
00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:35,360
Planet. She says she knew at a very young\h
age, she wanted to pursue a career in STEM.

145
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,240
I knew I had to be an\h
astrophysicist, is what I felt.

146
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,080
And so you were how old, at this age?

147
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:43,840
Oh, man. I was in fifth grade. How\h
old are fifth graders? Oh, man.

148
00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:44,538
Around 12 or so?

149
00:14:44,538 --> 00:14:47,360
Yeah, around 12. Yeah, 11, 12-ish. Yeah.

150
00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:49,040
How about that?

151
00:14:49,040 --> 00:14:49,520
Yeah.

152
00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:54,160
To know, from such an early age,\h
what do you attribute that to?

153
00:14:54,800 --> 00:15:04,000
Yeah, pure, I would say, stubbornness. I\h
think I very much latch on to goals. Goals\h\h

154
00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:12,240
give me purpose. Even leading up to that day,\h
I was horrible in math and science as a child.

155
00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:12,720
Really?

156
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:18,320
Yeah. Those were my weak subjects. But, until\h
I watched Carl Sagan's The Cosmos and someone\h\h

157
00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:22,400
explained to me, "You have to be good at\h
math and science to be able to do something\h\h

158
00:15:22,400 --> 00:15:27,040
like what Carl Sagan has done." That's\h
when I actually took an interest in really\h\h

159
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:30,240
understanding what the teachers\h
were trying to convey to me.

160
00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:36,880
What about being a young woman of color,\h
coming through the educational system, pursuing\h\h

161
00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:45,520
a career as an astrophysicist? The\h
challenges. Did you ever feel dissuaded?

162
00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:51,680
Yeah. I mean, there were definitely\h
comments. I mean, I remember being a kid\h\h

163
00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:57,760
and I don't know how much of it was just filtered\h
through my step-parents or what, but hearing,\h\h

164
00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:01,120
"Oh, I don't see why she's that smart. I don't\h
know why she's trying to go to college early."\h\h

165
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:05,360
Those kinds of things, it was like, "Oh,\h
whatever. I don't have to listen to them."

166
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,160
I mean, especially as a person\h
of color, a woman of color,\h\h

167
00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:14,960
there are a lot of possible, or not possible,\h\h

168
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:19,840
definite obstacles in the way. But, a lot of\h
times, I tried not to focus on that, because\h\h

169
00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:26,240
unless there's something that I can do to change\h
the situation, I just kind of think, "Okay."

170
00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:31,840
For example, if I'm in a situation where I know\h
somebody else that is my colleague, who is a male\h\h

171
00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:37,520
would not get that same question, I don't focus\h
on that. I focus on the question and I try to just\h\h

172
00:16:37,520 --> 00:16:42,880
work my way through an issue professionally.\h
And not focus on the fact that, "Oh,\h\h

173
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:47,760
my colleague would not have been asked that\h
same question or they would have been believed\h\h

174
00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:53,440
much easier with less questioning." But, I just\h
kind of let that slide and focus on the science.

175
00:16:54,027 --> 00:16:56,640
But those obstacles don't ever both you?

176
00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:02,800
Oh, they bother me for sure. But, I have to kind\h
of go in my little echo chamber and just scream\h\h

177
00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:09,440
it all out there. Then, come back out and just\h
handle it professionally, because it's a constant\h\h

178
00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:15,680
battle. There are things that, in my gut, it's\h
like, "Oh, I'm pretty sure this was done because\h\h

179
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:21,840
I'm a person of color. A young woman who is\h
black." Right? But, I don't know that for sure.

180
00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:25,360
It's in my gut, but it's like, "Okay, I\h
just need to let it go. Just keep moving."\h\h

181
00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:29,360
There were a couple of instances where\h
I found out later that it was because\h\h

182
00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:33,920
I was a woman and there were things\h
that were confirmed later on. But,\h\h

183
00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:38,240
I can't dwell on that. I just have to\h
push forward and let the facts decide.

184
00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:43,360
All three women that you've just heard from\h
say they have rewarding careers at NASA.\h\h

185
00:17:43,360 --> 00:17:48,960
So, we asked each one to share advice they would\h
give to other women pursuing a career in STEM.

186
00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:58,400
Don't ever give up. It's going to be hard.\h
You're going to think you're failing.\h\h

187
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:08,080
People are maybe even going to tell you that\h
you're failing. But, if you can get through\h\h

188
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:16,880
that part, if you can get through the whole\h
college part, and yes, it's hard. But, I am not\h\h

189
00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:23,280
a mathematician by trade, which a lot of people\h
think, being an engineer, you've got to be really\h\h

190
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:31,680
good at math. No, but I am really good at\h
common sense. Common sense usually wins out.

191
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:37,520
What would you tell other women, young women of\h
color who are possibly looking at this and saying,\h\h

192
00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:43,040
"Wow, I too, could be an astrophysicist\h
like Moo." What advice would you give?

193
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:46,480
Well, I would say, first of all, just\h
lean on your support structure. I mean,\h\h

194
00:18:46,480 --> 00:18:50,320
there are a lot of people who are obviously\h
self-motivated. I consider myself self-motivated,\h\h

195
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:55,760
but you still need your people. You still need\h
your tribe to go to, because there will be\h\h

196
00:18:55,760 --> 00:19:04,160
frustrating scenarios. There will be times where\h
you think the world is against you almost, right?\h\h

197
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:09,200
That you just got to talk it out and think, "No,\h
the world's not against me and even if they are,\h\h

198
00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:13,760
I need to make this trail for the person\h
behind me. So, I'm going to keep going."

199
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:22,320
The top advice, for me, is always, I have a job\h
and it's not just this one, but it's been in the\h\h

200
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:28,480
jobs I've had before this, I have a job that I\h
love. When you have a job, you love, it doesn't\h\h

201
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:34,480
feel like work, right? It feels like you get to do\h
something, not you have to do something. And so,\h\h

202
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:40,320
I would say, look for that thing that you\h
love. That thing that lights a fire within you,\h\h

203
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:47,280
because then it doesn't feel like work.\h
It's 'find that that job that you love.'

204
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:56,080
I would also say it is 'be who you are.' Bring\h
yourself to what you do. We are all unique and\h\h

205
00:19:56,080 --> 00:20:02,720
different and that's a wonderful thing. We have\h
different backgrounds, different experiences,\h\h

206
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:09,360
different genders, ethnicities. I mean, all\h
of those things, right? You want to bring all\h\h

207
00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:16,720
of that to the table, because that makes us a\h
better team. It gives us a greater perspective.

208
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:22,960
And so be you, that is something that I have\h
learned over my career. I probably didn't do\h\h

209
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:27,200
it that great in the beginning, because\h
I was a woman who worked with mostly men.\h\h

210
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:35,520
There were probably times that, maybe I'm\h
having a challenge with working something\h\h

211
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:40,000
and you felt like, "Well, I'm\h
not going to say anything."

212
00:20:41,120 --> 00:20:47,840
I think, 'bring who you are. Bring your whole\h
self to what you do.' I think that is important.\h\h

213
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:56,320
I think that the other one is in\h
the preparation. Do good work.\h\h

214
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:07,840
There's no substitute for hard work. And so your\h
preparation, be ready when your number is called.

215
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:18,400
I would say those are some things that have\h
worked well for me. Then, maybe last, would be\h\h

216
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:26,000
don't fall into the 'this or that idea',\h\h

217
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:32,720
you know? I'll go back to, maybe, one of\h
my challenges with raising a family and\h\h

218
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:41,120
working. In trying to balance those two is that\h
it doesn't always have to be one or the other.

219
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:47,680
And that's great advice for everyone. I'm Derrol\h
Nail and that's going to do it for this episode\h\h

220
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:53,120
of the Rocket Ranch. A special thanks to\h
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Rayelle Thomas\h\h

221
00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:58,080
and Dr. Moogega Cooper. To learn more about\h
everything going on at the Kennedy Space Center,\h\h

222
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:00,400
check out our website at NASA.gov/Kennedy.

223
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:06,560
And if you'd like to find out what's happening\h
at our other NASA centers around the country,\h\h

224
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:14,000
you can go to NASA.gov/podcasts. A special\h
shout-out to our producer, John Sackman,\h\h

225
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:20,400
assistant producer, Natori Thompson, soundman,\h
Lorne Mathre and editor Mike Chambers.\h\h