Scientist, former UWGB professor shares ideas on the female-led NASA astronaut class

(WLUK) — For the primary time in NASA historical past, the company introduced this week that its newest class of future astronauts has extra ladies than it does males.

For ladies who work in STEM fields, like former UW-Green Bay adjunct affiliate professor Dr. R Aileen Yingst, it is a large milestone.

“I’m really proud, absolutely,” she says.

Ever since Dr. Yingst was slightly lady, she knew what her calling was.

“I always wanted to work in space science. I do not, I literally don’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

She made that calling her actuality.

Yingst is a planetary geologist and has been working with NASA for years. She has labored on a number of Mars exploration missions, together with the Mars Polar Lander, and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as a younger scientist.

“I currently work on the Curiosity and the Perseverance Mars rovers, both returning data from Mars that is, you know, game-changing,” she says.

Yingst can also be the principal investigator on a digital camera system known as the Heimdall, which has been used on rovers to take images of Mars and ship them again to Earth. The system will probably be launched to the moon in 2028 with Yingst’s assist, too.

“I was in the science backroom at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I was back-to-back with a friend of mine. We were pretty crowded up to look at this screen as we were waiting to hear something, and my friend finally turned around and said, ‘you need to take a step back because I can feel your heartbeat going so fast that it’s making me nervous,'” Yingst shares about engaged on her first profitable mission with the Curiosity Rover.

“But there’s really nothing like it, that moment where you realize that 20 minutes ago we had a safe landing on Mars, and the the the relief and the joy of doing something that had never been done before, you know, tens of millions miles away, and then right almost immediately the images start coming back and this is such an immediate thing to see a place that no one in human history has ever seen before.”

While she has labored with many ladies throughout her years as a scientist with NASA and on the Planetary Science Institute, the place she is a senior scientist, she has labored with loads of ladies. However, she is aware of all too nicely what it feels prefer to be the one lady within the room.

Many different ladies know the sensation, too. But for the primary time ever, the roles are reversed for the most recent class of NASA astronauts.

“I’m really proud, absolutely,” Yingst says. “But I would also say something that, you know, similar to what Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, where it still makes news that there are more women and men. When we get to the point when the entire astronaut class is women and it doesn’t make news, then we’re done, but we’re not there yet.”

Seeing ladies dominate in a male-dominated subject is one thing that Yingst is aware of will depart an impression on future generations.

“It allows young people to see themselves in the back room of scientists and engineers and managers and the whole range of individuals that are going to be required to have just a few people put their boot prints on the moon,” she says. “And being able to see yourself in that role is really the first step in saying, yeah, this is something I want to do, and that first barrier is gone. And that’s a crucial first barrier to overcome.”

Despite increasingly more ladies getting into STEM fields, the United Nations Information Center says in 2023, ladies held simply 7% of the 12-million jobs in STEM fields, regardless of making up 47% of the U.S. workforce.

“I am, as I said, I am the principal investigator of the Heimdall camera system, and at our first meeting, there were two other women in a room of about 30 or 40 people, and neither of them were scientists. . . It was just me,” she says. “That was 2019, so it was not that long ago.”

For younger folks, particularly younger women, Yingst merely says to comply with your calling, even when it is laborious.

“A friend of mine sent me a picture of a five-year-old girl sitting in front of a museum exhibit of the rover, watching a video,” Yingst shares. “My friend sent it and it said, ‘a little girl dreaming of being you.'”

“You know, if I could talk to my five-year-old self, I would say keep going. You’re going to be okay, we’re going to make it.”