Another Women's First

Feminists, MADRE, NOW and AWID members and supports... today is yet another landmark day for you. Plans for parties and parades must be in the making to celebrate this momentous event. Let it be known that on this day, March 7 2007, Astronaut Lisa M. Nowak, 43, STS-121 mission specialist and divorced mother of three children became the first astronaut in NASA history to be fired.

In a 2005 interview ex-astronaut Nowak was asked:

You mentioned being so busy, not having time for those things (a personal life). What about this job makes you willing to make the sacrifice of those personal things?

Well, you’re right, there’s not time for a lot of those and, and less time for family, of course, and this mission’s very important. All the space missions we do are very important because exploration’s important for all of us. But you’re right; it’s a sacrifice for our own personal time and our families and the people around us. But I do think it’s worth it because if you don’t explore and take risks and go do all these things then everything will stay the same. People aren’t like that. We want to explore and expand and know more about the place around us.

The drive to explore and take risks runs through the veins of Ms. Nowak. And no matter the sacrifice and inherent risks, whether they be hurling through the stratosphere at 12,000 miles-per-hour or speeding from Houston to Orlando. But on the latter journey Nowak failed miserably as a mission specialist.

But let's move on to her glorious achievment as a champion of women and a model of what women can attain in todays world... Yeehaa, the United States first fired astronaut.

Bummer.

photo from http://nasa.gov

interview from http://nasa.gov

Pablo

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