Galaxy Girls by Libby Jackson

Galaxy Girls by Libby Jackson

Author:Libby Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-03-21T04:00:00+00:00


“Aim high! If you want to be an astronaut . . . get a lot of different experiences of all the things that life has to offer. Just enjoy living on planet Earth.”

Eileen Collins

PILOT

ASTRONAUT

USA

BORN 1956 →

TRAINING AIR FORCE PILOTS

Eileen Collins didn’t have a privileged upbringing—her family had been through some tough times—but she would read book after book about pilots from her local library. She dreamed of becoming a military pilot, even though she’d never set foot on an airplane, and saved money from evening and weekend jobs for flying lessons.

As soon as the US Air Force started accepting applications from women, Eileen applied to join and became an excellent pilot. When she started teaching other people to fly jets, she was the only female doing so in her squadron and was careful to do a great job to prove that women could be just as good as men. She did so well that she became only the second woman to graduate from the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base.

Not long after she had started her training, her base was visited by newly selected astronauts, including the first female ones, and Eileen decided that she wanted to fly the Space Shuttle one day. So a few years later, when NASA announced they were recruiting more astronauts, she applied, and again her brilliant piloting skills were recognized and she was hired.

The Space Shuttle looked a bit like an airplane, but was more like a rocket-powered glider. It was launched with two big rocket boosters and three main engines. At the end of the mission, the Shuttle would fire its main engines once more to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere. From that point on it was a glider; there was no more power and it just used the wings and flaps to control its path as it flew S shapes through the air to slow down. Most gliders are lightweight with long wings, to provide as much lift as possible, but the Shuttle was heavy with a small delta wing so it was often known as a “flying brick.” The pilot had to be incredibly skilled as there was only one shot at landing—without power there was no chance to go around again.

In February 1995 the Space Shuttle Discovery roared into space, and for the first time ever there was a woman in the pilot’s seat—Eileen. The flight was the first Shuttle mission to rendezvous with the Mir space station and she piloted it with exemplary skill and precision. In July 1999, Eileen became the first, and only, woman to take command of a Shuttle mission. Her three-year-old daughter, Bridget, thought that all moms flew spacecraft. Eileen has shown the world that one day many more will.



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