Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center ed. by Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal

Abstract

Reviewed by: Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center ed. by Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal Margaret A. Weitekamp Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Edited by Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2022. Pp. 443. Illustrations, notes index.) With this excellent compilation of oral history interviews, editor Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, the historian at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), the center for human spaceflight and mission control for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), introduces readers to twenty-one women whose hard work and dedication helped build that center’s reputation for excellence. As a scholar, I have frequently searched for oral [End Page 393] history interviews in the deep collection that the JSC’s history office created and maintains. The individual experiences and personal recollections of contemporary actors—and the more than 1,400 oral history interviews compiled by the Johnson Space Center as of the book’s printing—deepen understanding of historical events and enliven their retelling. With this collection, Ross-Nazzal brings a selection of those resources to a broader readership. Ross-Nazzal’s introduction provides a well-researched and carefully footnoted summary of the history of women’s participation as NASA professionals. That progress was uneven, as such changes tend to be. She traces the broad outlines of the history beginning from the 1960s, when a woman behind a desk was assumed to be a secretary even if she was not, to the current day, which includes women in JSC’s leadership positions and an onsite childcare center. Ross-Nazzal self-consciously frames this volume as another possible aid to encourage that cultural shift toward women’s fuller participation in the professional work of spaceflight. Ross-Nazzal opens the volume with two oral history interviews from secretaries and administrative support, a fitting choice because for many years women’s participation at JSC was restricted to such roles. Nonetheless, reading these interviews reminds readers how vital such positions were for NASA’s work. The oral histories in this collection feature mathematicians and engineers, then flight controllers, spacesuit technicians, nurses and scientists, astronauts, trainers, senior management, and center management. Given how much the work at JSC focuses on human spaceflight, Ross-Nazzal makes a deliberate choice to illustrate through the book’s structure how much the work of astronauts is embedded in a network of other equally vital positions. The interview subjects go as far back in JSC’s history as Dee O’Hara, the nurse who worked closely with the original seven Project Mercury astronauts. She started at NASA in 1959, before the agency moved its human (then called “manned”) spaceflight operations to Houston. Peggy Whitson brings the story almost to the present as an astronaut who commanded the International Space Station and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office before retiring in 2018 to work for Axiom, a commercial spaceflight company. Throughout, the themes of mentorship and commitment to the mission illustrate how women gained professional footholds in fields that were not always completely welcoming. Often professional advancement decisions occurred because the right job, at the right level, opened at the right time. Readers should note that the chapters are edited versions of oral history interviews, not third-person accounts. As a result, in some instances there are references to federal government employment (such as pay-grade levels and NASA acronyms) that may not be immediately clear. Making Space for Women would be an excellent addition to history, women’s studies, or STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) [End Page 394] classes to show students the range of careers that might be open to them thanks to these path-breaking women. Margaret A. Weitekamp Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association