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Women at nasa kennedy space center12/6/2023 That really put, I think, space in my DNA. Probably my most vivid memory is watching Neil Armstrong step on the moon, watching with my family on the black-and-white TV in the family room. I got to watch those early launches from the beach. He worked on the test programs leading up to Apollo through the space shuttle. My father moved the family down back in the very early days of the space program. Petro: I grew up here on the space coast of Florida. Photo courtesy of NASA Bostonia: When and how did you get interested in space? Seen above, crews with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and contractor Jacobs stacked the launch vehicle stage adapter atop the core stage June 22 at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for the Artemis I mission, the first integrated flight test of SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Petro is excited about upcoming launches, including Artemis I, which will circle the moon, perhaps later this year. Kennedy Space Center has built our senior management team so more than 50 percent of them are women. But more and more meetings, I’m not the only woman in the room. I think more about the awesome responsibilities and how I can effectively lead this amazing workforce first. I happen to be the first one leading what I call the crown jewel of this agency, the Kennedy Space Center. I was born at the right time, when there weren’t a lot of women in STEM fields going to West Point, being in the Army. Petro: I don’t really think about that till people ask me. Bostonia: Do you feel like a role model as Kennedy’s first woman director? I was never able to go up as an astronaut, so it’s really exciting that people like yourself and me a possibility, as more companies are able to safely bring people up, to see Earth from high above. They have blueprints from NASA as to what we do for our safety. Companies have a vested interest in the safety of their passengers as much as NASA does. I think everybody knows that space is hard. Passengers sign an informed consent, so they have an understanding of the risks. Petro: I don’t really have any safety concerns. Bostonia: But do you have any safety concerns about space tourism? The cargo was so successful, that led to us doing something with astronauts the same way with the Commercial Crew Program. So the government wouldn’t be the sole funder of that vehicle. If NASA owns and operates all the assets associated with that, you’re going to pay the price for being the sole customer of that one spacecraft. We are taking advantage of the success of the space industry, starting with cargo to the International Space Station. I was seeing all these great facilities and assets that space companies could use, but that NASA could not. I joined when the space shuttle program was ending, and it was going to be devastating to the Kennedy Space Center in terms of workforce and programs. Q &A With Janet Petro Bostonia: Some worry about the commercialization of space. Bostonia caught up with Petro to discuss her path to NASA, space tourism, and major upcoming launches, among other things. Petro, who graduated from West Point in 1981, earned a master’s degree in business administration from Boston University’s Metropolitan College. (Richard Branson beat Bezos aloft with his successful space flight on July 11.) On news that Jeff Bezos will lift off from New Mexico this month for an 11-minute suborbital ride, tens of thousands signed a petition to keep him up there permanently. With private “space tourism” in the offing, critics object to the commercialization of space and the billionaires behind it. It opened to other users in 2015 as cutbacks at NASA freed up some of the center’s facilities. Previously, as the deputy director, she helped steer the Merritt Island, Fla., center’s transformation into a launch pad for private space vehicles as well as government craft.įor half a century, the Kennedy Center-NASA’s premier launch site, built for the Apollo program that reached the moon in 1969-handled only the space agency’s missions. Petro (MET’88), the center’s 11th director, is a 14-year Kennedy Center veteran who had already historically reshaped its mission. Janet Petro has broken Earth’s glass atmosphere, becoming the first woman to lead NASA’s John F.
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