What girls can learn from female space pioneer Jessica Watkins

(Representative image) NASA announced on November 16. 2021, that Jessica Watkins will be a mission specialist on SpaceX’s next astronaut flight to the International Space Station.

At a time when racism continues to be a flashpoint in politics and even cricket, NASA announced on Tuesday that Jessica Watkins will be a mission specialist on SpaceX’s next astronaut flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

Watkins will be the first Black woman to join the ISS crew for a long-term mission.

The New York Times reported that Watkins, a geologist from Colorado, hoped going to the space station would set an example for children of colour, and “particularly young girls of colour, to be able to see an example of ways that they can participate and succeed”.

She added, “For me, that’s been really important, and so if I can contribute to that in some way, that’s definitely worth it.”

NYT reported that only seven of the 249 people who have boarded the ISS since its creation in 2000 are Black.

In 1983, Guion S. Bluford became the first Black American to go to space, and Mae Jemison was the first Black woman to do so, in 1992.

If those inspired by Watkins want to know the academic path she took to becoming an astronaut, this is what it was. She completed her undergraduate studies at Stanford University and earned a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a study of landslides on Mars and Earth. She has worked with NASA’s science labs, on projects including the Mars Curiosity rover mission, and joined the astronaut corps in 2017.

Watkins (Photo by Robert Markowitz via Wikimedia Commons)

She said becoming an astronaut was “something I dreamed about for a very long time ever since I was pretty little, but definitely not something I thought would ever happen.”

In May, too, Watkins had spoken about wanting to send out a message to children of colour, and logically to anyone in challenging circumstances, that they could achieve anything if they worked hard for it.

"I think representation is really important in whatever form it looks like, so somebody who looks like you, has the same background as you, came from the same place as you; whatever connection you can make can be helpful … in starting to see those paths of possibilities," Watkins told The Gazette. "To be able to see yourself in somebody else's (boots) and see those dreams become a reality and start to understand that those can be a reality for you as well … (and I hope) that the next generation of explorers can be inspired (by us)."