It’s great that NASA’s 2016 class of astronaut candidates selected were women. Obviously you want the most qualified to do the jobs in space, regardless of gender or race. Did you know about the Mercury 13 women who were just as qualified as the seven men who were chosen? Why is it important to pick the most qualified regardless of gender or race?

 I didn’t learn about the Mercury 13 until very recently. While we like to think we’re “modern” and all that, I’m still amazed at the persistence of old thinking that would dictate what careers are open to which groups based on gender or race. Ugh. When I started teaching in the mid-1990s I could see in my sixth grade students that the females were generally more responsible, at least as intelligent, capable and able to do anything they put their minds to. I wonder how many sacrificed their potential to support their family in the short-term, mostly because of the assumed roles they were expected to fill. I was told in the 1960s that you can be anything you want to be. Alas, there was an unwritten code that would not allow women or “minorities” to have certain positions of leadership or power. Sad.

But I loved celebrating the accomplishments of women, especially in the Space sciences and especially given the restrictions that they worked against. Imagine how much further we might have gotten had all of the possibilities been available to the 50% of the population that worked under antiquated restrictions.

When I was getting into LEGO, one of the first things that I built was the Women of NASA set (21312). I made a little Timelapse video of the construction. Enjoy & celebrate the accomplishments and potential of women.