[music] >>Sandra: Every time I work on a rocket launch I
get chills. During the count down, I hold
my breath. The count down is so terrifying because the
satellite that I have worked on is going into space on top of a bomb.
This rocket can be delivered safely into orbit, or it can blow up in an instant.
The climax for me, and for everyone working on
this amazing project is the point of liftoff and separation.
I know many of you have watched rockets launch from
NASA on television. The sound is so overwhelming.
When the sound waves travel across the three and a half miles from the launch pad to those
watching the launch, we not only hear the liftoff, we
actually feel it. It is so amazing.
We are completely engulfed in that noise and the sound, it's
just incredible. It is thrilling to realize that this rocket,
with a satellite I have helped build, is heading at 17,600
miles per hour into space.
And guess what, I just finished launching a satellite to Mars.
It is just incredible that a little piece of me and a little piece of
Costa Rica has travelled to Mars and is now orbiting the
Red Planet. We need to understand the processes that contributed
to Mars becoming the dry and arid planet that it is
today. And we want to understand all the issues that we have
with climate change, if any of those processes are occurring here on Earth.
We really want to understand what happened, so we can
prevent all of that from happening on Earth later on.
I am also so amazed at how far I have traveled to get where
I am today. I marvel at my own journey,
and how I came to help probe the mysteries of outer space.
Michelangelo once said,
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,
but that it is too low and we actually reach it."
My story today is how a Costa Rican girl from a poor family
nurtured an improbable dream about space travel and made that dream come
true. My story began a long time ago.
My first years were very full of mistreatment and pain.
My mother was forced to take two jobs, sometimes three,
just to make ends meet. My mother worked most of the time.
Sometimes she would come home in between jobs just to sleep a few hours and then have to turn
around and go back to work. We knew she was dead tired, but
she still took some time to be with us and play with us and talk to us.
For many years, my mother kept food on our table and a roof over our heads.
I was always in awe of her perseverance and determination
to keep on going without complaining. She would not let herself
break under all the pressure that she was under. I continued
to take care of the house chores and my younger brother while going to school.
hardships, and everything I had to do. During my
elementary school years, I had a very compassionate teacher. Her name
is Leda Espinosa de Valverde. We called her
la Niña Leda.
She was a loving person and demanded a lot of her students. She taught us to take pride in everything
that we did and to pay attention to all of the details.
Our "libros de vida" had to be cleaned, organized, and the letters
had to be perfect. Everything had to be just right. Through la Niña
Leda, I learned to take pride in everything I did and to try to
do it correctly the first time. Sometimes
what I was doing seemed almost impossible. It would have been easy
to just listen to my own thoughts, just to give up, why did I have to study so
much, or how tired I was and go to sleep and not even bother.
But, I would not let my thinking become my
obstacle. I told myself that I had to do better, that
I had to take time to study, that I had to do my homework, even if I didn't get much
sleep. It was important to me to get good grades.
I knew I didn't want the kind of life that I saw
wearing my mother down. I dreamed of escaping the poverty and pain.
I wanted to do something different when I grew up.
The dream that began taking shape in me became my escape from
the only world that I knew. Sometimes we
remember exactly where we were and what we were doing during a significant
historical event. Well, July 20th, 1969
was one such event for me. I was seven years old.
I wanted to watch the first human walk on the Moon. We did not have a
television at home, so we went to a neighbor's house.
All of the kids were clustered around a small black and white television.
There were many people in the room, some were lying on the floor,
while others were standing behind the sofa. We watched in total silence.
We could hear a pin drop in that room.
We were in awe when we saw an American named Neil Armstrong place
his foot on the surface of the Moon for the first time. The TV
crackled out his words: "One small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind." This really was
a giant leap. I walked home that night and looked at the Moon
so far away, and I knew then that I wanted to be part of that adventure.
I would be lying if I said that I knew what NASA was at that moment.
However, I knew that I wanted to work in space.
I wanted to be able to go to the Moon someday.
So I remember saying to my mother, "I want to do that someday, Mom." And Mom
could have said so many things that would have deterred me at that point.
But what she said set in motion my determination to become who I am today.
She said, "Sandra, you never know. Just work hard for what
you want. The world goes around and around, and you never know
what opportunities might present themselves, and you have to be ready to get them."
The world did go round and round and our problems continued.
During this time I realized that I had
to take ownership of my actions. My success was up to
me. It was not my mother's or my teacher's responsibility to make me
succeed. It was my responsibility.
I saw how hard my mother worked just to survive, and I tried to learn
by her experiences. That became my goal,
"not to repeat history," and of course "to go to the Moon."
When I was 12 years old, we lost our house
and we started moving from place to place.
Mom would rent a room here and there, but we had to move frequently.
I was determined to graduate from high school and to go to college.
I tried to always find people who would elevate me and not
to get with the wrong crowds. It allowed me to take all these
baby steps that I need toward my very lofty goal to go to the Moon
some day. I wanted to do things differently,
I was always remembering in the back of my head what my mother used to tell me - "Do not
repeat history." So I wanted to do things very very differently.
I talked to my teachers and other people who would give me good advice
and ideas. I tried to recognize all the bad ideas and
separate myself from all of those people who always tried to give you bad advice.
I continued to nurture the dream of space travel
in my mind and in my heart. And it was still pulling me forward.
One of my intermediate goals was to become an electrical engineer.
When I was accepted at the University of Costa Rica,
the counselor said that I could not study electrical engineering because I was
a woman. He recommednded that I study industrial engineering
instead because that was the ladylike engineering.
I spent three and half years studying industrial engineering
at the Univeristy of Costa Rica. Well,
I definitely admit that in that point in my life, I underestimated my own abilities.
I knew that I was capable, but I didn't feel like I was assertive enough. It did not cross my mind
to assert myself and insist that I really wanted to study electrical
engineering rather than industrial. I decided to change majors.
I figured at that point it wouldn't hurt. I finally decided
to study what I always wanted to study which was electrical engineering.
I became a transfer student, and out of the major credits that I had
at the University of Costa Rica, only 31 were recognized, so I had to
start pretty much all over again. There were
many many challenges in front of my still. I spoke almost
no English. I only had the English that I knew from high school.
So it was very hard for me. It took me three and a half more years
to get my degrees. At that point, I was on the seven year
plan to graduation. I finally graduated
with a double major in electrical engineering and physics.
After graduation, I went to a job fair, which led to an
interview. I never forget being
offered the job on the spot. I had overcome
so many obstacles and now there was a wonderful opporunity to work at
Goddard as a contractor. Three years later,
I was hired by the agency. I finally became a
full-fledged civil servant. and the reason this happened was
because during my three years as a contractor, I worked on
many optical systems working with scientists hand-by-hand
and I was noticed. And when I put in that resume,
they gave me the job, and I was so so happy
that finally after all the years
and all of the challenges, I finally became a NASA employee.
I have been working for NASA now for
23 and a half years as a full-fledged civil servant.
Working at NASA has enabled me to design and
test hardware, work side by side with talented scientists,
and design new missions for space exploration. I work with
so many amazing people who think of things nobody had ever done before,
and they inspire me so much every day.
Our work isn't easy; it's very very hard. And I really love it.
My dream, as you have heard,
was very very lofty and perhaps a bit unrealistic.
My path was very difficult, and at any moment I could have given up.
But I made a conscious choice to move towards a different life
for myself. I made deliberate decisions that put me in
unfamiliar situations. Many of the experiences I
sought out were not only new, but they were very very scary.
I didn't know if I would achive my goal, but I didn't allow
myself to be overcome by doubts or negative thinking.
I was very determined to change my behavior so I didn't have to repeat the past
and repeat history. So continue to bring new
thoughts, ideas, and perceptions into your life, and get to know
different people with different perspectives, different occupations,
cultures, religions. The bottom line is,
that with perseverence and staying true to my dream in life, I was able to
achieve what many people thought I shouldn't have even considered.
Life is never easy. But the circumstances of your birth should not
take the kind of person that you can become. You have control
of your destiny. So, set lofty goals
with intermediate goals along the way. While you many never achieve your
lofty goal, in an effort to reach it, you will always
go very very far. If you reach far enough you
may yet accomplish your dreams. When I was seven years old, I wanted
to go to the Moon. Look where I am today. I have landed among
the stars.