What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?
Nancy Grace Roman, “The Mother of Hubble,” NASA’s First Chief of Astronomy
The idea of Hubble was something that was among the astronomical
community for generations. It was not something that was new.
Astronomers badly wanted a large telescope above the atmosphere.
Well I decided that if the aerospace companies were going
to put a lot of money into designing a telescope, they
might as well design one that made sense. So what I did was to
bring together a collection of astronomers from all over the
country trying to represent a variety of things that we might
do with the telescope and some NASA engineers and get them to
sit down together and come up with something that the
engineers thought would work and that the astronomers thought
would do their job.
Becoming an Astronomer
Well I think I've
always been curious. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity,
and astronomy in particular was a subject I wanted to learn more
about. I blamed my mother, because she used to take me out
to show me the constellations and show me the northern lights
and things like that. I just was fascinated. Between 5th and 6th
grade I organized my friends into an astronomy club to study
the constellations, and by 7th grade I decided I wanted to be
an astronomer, and I was going to try for it. I knew it was
going to take me another 12 years of schooling, but I
figured I’d try, and if I didn’t make it I could teach physics or
math in high school. I certainly did not receive any
encouragement. I was told from the beginning that women could
not be scientists. In high school one of the experiences I
remember is that I asked my guidance counselor for
permission to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth
year of Latin. And she looked down her nose and sneered, “What
lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?” The first
encouragement I got was in my junior year at college when the
head of the physics department came up to me in lab one day and
said, “You know, I usually try to talk women out of going into
physics, but I think maybe, you might make it.” My main
astronomical research area when I started out was what they call
spectral classification. Looking at the stars spreading the light
out into a rainbow, so that you could see the different colors
separately. What I started out doing was looking at these
spectra, looking at these rainbows, and deciding the
temperature and the brightness of the stars, and then I was
trying to find out how far away they were and how they moved. My
thesis professor was someone I often didn’t get the support I
expected. There was a period of six months he went without
speaking to me even when I said hello to him in the hall. He
didn’t want to have anything to do with me.
Becoming NASA's First Chief of Astronomy
I didn’t think I could get tenure
as a research astronomer. I didn’t think I could stay in the
academic community, because I looked around and I think there
was one other woman in astronomy who had tenure in this country.
But I saw very senior women who didn’t have it. When NASA came
along and offered me a job I decided to take it. I started at
NASA in 1959, it was six months old. When I joined the
government, I was hired as a fresh PhD in spite of the fact
that I had not only six years of experience but an international
reputation. And afterwards I understood the reason. My salary
at the university was so low that civil service did not
recognize it as a professional experience. Being the first
executive woman at NASA turned out to be not terribly eventful.
I was accepted very readily as a scientist in my job and the men
were very cooperative. I felt that the men treated me as one
of the team without a problem. Civil service had rewards for
outstanding work, but they were limited to men. Someone decided
there should be something for women. In 1962, I received the
Federal Women’s Award. We all met with Kennedy in the course
of receiving the award.
Women in Astronomy
I'm happy about the
fact that women can get senior jobs now, and they’re not being
quite as discouraged as I was. But I think there are two things
that I would like to see changed: one is salaries.
Salaries are still not equal. And the other thing is I would
like to see more uniform women across the ranks. Women can get
into senior positions in astronomy now, but percentage
wise there are still few at the high levels.
Nancy's Legacy
It's hard to decide how history will view my accomplishments.
People generally aren’t terribly interested in what gets things
started. And so I’m not sure they’re going to have much of an
idea of my role. [music ends] www.nasa.gov/hubble @NASAHubble
[music ends]
www.nasa.gov/hubble @NASAHubble
[satellite swooshes by, beep beep, beep beep, beep beep]
NASA Goddard Space Fight Center www.nasa.gov/goddard