1
00:00:00,133 --> 00:00:03,136
I think we're here to stay.

2
00:00:03,236 --> 00:00:04,671
I think if I hadn't been stubborn,

3
00:00:04,671 --> 00:00:07,674
I'd been talked out of here earlier.

4
00:00:08,341 --> 00:00:10,977
There are grand adventures in life,
and some people get to have them

5
00:00:10,977 --> 00:00:12,212
as part of their job.

6
00:00:12,212 --> 00:00:14,414
My goodness, how does that happen?

7
00:00:14,414 --> 00:00:16,983
I can remember driving through the gate

8
00:00:16,983 --> 00:00:19,986
and I just could not stop smiling.

9
00:00:20,186 --> 00:00:23,023
I was actually working for NASA.

10
00:00:23,023 --> 00:00:26,026
It was awesome.

11
00:00:26,026 --> 00:00:31,297
American Pioneers and The Hubble Space Telescope.

12
00:00:31,297 --> 00:00:32,198
So I grew up in Southern

13
00:00:32,198 --> 00:00:36,269
California, starting back in the late
50s, in the L.A.

14
00:00:36,269 --> 00:00:38,538
area when there was still
a lot of open ground around.

15
00:00:38,538 --> 00:00:39,973
Pretty adventurous young girl.

16
00:00:39,973 --> 00:00:42,342
We could safely go roam all day long

17
00:00:42,342 --> 00:00:45,345
with a group of friends,
from literally dawn to dusk.

18
00:00:45,512 --> 00:00:47,347
It was right up my alley.

19
00:00:47,347 --> 00:00:51,618
Kathy Sullivan's early love of adventure
drove her to break new ground,

20
00:00:51,618 --> 00:00:55,455
eventually becoming
an inspiring figure in space exploration.

21
00:00:56,489 --> 00:00:58,792
I knew two
things really were a strong interest for me.

22
00:00:58,792 --> 00:01:02,962
I was really inspired and curious
and fascinated

23
00:01:02,962 --> 00:01:06,966
by the grand adventure that I was seeing
the early astronauts have on television.

24
00:01:06,966 --> 00:01:10,770
I watched everything from Alan Shepard's
15 minute flight on forward.

25
00:01:11,271 --> 00:01:14,040
And it was just a scale of drama

26
00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:17,777
and boldness and adventure
that even the world had never seen.

27
00:01:17,777 --> 00:01:22,048
And, you know, watching that at a young
age was a great inspiration to me.

28
00:01:22,048 --> 00:01:24,317
But it mainly made me curious,

29
00:01:24,317 --> 00:01:27,554
how do people get
that kind of adventure in their life?

30
00:01:28,221 --> 00:01:30,857
There are grand adventures in life,
and some people get to have them

31
00:01:30,857 --> 00:01:33,526
as part of their job. My goodness,
how does that happen?

32
00:01:33,526 --> 00:01:37,230
Watching those early astronauts
planted the seed of curiosity,

33
00:01:37,397 --> 00:01:40,300
but Kathy didn't see herself
in their place just yet.

34
00:01:41,468 --> 00:01:42,302
So although I

35
00:01:42,302 --> 00:01:45,371
was really inspired
and enthralled by the adventure that I saw

36
00:01:45,371 --> 00:01:51,344
the early astronauts having, that did not
translate into “I want to be an astronaut.”

37
00:01:51,377 --> 00:01:53,980
I mean, you know, it sort of,

38
00:01:53,980 --> 00:01:55,582
I never thought of my life that way.

39
00:01:55,582 --> 00:01:59,719
I need to know what job title I want was
never how it occurred to me.

40
00:02:00,286 --> 00:02:03,890
So off I went to graduate school
after finishing my undergraduate degree

41
00:02:03,890 --> 00:02:07,961
to become a deep sea oceanographer,
and I was having a grand time doing that,

42
00:02:08,194 --> 00:02:11,698
going out to sea,
I was having my own kind of adventures,

43
00:02:11,698 --> 00:02:15,435
very much like the space adventures
in a lot of ways, you know, obviously

44
00:02:15,435 --> 00:02:20,507
slower, different hazards, certainly
less risky overall than spaceflight.

45
00:02:20,874 --> 00:02:23,776
But similar challenges, we’re going off
far from shore.

46
00:02:23,776 --> 00:02:26,513
You've got measurements and experiments
you want to do.

47
00:02:26,513 --> 00:02:29,249
How do you think about the gear?
How do you make it work at sea?

48
00:02:29,249 --> 00:02:32,819
How do you have backups and redundancy
and etc., etc., etc.

49
00:02:33,219 --> 00:02:36,589
Her work as an oceanographer
was the perfect training ground for

50
00:02:36,589 --> 00:02:37,757
what was to come.

51
00:02:37,757 --> 00:02:38,191
Kathy.

52
00:02:38,191 --> 00:02:42,495
Success in remote, demanding environments
would prove invaluable

53
00:02:42,495 --> 00:02:45,498
as she took the next step toward
becoming an astronaut.

54
00:02:45,932 --> 00:02:49,469
The influences that prompted me
to go ahead and apply were,

55
00:02:50,436 --> 00:02:54,307
that inquisitive drive,
the love of learning, the opportunity

56
00:02:54,307 --> 00:02:57,477
to learn something new, try
something new was always intriguing to me.

57
00:02:58,178 --> 00:02:59,812
You know, you may as well try.

58
00:02:59,812 --> 00:03:02,882
The only people that have zero chance of
getting in are the people who don't apply.

59
00:03:03,650 --> 00:03:07,086
And if you know the fates favor
you and you get selected,

60
00:03:07,453 --> 00:03:09,789
then you get to see the Earth
with your own eyes from orbit.

61
00:03:09,789 --> 00:03:12,125
Instead of looking at other people's
pictures.

62
00:03:12,125 --> 00:03:16,663
Kathy's skill set earned her a place in
NASA's first class of female astronauts.

63
00:03:16,996 --> 00:03:20,433
Among those six trailblazing women,
she made history

64
00:03:20,433 --> 00:03:23,670
as the first American woman
to perform a spacewalk.

65
00:03:23,870 --> 00:03:26,973
A powerful testament to her determination
and skill.

66
00:03:28,174 --> 00:03:30,510
Her journey with NASA was far from over.

67
00:03:30,510 --> 00:03:34,013
She would soon find herself
involved in one of the most ambitious

68
00:03:34,013 --> 00:03:37,884
scientific projects of the century,
the Hubble Space Telescope.

69
00:03:38,918 --> 00:03:40,486
I certainly remember the very first time

70
00:03:40,486 --> 00:03:44,390
I went into the enormous clean room
where Hubble was being built.

71
00:03:44,390 --> 00:03:47,393
I mean, it's 90ft tall and 120ft long

72
00:03:47,827 --> 00:03:50,830
and hyper clean, hyper clean air.

73
00:03:51,331 --> 00:03:55,201
And the telescope just I mean, it just
looked like something Tiffany's had built.

74
00:03:55,235 --> 00:03:58,471
We're going to look
for the label somewhere.

75
00:03:58,471 --> 00:03:59,806
That's a telescope by Tiffany's.

76
00:03:59,806 --> 00:04:01,674
Just glistening silver.

77
00:04:01,674 --> 00:04:04,310
Fabulous. Gorgeous piece of work.

78
00:04:04,310 --> 00:04:05,645
Huge.

79
00:04:05,645 --> 00:04:08,648
Hubble represented
more than an engineering marvel.

80
00:04:08,948 --> 00:04:12,752
It was a bridge to the cosmos,
a beacon of human ingenuity

81
00:04:12,752 --> 00:04:16,155
and perseverance that would reveal
the mysteries of the universe.

82
00:04:17,123 --> 00:04:20,059
Kathy would become part of the space
shuttle mission

83
00:04:20,059 --> 00:04:22,262
that would launch and deploy Hubble.

84
00:04:22,262 --> 00:04:25,031
Her role in bringing Hubble to life
became an extension

85
00:04:25,031 --> 00:04:28,034
of her mission
to inspire future generations.

86
00:04:28,201 --> 00:04:32,038
She wanted young people to see that
science isn't just about reaching

87
00:04:32,038 --> 00:04:33,039
the stars.

88
00:04:33,039 --> 00:04:36,142
It's about understanding
and impacting the world around them.

89
00:04:36,943 --> 00:04:37,777
Stay curious.

90
00:04:38,945 --> 00:04:41,481
Learn how to learn,

91
00:04:41,481 --> 00:04:43,216
get good at communicating.

92
00:04:43,216 --> 00:04:47,086
Whatever work or job or civic role
or family role.

93
00:04:47,387 --> 00:04:51,391
Knowing how to express things
well is never going to go down in value.

94
00:04:51,391 --> 00:04:53,126
It's only going to go up.

95
00:04:53,126 --> 00:04:56,262
Kathy's dedication to exploration
didn't end with NASA.

96
00:04:56,629 --> 00:04:59,332
She went on to serve
as the chief scientist

97
00:04:59,332 --> 00:05:02,402
at the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration,

98
00:05:02,568 --> 00:05:05,571
where she shifted her focus
to understanding our planet.

99
00:05:06,105 --> 00:05:11,210
Her work at NOAA reinforced her belief
that exploration isn't confined to space.

100
00:05:11,311 --> 00:05:15,348
It's about safeguarding the Earth
and ensuring a sustainable future for all.

101
00:05:15,948 --> 00:05:18,785
I think our world is going to need
really skilled

102
00:05:18,785 --> 00:05:20,920
and knowledgeable scientists
and engineers.

103
00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:22,989
Forever and ever and ever.

104
00:05:22,989 --> 00:05:24,724
I mean, we live in a built society.

105
00:05:24,724 --> 00:05:27,894
We we're enmeshed
in a highly technical society,

106
00:05:27,894 --> 00:05:30,897
knowing how it operates,
sustaining it, maintaining it,

107
00:05:30,930 --> 00:05:33,933
improving it both incrementally
and in radical ways.

108
00:05:34,434 --> 00:05:37,737
All flows from some deep knowledge
of how things work.

109
00:05:38,271 --> 00:05:41,341
Kathy Sullivan's life journey
from the depths of the ocean

110
00:05:41,341 --> 00:05:46,412
to the vastness of space reminds us of
the pursuit of knowledge knows no bounds.

111
00:05:46,713 --> 00:05:49,215
As the first American woman
to walk in space

112
00:05:49,215 --> 00:05:53,052
and as the NOAA administrator,
her legacy serves as a beacon

113
00:05:53,052 --> 00:05:58,291
to those who have curiosity and a desire
to learn, inspiring future generations

114
00:05:58,291 --> 00:06:02,362
to reach for the stars
and embrace the spirit of exploration.

115
00:06:03,763 --> 00:06:05,198
Couple your passions.

116
00:06:05,198 --> 00:06:08,201
Understand you're going to have to match
your passions and your dreams.

117
00:06:08,668 --> 00:06:10,103
With really hard work.

118
00:06:10,103 --> 00:06:12,638
That's how you get to the stars
or to any other destination.

119
00:06:17,143 --> 00:06:30,089
“Dr. Kathy Sullivan's groundbreaking achievements as an astronaut and scientist, including her contributions to the Hubble Space Telescope, have inspired generations and showcased the limitless potential of humans in exploration and discovery.”