By Marlo Lundak
(WLUK) — NASA announced this week that for the first time in agency history, its latest class of future astronauts has more women than it does men.
For women who work in STEM fields, like former UW-Green Bay adjunct associate professor Dr. R. Aileen Yingst, it’s a big milestone. Ever since Yingst was a little girl, she knew what her calling was.
“I always wanted to work in space science. I do not, I literally don’t remember a time when I didn’t,” she says.
Yingst made that calling her reality. She is a planetary geologist and has been working with NASA for years. She has worked on multiple Mars exploration missions, including the Mars Polar Lander and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers as a young scientist.
“I currently work on the Curiosity and the Perseverance Mars rovers, both returning data from Mars that is, you know, game-changing,” she says.
Yingst is also the principal investigator on a camera system called the Heimdall, which has been used on rovers to take photos of Mars and send them back to Earth. The system will be launched to the moon in 2028 with Yingst’s help, too.
“I was in the science backroom at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I was back-to-back with a friend of mine. We were pretty crowded up to look at this screen as we were waiting to hear something, and my friend finally turned around and said, ‘You need to take a step back because I can feel your heartbeat going so fast that it’s making me nervous,’” Yingst shares about working on her first successful mission with the Curiosity Rover.
“But there’s really nothing like it. That moment where you realize that 20 minutes ago, we had a safe landing on Mars, and the relief and the joy of doing something that had never been done before, you know? Tens of millions miles away, and then right almost immediately, the images start coming back, and this is such an immediate thing to see a place that no one in human history has ever seen before,” Yingst shares.
Yingst has worked with many women during her years as a scientist with NASA and at the Planetary Science Institute, where she is a senior scientist. However, she knows all too well what it feels like to be the only woman in the room.
Many other women know that feeling, too. But for the first time ever, the roles are reversed for the latest class of NASA astronauts.
“I’m really proud, absolutely,” Yingst says. “But I would also say something that, you know, similar to what Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, where it still makes news that there are more women and men. When we get to the point when the entire astronaut class is women and it doesn’t make news, then we’re done, but we’re not there yet.”
Seeing women dominate in a male-dominated field is something that Yingst knows will leave an impression on future generations.
“It allows young people to see themselves in the back room of scientists and engineers and managers and the whole range of individuals that are going to be required to have just a few people put their boot prints on the moon,” she says. “And being able to see yourself in that role is really the first step in saying, ‘Yeah, this is something I want to do, and that first barrier is gone. And that’s a crucial first barrier to overcome.”
Despite more and more women entering STEM fields, the United Nations Information Center says in 2023, women held just 7% of the 12 million jobs in STEM fields, despite making up 47% of the U.S. workforce.
“I am, as I said, I am the principal investigator of the Heimdall camera system, and at our first meeting, there were two other women in a room of about 30 or 40 people, and neither of them were scientists. . . It was just me,” she says. “That was 2019, so it was not that long ago.”
For young people, especially young girls, Yingst simply says to follow your calling, even when it’s hard.
“A friend of mine sent me a picture of a five-year-old girl sitting in front of a museum exhibit of the rover, watching a video,” Yingst shares. “My friend sent it and it said, ‘A little girl dreaming of being you.’”
She added, “You know, if I could talk to my five-year-old self, I would say keep going. You’re going to be okay, we’re going to make it.”
Source: Scientist, former UWGB professor shares thoughts on first female-led NASA astronaut class