In 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter space.
In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the surface of our moon. These
were extraordinary accomplishments, and they ushered in the era of human space flight. But
where was woman when man was beginning to conquer the stars? You've probably heard of
Sally Wright, the first American woman in space. She died in 2012 and was rightly lauded as an
American hero.
You may even have heard of Valentina Tarashkova, who became the first woman in space in
1963, just two years after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the Earth.
There are many other notable women who flew in space. You may have heard of Mae Jamieson,
the first African-American woman in space. Judith Resnik, who perished in the Challenger
disaster. Helen Charman, the first British citizen to fly in space, although many media outlets
seem to forget this in 2015, when Tim Peake was referred to as the first British astronaut.
Karpana Shola and Laurel B. Clarke, who both died in the Columbia disaster. In total, 59 women
have flown in space. But what about the women behind the scenes? An enormous number of
women made huge contributions to the development of human space flight. Without them, it's
possible that humanity would never have reached the moon at all. In the late 1800s, teams of
women worked as human computers at the Harvard Observatory, making critical breakthroughs
in astronomy. Among these women, were Williamina Fleming, Annie JMP Canon, Henrietta
Swann-Levitt, and Antonia Mori. They received very little individual recognition for their work,
and instead were collectively known as Pickering's Herine. Although many of these women were
astronomy graduates, they were paid less than the average clerical worker. This is Margaret
Hamilton. She was the lead flight software designer for Project Apollo.
Her work saved the Apollo 11 mission when it was nearly aborted after computer systems
failure. Without Hamilton and her team, Neil Armstrong would never have set foot on the
Moon.
Katherine Johnson is a physicist and mathematician. She calculated the trajectory for the 1969
Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. She was considered so accurate that NASA would ask her to
manually check the calculations performed by their computers. In 1959, more than 500 of
America's most elite pilots applied to become NASA's first astronauts. The successful candidates
had to pass strict tests, and they became the famed Mercury-7. All eventually flew on manned
orbital space missions. At the same time, a privately funded program invited a group of women
to take the same tests as the male astronauts. Thirteen managed to pass the rigorous tests. All
were accomplished pilots, and some even outperformed their male counterparts. This is Gerri
Kopp, one of the so-called Mercury 13. She was a pilot with more than 7,000 hours of flying and
a world record for distance flying under her belt. During the testing, she broke the record, male
and female, for time spent in an isolation tank. According to all tests, she was as qualified as any
of the official astronauts. And yet, Gerri never had a chance to go to space. All astronauts were
required to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs, and at the time, women were still
barred from Air Force training schools.
It would be more than 20 years before an American woman flew in space. Almost 50 years Years
later, prospects have improved dramatically for women. In 2016, NASA announced that its latest
class of astronauts is half women. Eight people were selected from an application pool of more
than 6,000, and four of the successful people are women. These women could be among the
first people to set foot on Mars. We are fortunate enough to live in a time when this is possible,
but we should never forget the women who went before us, those who were denied recognition
for their achievements that helped humanity first leave planet Earth.
VIDEO 2:
Speaker 1 (00:00:11.23)
More young women go to school than ever before. That's good for the girls and the economy.
Every extra year of education leads to an average increase of around 9% in GDP per capita. In
OECD countries, 15-year-old girls read at a full school year higher than boys. At university level
in 2009, nearly 60% of graduates in the OECD area were female. If that trend continues, by
2025, it'll be closer to 70%. And in the Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway, Slovak Republic, and
Sweden, there could be almost twice as many female students as male in higher education. But
women and men are still choosing different study and career paths. More than 70% of
university students in education and 75% of health and social science graduates are women,
while some 70% of engineering, manufacturing, and construction graduates are men. Better
education means more women work, but many countries are facing the double challenge of an
aging population and a falling fertility rate. The challenge is ensuring that more women work
and those who want to can go full-time. That will require better childcare and more flexible
work conditions. And those pay slips are smaller for women than for men.
Speaker 1 (00:01:52.18)
On average, 16% smaller, and the gap rises to 21% among top wage earners. This glass ceiling
extends to the boardroom. On average, across listed companies in the OECD, there's only one
woman for every nine men at the boardroom table. In Norway, 40% of board members are
women as a result of a mandatory quota, introduced in 2006. In Sweden, France, and Finland,
between 15 and 20% of board members are women. That drops to less than 5% in Germany,
Japan, and the Netherlands. Education is a good start, but what about employment and
entrepreneurship? The next step must be to break down the barriers in the job market. Giving
men and women the same chance to contribute, both at home and work, will boost growth and
well-being for everyone..