Sally Ride spoke last night in Jesse Auditorium in conjunction with the Delta Gamma Lectureship Series. She said that we really need to beat back the stereotypes that keep girls from careers in science: young girls need career books and female role models. Why should we care? Ride said that we need to support a technologically literate community and provide role models and mentors not just for girls, but especially for girls so they keep with their science studies. She suggested that part of the reason for girls not staying with science is because girls have less confidence in their abilities than boys taking the same classes.

The most humorous part of the talk came when an audience member asked how she took care of personal hygiene matters. Ride asked, does this mean you’re interested in how astronauts go to the bathroom? After laughter from the crowd, Ride explained that they velcro themselves down to a toilet that looks much like one that we hve at home. The only thing is because of the loss of gravity, they also have to remember to turn on the air suction–astronauts usually only forget this once (for reasons I’m sure you can grasp).

Another key point of the lecture came when Ride said that the most important abilities NASA looks for in pilots, scientists, doctors, and engineers that apply is teamwork and the ability to communicate. Also, it’s heartening news to find out that NASA puts 25% women on the teams that will go into space and it’s quite common for 1-3 women to be included on space crews.

She had really good pictures and I was surprised to learn that the space shuttle orbits the earth so quickly: Astronauts see 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every hour. Amazing!