Women in NASA The role of women in and affiliated with NASA has varied over time. Their earliest roles were restricted to supportive or administrative jobs, but by the end of the space program there were women astronauts.
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History
Women first worked in support as administrators, computerists, secretaries, doctors, psychologists, and later engineers. In the 1970s NASA started recruiting women and minorities for the space program with little success. Some of the women who worked in these roles included Mary Shep Burton, Gloria B. Martinez, Cathy Osgood, and Shirley Hunt who all worked in the computer division, and Sue Erwin, Lois Ransdell, and Maureen Bowen who worked as secretaries for various members of the Mission and Flight Control teams. Beginning in 1977 the recruitment slowly began to increase after they had Nichelle Nichols help with recruitment. Part of the advantage she had in recruitment for the space program was that her role as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek helped inspire girls to attempt to become astronauts at NASA when they grew up. One of the girls inspired was Mae Jemison who was the first Black woman astronaut. Another important woman was Ellen Ochoa who joined NASA in 1988 and became the first Hispanic woman to become an astronaut.
Some issues NASA faced in recruiting women as well as minorities for the space program was that throughout NASA's history the astronauts had always been white men. This was at least partially caused by the restrictive academic requirements for the earlier astronauts. Originally the astronauts, aside from the specific training from NASA, were required to have master's degrees in various sciences such as engineering so that they could deal with issues that came up during or after the spaceship was launched. Another part of the issue was that NASA similar to other businesses, did not look specifically for women to work for them outside of specific areas until the government ratified the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. This discredited NASA with women and minorities when they did try to recruit them as they did not believe NASA actually meant what it said in the recruitment drives. this led to NASA hiring Nichelle Nichols as a recruitment consultant and as the face of their new recruitment drive. After which the recruitment rates for women and minorities increased and eventually led to women astronauts of various ethnic backgrounds.