“9 Simple Things Women Want”
That insipid blurb comes from my YAHOO home page. It punched out at me, so I decided to punch back. I know women who live lives beyond reality TV, Octomom, the Botox arthritics of SEX AND THE CITY . I know women who want the Stars,not the stars in any poetic, figurative sense but the stars themselves.
I know women who want what Ferdinand Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, John Franklin, Charles Lindbergh wanted, to do it. To see what is out there, and then to bring home the dirt from a different world, a different planet, a different solar system and lay it at the feet of all us who like cozy living.
I know AMBER GELL.
This is her BBC bio, “Amber Gell… who is an engineer for space organisation NASA is visiting Cornwall to show local children the benefits of studying hard in school.Amber is currently designing the docking mechanism for the brand new Orion Space Craft which will be the space shuttle of the future, which Amber hopes one day to be an astronaut on.”
Her visit to a school in Cornwall led to this sensation, (as reported by the BBC).
Intergalactic Callington
School pupils in North Cornwall received a very special visit when they met and received a talk from a NASA Space Engineer. Amber Gell from Houston, Texas. BBC James Miners blasted off to the Callington Space Centre and asked Amber about her role at NASA.
Pupils from Callington College will have their signatures sent into space on the next NASA shuttle launch in October. They are the only school in the country to have the opportunity. The student signatures destined for space.
“Children studying in school now are the perfect age that they can be the crews that go to the Moon or eventually on to Mars.”
As part of their day hearing lectures from Amber, primary school students from the region took part in a rocket building workshop. The pupils designed and built their own rockets and tested them by using an air pump to fire them across the playground.
Amber finished her trip in Cornwall by officially opening the new Chill centre; she now heads for Glasgow where she will lecture students at the Space Academy in Scotland.”
Amber went to Scotland,
Spaced out pupils reach for the sky
By Leanne Carter, THE NORTHERN SCOT
Yesterday’s visit was particularly important for Ms Gell, who is committed to breaking down perceptions that science careers are still a male dominated domain.
She said: “I really hope that our visit will inspire young girls to consider a career in science. A lot of it depends on the girl, but some think that if they enjoy science and engineering, they can’t go out and enjoy themselves and do other hobbies like dancing. That’s complete hogwash.
“You usually find that girls who want to go into science and pursue it as a career are very determined to succeed and in many cases they end up getting better grades than the boys.
“I think what you do here in Scotland, inviting representatives of NASA to come and talk to students, is amazing. We have nothing like this in the USA – I would have loved it if an astronaut had come to my school.”
Ms Gell is determined to make it through the tough selection process to become one of the US space agency’s astronauts.”
Amber wants to go to Mars, Amber the Amstronaut.
They love Amber in Cornwall and Scotland, in fact all over England. She is also big in France. Young students, especially female students contact the NASA Speakers Bureau from all over the United Kingdom and France to ask for Amber The Astronaut to come to their schools inspire them.
So here we have a true American hero, a young, beautiful, brilliant woman willing to risk her life to go where James Kirk and Jean Loup Picard will only follow. She offers inspiration to European students, especially women, and gets adulation in return. The rub is, there is a cardinal lack of interest in science in America’s GEN Y generation.
Requests from female American students are almost nil.
Amber speaks to the issue: “How do we save our space program? I ask that not in the original context which it may be perceived, but rather, how do we inspire a future generation of engineers and scientists?
How do we get today’s youth to recognize and embrace their potential and assume their roles as the bright minds of the future?
How do we bring back the Creativity, Innovation, Ingenuity, and Motivation & Dedication that our forefathers once embraced?
How do we make it happen?
…and how can we do this before it’s too late?”
President John Kennedy once said,” we’re going to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard.”
AMBER AT ZERO GRAVITY
Three astronauts died trying to get to the moon; three more could have died.
It will cost more to go to Mars, in lives and treasure.
There will be death, in cold dark places, without oxygen. In fact, I am a believer that many will die on the way to Mars, and no amount of brilliant science can alter that. Exploration is risky, terminally risky.
But we will go, why? Because that is what do as a species. We go see, and if we die, the next person goes a little further, and if they die, the ones after them go further still, until finally after all the deaths, we get there, and bring a piece of it home. That is the business of our species, EXPLORATION.
Everyone who signs up for Mars has a covenant with Danger, maybe even a covenant with Death; but everyone who goes enhances our species.
From George Mallory to Franklin to Magellan, exploration is an honorable covenant.
To go to Mars, the species needs, will need young people who see themselves not as a member of a gang, nor a member of a tribe, nor a cast member, nor a member of a race, but sees themselves as a member of the species.
Since the dawn of civilization, women have either been oppressed or whined about being oppressed. This mission to MARS and then beyond, is a chance for all young women to stand up and show all the closed minded men who ever lived that they were wrong. That women can deliver. That they belong on the Long Ships of history, in this case spaceships.
SIDEBAR
George Mallory survived the trenches of World War I, to die climbing Mount Everest. ”Mallory, and his colleague Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, disappeared while attempting to be the first to climb the world’s highest mountain in 1924. “Mallory’s frozen and thus preserved body was found by a US-led expedition in May, 1999.
In 1924, before his ascent on Everest, he was asked by a level headed person, “Why climb Everest?”
Mallory had only four words in his answer,
“BECAUSE IT IS THERE.”
Mars is there.
AMBER CAN BE CONTACTED THROUGH THE NASA SPEAKERS BUREAU
Amber at Harris City Academy in London, England. Goodluck to their “NASA Hopefuls” who are competiting for selection to participate in the NASA Trip this Fall, the winners of the academic challenge will get to spend a week at NASA
Amber with the last man to walk on the moon, Apollo 17 astronaut, Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, at Space Center Houston.
Amber in Training
Amber getting ready to practice that famous line on a new species, ”I COME IN PEACE.”
EastEnders: Syed Masood, played by Marc Elliott Photograph: BBC