Social, Cultural and Educational Legacies - ER - NASA

Social Impact—NASAReflects America’sChanging OpportunitiesBefore the Space Shuttle wasconceived, the aerospace industry,NASA employees, and universityresearchers worked furiously on earlyhuman spaceflight programs to achievePresident John Kennedy’s goal oflanding a man on the moon by the endof the 1960s. Although these programsemployed thousands of personnelacross the United States, White menoverwhelmingly composed theaerospace field at that time, and veryfew women and minorities worked asengineers or scientists on this project.When they did work at one of NASA’scenters, women overwhelmingly servedin clerical positions and minoritiesaccepted low-paying, menial jobs.Few held management or professionalpositions, and none were in theAstronaut Corps, even though fourwomen had applied for the 1965astronaut class. By the end of thedecade, NASA offered few positionsto qualified minorities and women.Only eight Blacks at Marshall SpaceFlight Center in Alabama heldprofessional-rated positions whilethe Manned Spacecraft Center(currently known as Johnson SpaceCenter) in Texas had 21, and KennedySpace Center in Florida had only five.Signs of change appeared on thehorizon as federal legislation addressedmany of the inequalities faced bywomen and minorities in the workplace.During the Kennedy years, the presidentordered the chairman of the US CivilService Commission to ensure thefederal government offered positionsnot on the basis of sex but, rather, onmerit. Later, he signed into law theEqual Pay Act of 1963, making itillegal for employers to pay womenlower wages than those paid to men fordoing the same work. President LyndonJohnson signed the Civil Rights Act of1964, which prohibited employmentdiscrimination (hiring, promoting, orfiring) on the basis of race, sex, color,religion, or national origin. Title VIIof the Act established the EqualEmployment Opportunity Commission,which executed the law. The EqualEmployment Opportunity Act of 1972strengthened the commission andexpanded its jurisdiction to local, state,and federal governments duringPresident Richard Nixon’sadministration. The law also requiredfederal agencies to implementaffirmative action programs to addressissues of inequality in hiring andpromotion practices.One year earlier, NASA appointedRuth Bates Harris as director of EqualEmployment Opportunity. In the fallChanging Faces of the Astronauts From 1985 Through 2010In 1985, STS-51F—Center: Story Musgrave, MD, mission specialist,medical doctor. To Musgrave’s right, and going clockwise: AnthonyEngland, PhD, mission specialist, geophysicist; Karl Henize, PhD,mission specialist, astronomer; Roy Bridges, pilot, US Air Force (USAF);Loren Acton, PhD, industry payload specialist; John-David Bartoe, PhD,Navy payload specialist; Gordon Fullerton, commander, USAF.In 2010, STS-131 and International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 23—Clockwise from lower right: Stephanie Wilson, mission specialist,aerospace engineer; Tracy Caldwell Dyson, PhD, ISS Expedition 23flight engineer, chemist; Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, missionspecialist, high school science teacher and coach; Naoko Yamazaki,Japanese astronaut, aerospace engineer.Social, Cultural, and Educational Legacies461