AMERICAN HERO, MOTHER OF HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE NANCY GRACE ROMAN PASSES AWAY
So I’m a pretty solid space geek. But I had no idea that Nancy Grace Roman was a former NASA executive. I also had no idea that without her, we would never have had the Hubble Space Telescope. She was the Hubble mother. She’s such an American hero that her colleagues even described her as the Hubble Mother. She was also the first woman to ever hold an executive position at NASA in any capacity. She was 93 when she passed away from an ongoing illness. But sadly, she is not survived by any immediate family members.
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ROMAN WAS A NASA EXECUTIVE FOR TWO DECADES, HELPED PIONEER AMERICAN SCIENCE
She earned her PhD in Astronomy at Chicago University back in 1949. She joined NASA ten years later in 1959. For nearly 20 years and until her retirement in 1979, she was the first Chief of Astronomy in the Office of Space Science. So that means there should have been a woman in every scene with scientists in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. So oopsie, Spielberg. Two of he better known and massively important programs she helped pioneer were the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Hubble Space Telescope. When it comes to groundbreaking science, Roman really was an American hero.
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ROMAN BLAZED A TRAIL FOR ALL WOMEN, AND ALL AMERICANS
I can’t say I’ve ever heard of any woman having a PhD in Astronomy from anywhere in the United States from before the 60’s. So it’s no surprise that Roman did a lot of work helping create career opportunities for other women thru the American Association of University Women. She did not let many barriers stop her from achieving her advanced degree, nor later in her career. That doggedness is one trait that we can thank for providing us with the Hubble Telescope. It would never have been approved, never mind built and launched without the strength of Roman.
So it’s no surprise that she her awarded honors include the NASA Outstanding Scientific Leadership Award, the Women in Aerospace’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award. But for Fox News viewers, don’t be alarmed. You won’t see any mention of Nancy Grace Roman in Prime Time.
