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always liked school," says
Ellen Ochoa, "and being an astronaut allows you to learn continuously, like
you do in school. One flight you're working on atmospheric research. The
next, it's bone density studies or space station design." Ochoa admits that the wow-factors of blast off, weightlessness, and viewing the earth from space were also part of the attraction.
"What engineer wouldn't want those experiences?" she asks.
But clearly it was Ochoa's penchant for nonstop learning that motivated her to pursue what she casually refers to as "the astronaut job." She had come to Stanford with a physics degree and top honors from San Diego State University. Her interest in Fourier transforms, kindled by Stanford Professor Ronald Bracewell's undergraduate textbook, was taken to the next level by her advisor Joseph Goodman.
"Ask
anyone across the country about Fourier optics," Ochoa says, "and there's
one person they talk about. That's Joe Goodman." Under Goodman, Ochoa excelled in her studies and initiated her career in optical computing research. She also trained seriously as a classical flutist, winning the Student Soloist Award of the Stanford Symphony Orchestra.
After completing her doctoral degree and obtaining a patent (along with advisors Goodman and Professor Bert Hesselink) on her dissertation research, Ochoa narrowly missed NASA's final cut in 1987. She then went to Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center where she designed optical information systems, adding her name as co-inventor to two more patents for object-recognition and noise-reduction systems. At Ames, she managed a team of three dozen researchers in developing computer systems to explore space. In this same busy period, Ochoa earned a private pilot's license and pursued her interests in music, volleyball, and bicycling.
"If you are motivated to excel in one area," she says, "you are usually motivated to excel in others. NASA looks for that."
NASA must also look for persistence and confidence. In 1990, Ochoa was selected as an astronaut, one of 23 from a pool of 2,000 applicants. Flying in the Discovery space shuttle in 1993, she became the first Hispanic woman in space. On this mission, she operated the shuttle's remote manipulator system, using the "robot arm" to deploy and then capture a satellite that analyzed the solar corona. Her second mission in 1994 also involved research on how the Earth's atmosphere may be altered by solar radiation or human activity.
Between her high-flying business trips, Ochoa has performed several technical assignments at Johnson Space Center including verifying flight software, serving as crew representative for robotics and, most recently, working as spacecraft communicator in Mission Control. She also spent two years as Assistant for Space Station to Chief of the Astronaut Office, where she directed the crew involved in the international space station, NASA's highest priority for the coming decade.
As Ochoa prepares for her next mission — the mid-1999 STS-96 shuttle flight to the international space station — she is also finding time to meet with student and teacher groups.
"I've probably given 150 talks over the past few years," she says. "I never thought about this aspect of the job when I was applying, but it's extremely rewarding. I'm not trying to make every kid an astronaut, but I want kids to think about a career and the preparation they'll need."
Ochoa's own educational super-mentor while growing up near San Diego was her mother. A single parent of five, Rosanne Ochoa earned a college degree, one class at a time, while raising the family.
"She was going to college the whole time I was growing up," says her daughter. "She studied whatever interested her — business, biology, journalism, linguistics — she just finds all kinds of subjects very interesting. She was always talking about her classes."
That enthusiasm for learning rubbed off on the five Ochoa kids — all of whom now have a college education. For Ellen Ochoa, the middle child, this enthusiasm has reached inspiring new heights.
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