In the century since the 19th Amendment was ratified, the stories of suffragists continue to inspire generations of women trailblazers. Inventor and astronaut Ellen Ochoa carried this legacy with her to the final frontier – space!
An engineer, Ochoa holds several patents in the field of optical systems for information processing. Her inventions include a system that detects defects in a repeating pattern, an object recognition method, and a method for image noise removal. At @NASA, she led a group researching the use of optical technology for automated space exploration.
In 1993, Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go into space when serving on the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery, a mission tasked with studying the Earth’s ozone layer. On a subsequent mission six years later, Ochoa brought an original gold, white, and purple suffrage banner into orbit. Ochoa has been in space four times and logged over 1,000 space hours. She went on to serve as the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center and is a recipient of NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal.
Learn more about Ochoa’s historic flight from the @National Archives: http://bit.ly/3rUmQe5 #WomensHistoryMonth #ValiantWomenOfTheVote