Latin American space scientists want to stop being the exception

This story was produced by Science Friday and América Futura as part of our “Astronomy: Made in Latin America” newsletter and series. It is available in Spanish here.

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Sally Ride made history not only for being America’s first female astronaut, but also for starring in one of NASA’s most embarrassing moments. Yes, the tampon incident. She was the one who was suggested by NASA to take 100 tampons on a 6-day space mission in 1983. (That’s way too many.) But menstruation was something totally foreign to the country’s most prestigious scientists. Until then, few people knew that weightlessness would not increase bleeding in women. Even fewer thought women could explore space. So why equip them with costumes, let alone talk about rules?

This anecdote reminds many female space engineers and scientists that no organization is immune to male chauvinism, and that it wasn’t that long ago that women were barely paid attention to, much less if you were Latina. The memories are still fresh in the minds of Katherinne Herrera-Jordan, Sandra Cauffman and Clara O’Farrell, three Latin American women who dreamed of going to space as children and whose studies contributed to better understand it.

Even though the path seems to have opened up a little for women, they say that imposter syndrome never goes away and that they continue to have things explained to them that they already know. That’s why, when Herrera-Jordan is asked how much she thinks women are celebrated in space, she responds sarcastically: “As little as on Earth.” ” But feminism is also growing, and all three women agree that they are leaving behind a less hostile environment for those who follow them, and that today’s astronauts can talk to the press about real spaceflight rather than the way they wear their hair, as happened to the Russian Yelana. Serova.

Katherinne Herrera-Jordan wants to send Guatemalan beans into space

Katherinne Herrera-Jordan didn’t even know she loved science until she discovered that physics and chemistry could solve the big questions she had as a child. As a child, his parents turned to scientific articles and the TV series “MythBusters” to answer them. Today, she is looking for answers to her questions, which are still numerous, in the laboratory. The first opportunity to do this was for an undergraduate project in biochemistry and microbiology. Its objective was ambitious: to understand how certain microorganisms behave in space. The resources available to her for this? “None,” laughs the 26-year-old Guatemalan.

Teaming up with Dr. Luis Zea, a renowned aerospace engineer from Guatemala, and Fredy España, a fellow mechatronics engineering student, Herrera-Jordan set out to create his own microgravity simulator. These devices are used to expose laboratory samples to space-like conditions and typically cost around $30,000. Three months and $31 later, they succeeded: their little contraption made from recycled household appliances bore fruit.

“I never thought about getting rich with these, but I started marketing them at more affordable prices (between $500 and $5,000) because they were designed so that everyone could do science “, explains Herrera-Jordan, founder of Verne Technologies. “It does not seem normal that Latin Americans do not have the same access to the space industry. These tools allow us to search here, not just from the United States.

Through the equipment she developed, Herrera-Jordan supports research, such as a project developed by the Guatemalan Association of Engineering and Space Sciences related to the seeds she grew up eating: beans. She has already discovered that if tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius) were grown in space, they would germinate more quickly and absorb more nutrients. She now wonders what can be done with them: maybe they could reduce child malnutrition in her country, feed astronauts or even be planted on the Moon. “A lot of organizations are designing technology so people can live in it one day,” she says. “I hope the little Guatemalan beans make it too.”

Sandra Cauffman, the Costa Rican in charge of $1.5 billion at NASA

It is impossible to summarize the work of Sandra Cauffman. In the nearly 40 years she has worked for NASA, she has held almost every position: from her beginnings as a contractor “putting glasses” on the Hubble Space Telescope in 1991 after a defect was discovered in her mirror, until today, as deputy director. of the astrophysics division of the Scientific Mission Directorate. However, this 62-year-old Costa Rican remembers perfectly every step taken to reach her current position, in which she manages a budget of 1.5 billion dollars. “My job has always been to figure out what scientists want and build it,” she says.

Cauffman acknowledges that female leadership is a challenge in such a male-dominated industry. “Several male colleagues told me they were more qualified than me. It wasn’t easy to digest, but I learned that they were the ones with the problem,” she says. This is why she tries to “leave the door open” for those who come next. “We need to make sure there are girls following in our footsteps and see that it can be done. Space is for us too, and we have a lot to contribute.

The MAVEN mission is one of his most precious memories. It was the first time a NASA probe had traveled to Mars to measure the upper atmosphere and analyze the causes of the loss of volatile compounds such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and water. This was an expedition to understand how climate change occurred on the Red Planet. Their conclusions are clear: “The Earth is our lifeboat. Although there are more than 10,000 exoplanets, we cannot live on any other planet like here,” says Cauffman.

Argentina’s Clara O’Farrell applies her knowledge of jellyfish to make supersonic parachutes

Dr. Clara O’Farrell spent four years studying the behavior and movements of jellyfish in the ocean, thinking about creating autonomous robots that would collect underwater information. She never thought that this knowledge could be used to build supersonic parachutes intended to land on Mars. But when she got the call from NASA, she said yes without hesitation. Without realizing it, she brought together her two greatest passions: marine biology and space engineering, two fields that have more in common than you might think.

For nearly two decades, space sciences have turned to plants and animals to learn from their movements and tissues: propellers that imitate the wings of birds, equipment that optimizes space by taking inspiration from the brains of insects. Using bioengineering, Clara O’Farrell, 38, managed to fashion the largest and strongest supersonic parachute ever created by NASA, as part of the mission to determine if there were life on Mars. The 70-foot-wide parachute deployed after the Perseverance rover soared through Mars’ atmosphere at nearly twice the speed of sound on Feb. 18, 2021. And the rover continued to find answers. “We found organic compounds mixed with very particular minerals that indicate that at some point life existed,” says O’Farrell.

And, as expected, when one question was answered, others asked: what was it like? Was it like ours? “This is our next mission, and it will be the most complicated we have ever accomplished,” she said. From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, it continues to develop new, stronger and larger parachutes. “If you want to bring back samples from Mars or do crewed missions, we’ll need to land heavier objects. There is a lot of work to be done,” she says enthusiastically.

O’Farrell believes it is her responsibility to attract more girls and young women to opportunities in this field. “The figures suggest that what happened to me was very unusual: I am the exception. And this must stop.

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This story was translated from Spanish by Laura Gonzalez.