Science girls blast off Science girls blast off (October 07, 2005)@12:sub:Sally Ride wants young women to think about a space career

By Julia Bernard

"Do you get head rushes from hanging upside down?"

"How do you go to the bathroom?"

"Can you see the Great Wall of China?"

These were few of the questions put to Sally Ride, the first woman ever to fly into space, and her fellow astronaut Janice Voss during last week's NASA Science Festival at the NASA Ames Research Center.

The audience, girls in grades five through eight, attended the one-day educational event, which was designed to ignite their interest in math and science. Besides an inspirational talk by Ride that included a lot of question-and-answer time, the Oct. 2 festival featured science workshops given by female professionals in fields ranging from astronomy to biology, as well as an interactive street fair.

During her speech, Ride recalled her excitement at seeing a NASA ad in the Stanford Daily newspaper and her exhilaration of being chosen from 8,000 applicants.

Ride explained the effects of weightlessness by describing mundane activities in space, such as having a glass -- or rather a ball -- of orange juice.

"The water has no weight in space, so you can squeeze a ball of orange juice in the middle of the room and then use a straw to drink the liquid," she explained to the fascinated audience.

Taking a shower can be difficult because the water, instead of falling, just "hangs there," she said. And using the space toilet with specially designed air suction can feel like "sitting on the vacuum cleaner."

The festival was only one of the events put on by Sally Ride Science, a company Ride formed to encourage girls' and young women's interest in technical fields. Francis French, one of the company's staff members, said the NASA event was so successful that organizers were forced to close the registration early, having reached the 1,500 capacity.

Other programs offered by the company include Science Camps and a Toy Challenge competition. The latter lets girls try their hand in engineering design, French said, "without calling it such a boring name."

Speaking later about the goals of her company, Ride said she concentrated on girls in middle school because "this is a critical period when we lose a lot of girls." In fact, the company Web site notes that "in fourth grade, the number of girls and boys who like math and science is about the same. But by eighth grade, twice as many boys as girls show an interest in these subjects."

A lot of that, according to Ride, has to do with media images -- the stereotype of scientists as men in white coats and the idea that science is just not "cool."

Programs like the NASA Science Festival, she continued, were designed to break these stereotypes and encourage girls' involvement in science.

"Women are still significantly underrepresented in the science field," Ride said. "But we are making slow and steady progress."

In Sally Ride's ideal world, women would make up half of the science, engineering and technology workforce, as opposed to the current 25 percent. And with the help of science festivals like this one, Ride believes, her goal might not be far off. An anecdote related by the astronaut during her speech illustrated this point:

In 1983, as she was preparing to become the first woman in space, Ride received much more media coverage than her male crew members. A woman came up to her later and told her about her 6-year-old son who was so fascinated with outer space that he made his mother get up at 4 a.m. in order to see a live launch of the Space Shuttle.

After a safe lift-off, the mother proceeded to get ready for work, but soon realized that the little boy was crying. Concerned, she tried in vain to find out what was wrong. It was several minutes before he finally decided to share his worry.

"Mommy," he asked, "can little boys ever grow up to be astronauts?"

E-mail Julia Bernard at jbernard@mv-voice.com

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