She considered majoring in music as she was a gifted musician she plays the flute. Ultimately, she decided to major in physics. When she graduated, Ochoa heard from Stanford again. Would she accept a fellowship in engineering? Her mother strongly encouraged her to continue her studies, and she was soon on her way to Palo Alto. At Stanford she became fascinated by the field of optics, and between her work at Stanford, and focused her studies on research in that era. She eventually earned three patents on optical inventions.
Ochoa investigated optical systems for performing information processing. On the Smithsonian education website, Dr. Ochoa provides a very understandable explanation of her work. She describes her patents as involving ways for a computer to find a particular object within an image. This system could be used in manufacturing such as inspecting for flaws, or it might be used on a space vehicle such as the Rover that traversed Mars for several years.
During her graduate studies, she also worked at companies where she could apply her expertise. At Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, California, she applied what she knew about optics to the research being done on nuclear weapons. In , Dr. She knew she would enjoy flying and thought that it might help build her resume for NASA. In , she applied again to NASA and was turned down.
However, when she learned she was among the top of the thousands who had applied, her hopes rose. In , her third application was accepted. She finished training in , which made her one of astronauts eligible for flight. Astronauts go through rigorous training once they are part of the program.
In addition to conditioning their bodies for flight, they need to become expert at a variety of jobs. If they are selected for a particular mission, they may be supervising scientific experiments being conducted in space concerning a variety of things ranging from medicine and geology to astronomy, plant life, and air quality. She was soon selected for a mission on the Space Shuttle Discovery, a flight that took place in April of Ochoa was placed in charge of the Remote Manipulator System the robot arm.
One of her assignments on that flight was to launch and retrieve a satellite. That message was not lost on Ellen. She learned to push herself. Success often comes from pushing ourselves beyond what's easy.
Librarians Authors Referees Media Students. Login Become a Member Contact Us. Careers in Physics. Follow Us. The worst times that I had at NASA were after we lost Shuttle Columbia [in , when the spacecraft broke up while returning to Earth, killing seven astronauts].
I had just gotten into a management position, and I was representing the crew office in mission control that morning. It was the absolute worst thing that can ever happen.
It was difficult personally, and for everybody that worked at NASA and their families. We had a playbook for bad days at NASA, so we weren't just making up things on the fly. I was one of the people that day that talked to the astronauts who were on the International Space Station, to let them know what happened. It was a long day. We all tried to do two things: figure out how to best take care of [the astronauts'] families, and then understand what happened [so we could] get back to flight.
And we had to do that as a team. Some people were saying, "Well, we're never going to make it safe enough, and we shouldn't go back to flight. What we did was in the middle.
We tried to understand more specifically what happened and what we needed to fix. In addition to fixing the technical issue and developing a way to inspect the shuttle on orbit, [we took] actions to address organizational causes — like the Mission Management Team going through training to improve communication.
The two and a half years after Columbia, before we got back to flight, were pretty difficult. But the fact that people had the same big goal in mind certainly made it a lot easier. You don't want to listen to discouragement from people that don't know you. That's really telling you more about them. It doesn't say anything about you or your talents, interests or passions. As time went by, I really grew to appreciate the power of intent and what a team working together can achieve. Missions don't happen because of one individual.
That teamwork aspect is something that I think I've carried with me, in every position. As an astronaut, I was already in a visible position, one where I had the opportunity to illustrate my own knowledge, contributions and teamwork.
My advice to others is to have career conversations with your supervisor — or sometimes a sponsor, if your supervisor isn't receptive — to discuss where you'd like your career to go, and what steps you can take to help improve the odds of getting there. At one point in my career, I just assumed that my hard work and accomplishments would make it obvious that I was ready for the next level — and [I] found out that wasn't the case.
I had to speak up about what I thought I was capable of doing, and what I wanted. Skip Navigation. Jennifer Liu. I found out about six months later that I was selected. Left to right are astronauts Kenneth D. Cockrell, Steven S. Oswald, C. Michael Foale, Kenneth D. Cameron and Ellen Ochoa. Historical Corbis Historical Getty Images. It wasn't easy along the way.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. VIDEO Alex Rodriguez, from his career to his mistakes: 'It's an imperfect story'.
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