Mercury 13 Page #7

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it is for me to be here today.

I also think its important that

I point out that I didnt get here alone.

Theres so many women

throughout this century

that have gone before me

and have taken to the skies.

Um, from the first barnstormers,

through the women air force...

The women military air force

service pilots from World War II,

the Mercury women

from back in the early 1960s

that went through the...

All the tough medical testing.

All these women have been

my role models and my inspiration,

and I couldnt be here today without them,

and Id like to say a special thank-you

to them.

The Mercury 13 women are heroes of mine.

We all had this bond

because we were all pilots.

So I invited all of them to my launch.

Well, when NASA found out

what was going on, who these women were,

NASA took them off of my list

and put them on the VIP list.

When Eileen Collins went up,

uh, I got a call,

and she invited me to come to the launch.

They had a press conference or whatever,

where they have the astronauts

up on a stage in this large hall.

They had Eileen take the microphone.

Before she did anything else, she said,

"I would like to recognize

the Mercury 13."

And she pointed to them.

She said, "Would you please stand up?"

And then she read the names.

And then she said,

"If it were not for the Mercury 13,

I would not be here today."

They were very gracious and outgoing

to us, and could not have been nicer.

But I will never forget that,

when all those astronauts

stood up and clapped for us.

We have booster ignition

and liftoff of Columbia,

reaching new heights for women

and X-ray astronomy.

This is Columbia. In the roll,

weve got a fuel cell number one.

Roger roll, Columbia.

Were looking at it.

And so that had a lot of meaning for us,

to get to know Eileen,

and especially to go watch her

head out into the sky.

Just love it, thinking,

Shes in the drivers seat.

That woman is in the drivers seat.

We felt redeemed,

like our mission had not been in vain.

We started people thinking that,

Yes, women can do this.

And, Houston, what youre seeing

is the actual moment of deploy there,

when we take the switch to deploy,

and its so quiet...

When I talk about the future

of space exploration,

one of the things

I tell young people nowadays is,

Of the 12 people that walked on the moon,

they were all men.

But that was a function of the culture

that we had in the world

back in the 1960s.

You can be the first woman

to walk on the moon

if you wanna be an astronaut.

Thats the message I tell young people.

Maybe the first person to walk on Mars

will be a woman.

We got Eileen. We got all the girls.

A lot of em are engineers.

Some are pilots.

This is what I speak

to the youngsters today:

Get into the STEM program.

Get your engineering degree.

Go with NASA.

And get yourself into space.

Get yourself into flying.

Be an airline pilot.

Be a flight instructor.

If thats what you wanna be, do it.

Cause thats what I love.

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