(MUSIC)
Billie Fitzgerald, former secretary to Dr. Kurt Debus, Kennedy Space Center's first center director: In later years, Wernher von Braun
came down and had a meeting in that office, and I was taking the minutes,
and right in the middle of the meeting, one of the engineers stopped the meeting and decided that I should
be excused because, since I was a woman, I might go outside the room and tell what they were talking about.
Well they were talking about von Braun going to Washington to try to get money to put a man on the moon.
And of course Dr. Debus, as he always did, came to my defense. He was very protective.
He always treated me like a daughter. I was very young then.
So he treated me like a daughter, and it was kind of subtle that I would stay in there and take the minutes.
I just looked at all of them and I said, "Hey if you think I'm going outside this room and tell anybody
you're going to try to send a man to the moon, forget it! People would think I'm crazy."
(MUSIC)
Woman's voice: I made boxing gloves before I came here, and the fact is, I was an experienced sewer,
but I had to learn all over again. Where I'd sewed before you just sewed on a
production line, and this here is quality more than quantity.
Narrator: Fifty years ago, America's space program was just beginning to lift off.
At the same time, here on Earth, women across the country were boldly venturing into
new territory by entering the workforce like never before.
Male Voice: TM blockhouse what are your cameras and tape recorders at this time?
Joyce Riquelme, Manager, Center Planning and Development Office: When I first started working out here,
there weren't a lot of women in any sort of technical position. Most of the women were secretaries or clerks of some sort.
When I first hired on, I was one woman, the only woman, in a group of 23 male
engineers, and so it was a unique environment.
Janet Karika, Director of Interagency Launch Programs: I look back on what it was like when I first came in,
and the women that came before me, although I didn't know many of them I got to know them later,
they pretty much had to be men. You couldn't be married, you couldn't have kids, and still do what you loved.
They had to make some really tough choices to blaze those trails.
Narrator: As NASA sent missions to the moon, launched the space shuttle and built the
International Space Station, women were blazing new trails.
Mike Curie, NASA Launch Commentator: And she's also very enthusiastic and ready to fly.
Karika: Early on in my career, I mean, there were no female
generals that had families or even were married, and that's changing now.
Some of my girlfriends now are two and three star generals and some have families.
Clara Wright, Materials Engineer: I mean, now we have women who are senior managers, so we have,
I have, my generation has role models to look up to whereas maybe women before didn't.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Chief, Processing and Operations Division: I look at during my career, Eileen
Collins, first women pilot, four years later first women commander. Again another affirmation that
whatever you want to do, it's possible if you commit to it.
Launch Commentator: ...and lift off ...lift off of STS-7 and America's first woman astronaut. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.
Narrator: The contributions and accomplishments of the women at Kennedy Space Center
continued to make an indelible mark on American space flight.
Curie: Kennedy Space Center native Nicole Stott, who worked here
processing shuttles for many years before becoming an astronaut.
Narrator: Now, the story of women rising into the professional ranks is interwoven into our nation's space legacy.
Riquelme: Quite a lot has changed.
Yeah, it's a very different place now than it was when I first began about 32 years ago here at KSC.
Kimberlyn Carter, Chief, Business Office, Information Technology: Thank you for not giving up.
Thank you for fighting and overcoming those obstacles that were, I believe, much
more apparent and much harder than they are for me right now.
Blackwell-Thompson: And so, when comes to what all's
out there 50 years from now, I don't have the answer, I don't know. But one thing that I do know for
sure is that if you can dream it, and you can commit to it, and you believe in it, it's possible.