My eight-year-old son, who is very white, is obsessed with everything about space. He knows all the astronauts, where the Mars rover is now, how many moons Jupiter has, etc. He is also obsessed with black women in NASA. He did his first biography report in school on Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space. He wanted a lego set that came out recently, "women of NASA", and he was annoyed that none of the women from Hidden Figures were in it. The point is, that anyone who is a fan of space exploration will quickly realize that black women have played a huge part... even my eight-year-old sees the trend.
I'm proud of him too. What's even more impressive to me is that my wife and I don't know hardly anything about space and have never been interested in it. He picked it up all on his own.
That's amazing and makes me so happy to read. If you ever decide to purchase a telescope for him, shoot me a message or go checkout r/Telescopes to be sure you get him the right one. We need more people like him.
We got him a telescope for Christmas last year, but I feel so bad because we hardly use it. We live in a small apartment in Manhattan so it takes a fair amount of effort to get out side and set it up. Not to mention all the light pollution.
Yeah, my parents didn't know shit about dinosaurs but I could tell you so many of those complicated names. I was deadset on becoming a Paleontologist too.
Then they took me to the Kennedy Space Center and now I'm an engineer. Point is, keep taking your son to cool science shit even if you don't understand it. It's so, so valuable.
We do! We live in NYC so there is a lot to do right at our doorstep. We went down to DC last year to go to both air and space museums. Also, last summer we told my son for his birthday we were going to drive all the way to Florida to go to the Kennedy Space Center and then we surprised them by also going to Disney World for a week after that. The whole two days in the car he and his sister thought we were going to KSC and then just turning around and driving home, and they were totally cool with it.
Kids are just like that. I've loved space ever since seeing a space shuttle take off as a kid, something just sets off their curious little brains to want to know as much as they can about something.
When I was a kid we had a biography of Mae C Jemison! I also had a trivia question last week about that Lego set. I'm black, so most of our books at home were about black historical figures, but I'm glad your son appreciates the contribution black women have made to NASA!
Yeah. My wife had that locked down as soon as she could preorder it. I know it's become hard to find, which is a shame since it's an excellent educational set.
In case your son was wondering why she isn't in the Lego set, she refused to be in it. Lego asked her permission to make her a minifigure since she was in the original design for the set, but she refused their request. I wish she was included since it would raise awareness and maybe inspire other girls towards STEM, but thankfully we have the other 3 minifigures in the set! When he is older, get him the Saturn V set! It is magnificent!
That's really awesome! If he's into aviation in general I'd highly recommend the Tuskegee Airmen from World War Two- some of the most decorated American fighter/bomber crew from the war
Katherine Johnson, a black woman who worked for NASA starting in the 50s was the person who calculated the trajectory of Apollo 11 for the 1969 moon mission, in addition to many other early space missions.
In the 1950s, NASA had an entire department of black female computers.
Was her small amount of African genetics critical in getting us towards the moon? Yeah, that must be why black women score so well on standardized math tests...
In the 1950s, NASA had an entire department of black female computers.
Yes, because it was menial number-crunching back then.
German rocket scientists poached from the Nazi's post WW2 were 'Critical' to Americans making it to the moon. Black women? I'm not trying to diminish anyone's individual contribution, everyone should get the credit to which they due, but... 'critical'?
This is diversity-as-religion. It's not true and on some level you must know it isn't true.
No, their role has been overemphasized by progressive historians to try and retroactively inject diversity into the space race (something which was for the most part overwhelming white and male).
If no-one of African decent had ever worked on the Apollo program Americans still would have gotten to the Moon, probably in roughly the same time-frame.
Contra to what you're saying I really do not want to diminish anyone's contribution. I'm sure they were remarkable ladies. But "They got us to the moon" is not factually correct, and tbh.. a bit cringe-worthy. There's something slightly patronizing about white liberals gushing over the (real or imagined) accomplishments of black people.
You’re acting on feeling. I’m acting on recorded history and fact.
No you... really aren't. "Don't you know how terrible it was to be Black in 1960! How all the incredible accomplishments of Black people were suppressed by racist whites!" - this is pure emotion, 'Diversity as a religion' as I said.
America is a country where MLK might as well be Jesus Christ. We are not a country where the accomplishments of Black people go unacknowledged. Actually marginally pathetic how far we stretch to credit Black people, e.g. when I was at school I learned "a black man invented the personal computer" - Dr. Mark Dean. Later on I learned that that wasn't actually true, that he was only one person of a team of over 16 people (of which every other member was a white man). He got singled out for special attention basically because of the color of his skin.
As I've said multiple times, everyone should get the credit they are due for their own accomplishments. But "Black women got us to the moon" is not a true statement. "Some Black women helped us get to the moon, but we would have likely got their anyway" is the far more accurate interpretation of the Apollo program.
As a guess - how many Black women do you think were involved in putting Yuri Gagarin into space?
No, their role has been overemphasized by progressive historians to try and retroactively inject diversity into the space race (something which was for the most part overwhelming white and male).
lol you're so offended by facts that you're going to insist that you know more about history than historians? classic.
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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '17
They have been all throughout American history tbh