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What did you want to be when you were a little kid? I remember a whole lot of friends dreaming of becoming big stars: actors, athletes, musicians. But aiming for the real stars … being an astronaut … seemed the most pie in the sky… literally, out of this world.
Not for Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. She was *focused. Always. Since grade school in Colorado. Made a model of the space shuttle out of the cardboard center of a roll of paper towels. Went to Space Camp. Knew in her bones what she wanted to do.
She drew up her flight path to get to NASA.
But in reality, it wasn’t a straight shot.
There were a lot of turns --
Including one that led to a job teaching high school science in Vancouver, Washington…
A student asked her an unexpected question.
And it became a compass to the stars.
Monique Okay. So tell me about this interesting question you got from a student that changed your trajectory.
Dottie Yeah. So I created an astronomy class because I wanted students who were struggling to still get through science. And this student asked, how do you go to the bathroom in space? Because we were doing a human in space unit, and I really wanted her to know that is that’s a good question. That’s not just a stupid question or a silly question to make me blush or anything like, that’s like, I got really good engineering question. So I went home and I looked it up on the internet. And of course, NASA had an explanation on their website of how you do it on the space shuttle and on their same website, they said that they would be hiring teachers for the class of 2004.
Monique And you didn’t know about it before that.
Dottie No, they had just made this announcement that they would be having this position open up. And so yeah, that question changed my life, right.
Monique Like about how do you go to.
Dottie The bathroom phase? Yes, which is a super important question and has actually really changed the way I think about bathrooms and water and all sorts of things.
Monique And actually, if you would have known the answer already, you wouldn’t have known to apply.
Dottie Exactly. I would have never gone to the website.
THERE – NEXT TO NASA’S EXPLANATION OF HOW TO GO TO THE BATHROOM IN SPACE –
WAS A CALL FOR TEACHERS TO APPLY TO A NEW CLASS OF ASTRONAUTS—
A CALL DOTTIE HAD WANTED TO ANSWER SINCE SHE WAS A LITTLE GIRL IN 1983…
WHILE THE FIRST CLASS OF AMERICAN WOMEN ASTRONAUTS WAS TRAINING FOR SPACE…
((nats from The Right Stuff TRAILER My pleasure to introduce to you – America’s astronauts))
AND HOLLYWOOD WAS IMMORTALIZING THE FIRST U-S HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT 20 YEARS BEFORE.
After the movie, The Right Stuff came out and my parents took us to watch that movie, and it really just stuck out to me. Like, I love that movie.
((MOVIE TRAILER :45 it just thank god I live in a country where the best and the finest in a man can be brought out))
Monique Okay, but all the women in that movie were the wives of astronauts. What made you think, like, no, I can be the astronaut.
Dottie I registered that they were all men, but the message I was getting at home from my parents was that, hey, now there’s women doing things. And I never got the message that I couldn’t learn the things that astronauts were learning, even though. Yeah, you’re exactly right. Every single one of those men of the Mercury Seven is it’s their wives that are at home with the kind of the club and stuff. And, that really wasn’t me either. So.
Monique And Sally ride was your.
Dottie Yeah.
Monique Okay. I can do this.
Dottie Yes. And I think also probably that whole first class that, hired in 1978. So Sally Ride’s first, but Kathryn Sullivan does the spacewalk, and I made a paper mâché doll of myself as an astronaut in around the third or fourth grade, and it looks more like what, Kathryn Sullivan the suit is the white Eva suit. So that’s what Katherine would have been wearing. So having those six women in that class is going to be a big influence on me, even though we may always focus on the first flight of an American woman.
FORGET THE BARBIES.
YOUNG DOTTIE WAS DRESSING HER PAPER MACHE DOLL IN A SPACE SUIT.
LATER -- SHE FASHIONED A MODEL OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE FROM A CARBOARD TUBE TAKEN FROM A ROLL OF PAPER TOWELS.
A LOT OF KIDS EXPRESS THEIR DREAMS THROUGH ART PROJECTS.
BUT NOT A LOT OF KIDS SEE THOSE DREAMS BLOW UP – LITERALLY.
MML then on January 28th, 1986,
DOTTIE I’m a fifth or sixth grader.
Monique So then Christa McAuliffe was selected as the first person to go up as part of the Teacher in Space program. Did you watch the challenger live?
((space shuttle challenger … of the first ever teacher astronaut))
Dottie I was trying to that day, so my teachers knew I really loved space at this time. And, they knew what a big deal it was. we’ve rolled the television into our classroom. And, so I had been watching off and on the, the broadcasting, and then I needed to run an errand to the library. So I was down at the library doing something on my way back. My first grade teacher who knew how much I loved space, he caught me in the hall and he said, there’s been a really bad accident, and and we’re we are stopping the recording.
((nats))
TV’S WERE ON IN SCHOOLS ACROSS THE COUNTRY BECAUSE OF CHRISTA MCAULIFFE.
SHE WAS CHOSEN OUT OF 11-THOUSAND EDUCATORS WHO HAD APPLIED FOR THE ‘NASA TEACHER IN SPACE PROGRAM’…
RONALD REAGAN STARTED IT TO INSPIRE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN STEM. IT WORKED.
MILLIONS WERE WATCHING.
SO MILLIONS SAW.
((( full throttle and point of highest stress, a massive explosion. The cheering stops. The horror sinks in.))
73 SECONDS INTO THE FLIGHT,
46-THOUSAND FEET OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER BROKE APART
Monique Yeah. How did you feel when you.
And I didn’t really understand. And so later that night, I would see it on the news, and then I would talk through all of it with my parents, about what had happened and just the shock that we all had.
Dottie Knew what I was? I mean, just super sad, shocked and like, we were all watching, right? I would watch the replay, I guess maybe wishing that it would not happen or, you know, that there’s a different result.
(( seven Americans with the highest hopes, a billion dollars of the highest technology gone in seconds. The worst disaster in the us space program ever.))
And I had just lost my grandmother to cancer the year before, and so it was I remember having this really heavy conversation with my mom about living life, doing the things that you want to do. We never know, like when our day is. And she pointed out that all of them were doing what they wanted to be doing. And so that was the message that always stuck with me, is that, yeah, there is this risk, of course, but there’s risks with so many things. And and it was worth still going to space and, and pushing the boundaries and learning what we were learning about ourselves and about Earth and about the beyond. And I wanted or for me, that outweighed the risk of death.
Monique And death helped you realize what your life was supposed to be.
Dottie Exactly. Because I felt like in that conversation with my mom, like my grandmother had passed away at 63, which is still pretty young, you know, and her her father had passed away even earlier. And both of them from cancer. And, you know, she’s like, they got to do all the things they wanted, and they would have loved to do more, and they would have loved to watch you graduate and all of these things, but they still did things that they wanted to do. And you should go do the things that you want to go do. And that message really helped me.
AND SO, SHE KEPT GOING.
ENTERED A WRITING CONTEST TO GO TO SPACE CAMP.
SHE GOT EDGED OUT -- FINISHED SECOND.
BUT THE EFFORT PROVED SOMETHING TO ANOTHER SET OF JUDGES: HER PARENTS.
Dottie And I took second. Right. So I don’t get a free trip to space camp. But my parents, seeing that I was willing to write essays and that I, I really did care about this so much. over spring break in April of 1990, they sent me to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama
Dottie camp really helped me understand that there are specific steps that astronauts have to take and that astronauts can go from different directions. once we started hiring science scientists and then women as well, we started having lots of different Stem backgrounds. So while I was at camp, I was like, well, what does that look like? You know what? I don’t other than my parents going to college, I don’t really know. Like, what would you major in? Or do you just go to undergraduate? You know, I didn’t even know terms for some of this stuff. And so they also talked to us about that. And that was really helpful to start thinking about, okay, in high school I need to be doing this okay. In college. I should maybe be studying something like this, you know.
Monique NASA was always your North Star.
Dottie Yes. Yeah. So the reason I become a high school teacher is. It was not the direction I was actually expecting. I had been assigned to the Peace Corps. I had applied to the Peace Corps. I was graduating in 97. I was planning to go to Kazakhstan for them, teach English for two years.
And it would be about a month before I was supposed to leave for Kazakhstan, that the Peace Corps would deem it not safe, and they had to tell me that I would I was not going to be able to go. I probably could have waited, right? But. But that was your plan. It was my plan. So my. I went home to Colorado and I was volunteering at my high school with coaching and enjoying being around my former teachers. And my mom and dad, who had been teachers, were like, well, do you want to try teaching for a little bit just to see? I mean, that would be a pathway here for a while, and then you can go back to graduate school and your checklist of getting to NASA. And I thought, yeah, and I could go right away to central like I could get in the next quarter. And so that’s what I did. And I became a science teacher with a history minor, with also a history endorsement.
WITH A GEOLOGY DEGREE FROM WHITMAN COLLEGE– THEN HER TEACHING CERTIFICATE…
SHE WOUND UP AT ‘HUDSON’S BAY HIGH SCHOOL’ IN VANCOUVER…
WHERE SHE LOOKED INTO THAT BATHROOM QUESTION – AND DISCOVERED SHE COULD APPLY FOR THE NEW CLASS OF ASTRONAUTS.
AND SHORTLY AFTER THAT -- NASA MISSION STS-107.
Some troubling news here about the space shuttle Columbia as we haven’t heard from it yet. The time of landing was supposed to be right at this moment.
FEBRUARY 1, 2003--SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA RE-ENTERED THE ATMOSPHERE OVER TEXAS AND LOUISIANA …
AND DISINTEGRATED.
this is very ominous talk, almost precisely the same language we heard subsequent to the challenger explosion 17 years ago this past week.
SEVEN ASTRONAUTS LIVING HER DREAM –
DAN RATHER these images now become part of our national history, part of our national memory
BECAME A NATIONAL NIGHTMARE
the flag at the white house at half staff. What remains now is for the nation to mourn, express its respect, its condolences … for the investigation to begin.
Monique then 2003 Columbia happens.
Dottie Right? And so the announcement had come out, and then we have that tragedy. And I still decided that, you know, I still really want to apply for this program again, because I know there have been successful shuttles since challenger -- hundreds. And I want to be a part of that.
even those of us that were coming were told, you know, we may not because we don’t want to fly astronauts if we don’t have a safe way to return to flight. So we watched and part of our education in that class of 2004 was to watch how all NASA centers and all of the programs that NASA has out around the United States were working towards a safe return to flight of the space shuttle, and we wouldn’t do it until we knew it was safe.
Monique Did you really have to wrestle with that or.
Dottie Not really, because I just saw it as like being behind the scenes and doing all the training and learning from these incredible people. And if I didn’t fly, I knew I had gone for my dream. And I admired so much what NASA did, and I just really believed in it. So to me, it just didn’t seem like that hard of a decision.
Monique And you’d never have to second guess, oh, what if?
Dottie Yeah, exactly.
SHE GOT IN – SELECTED AS AN ASTRONAUT CANDIDATE A YEAR AFTER THE COLUMBIA DISASTER.
OFF TO HOUSTON.
Monique Tell me about the training.
Dottie Oh, yeah.
Monique That sounds really intense.
Dottie It’s intense training
It’s awesome training too. so we start out with survival both, land and water survival training not as intense as the military, but more as a way to bring our class together.
So that out of the box thinking and troubleshooting.
Monique Can you give me an example? Yeah.
Dottie So for example, when we were in Maine, we had all of the survival equipment in our seat kit that if we eject from a T-38, we would have this with us. Okay. Well, how are you going to sleep at night? How are you going to signal for help? Are you going to be able to make a fire if. So we learned how to quickly take our parachute, that, would have come out with our ejection and make that a really good tent. And so we got better at making tents because at first we didn’t big and wonderful looking, and we froze at night. So you learned to bring that body heat, you know, bring the tent shape down so your body heat is trapped with the two other people that you’re sharing it with, We learned how to quickly start fires from bark and using our mirrors and our little, there’s usually like some sort of magnifying glass or something to in your seat kit. Yeah. And then when we did water Survival, we learned how to quickly get out of our chutes, because your chute could now pull you down as an anchor in the water and drown you
You’re learning about your equipment, you’re learning about yourself, and you’re working with a team. It’s pretty fun but hard.
Monique Yeah. Imagine. And you’re finding that things like your parachute can either literally save you or sink you to.
Dottie Exactly.
Monique You’re clearly a driven person. I’m guessing you have a healthy streak of perfectionism in you.
Dottie Probably. Yep. You could ask my family members and they would say yes.
Monique So, what kind of adjustment did you need to make to be able to free yourself up, to actually confess your ignorance by asking questions, and also to make mistakes and learn from them?
Dottie I had to like, realize, okay, you have to be vulnerable in learning and also others learn from you
I need to ask the questions I need to know and it will probably benefit someone else listening too.
I really appreciated, a marine telling me
if we have a weakness, probably someone else has that weakness too just get it, get through it, get over it. And that hearing that from someone who was already in a full up astronaut, who is an experienced marine and who was willing to share that, that was super helpful for me.
Monique What was it like to be among other people like that, where you’re competing against each other, but you’re also each other’s support network?
try to, like, focus less on that and focus more on getting to all the training that you need, because you really do have to pass all that training. And it’s written tests, it’s performance tests and it’s group performance tests.
You have to perform and you’re going to make mistakes, but like your team is counting on you too. So training that way and working and training together that really you like that makes you stop being so competitive, just being competitive as a group and helping each other across.
To me, that’s what really made us like a special class together and like, you’re like your brothers and sisters, right? Like you really care about these people for the rest of your life because they helped you accomplish your dream.
AFTER YEARS IN NASA CLASSROOM AND SIMULATORS … BUILDING PHYSICAL AND SURVIVAL SKILLS, AND COMPLETING DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP, LANGUAGE, AND MISSION TRAINING …
THE DREAM CAME TRUE.
SHE WAS CHOSEN FOR STS-131 … TO REPLACE AND RETRIEVE PARTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION.
LAUNCH SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 5, 2010
Monique what do you remember from that day?
Dottie there’s this part of you that’s like, this is the day, right? This is potentially the day that we’re going to launch. And also, I had supported so many flights before this and that I also had watched scrub after scrub. And so also part of you is like and it might not be the day. So you know how you balance this like anticipation and excitement with also like a little bit of reality of like the weather hadn’t been always great in the morning. We were getting this morning fog so they can’t launch us if it’s too foggy. So anyway, we get up, we have our breakfast as a team. And so now you start doing the tradition stuff and it’s like, this is cool. Like we’re part of this tradition that’s been going on since the the 50s essentially. And this is so cool.
I got suited up. I do remember that. And then we walk out to the van and then then it’s starting to be real. Yeah. Get in the van, drive out to the launch site, and the vehicle is as gorgeous as we’re approaching it. It’s like, all lit up.
THE MOMENT SHE HAD BEEN DREAMING OF SINCE A KID—
THERE IT WAS, THE REAL THING: NOT MADE OUT OF PAPER TOWEL ROLLS THIS TIME.
And, I was flying on discovery, so this is like, oh, this is the vehicle I love. You know, I made the model and now I’m so excited to fly on this. And then we get up to the 195th level. And that’s how we get loaded in. And I’m the last person to get loaded because I’m mission specialist, two. So I’m the last person on the flight deck.
And I just took a moment to just, like, look around and look back at where I knew my parents, my husband, my teachers, like all these people that have come to see me and to just really think, like, I’m super thankful that this wouldn’t all happen and all these people hadn’t helped me. And, so I just remember that moment of just like, gratitude and thankfulness. And then I got loaded. And then for like the next two hours, you’re lying on your back and it’s pretty uncomfortable. You try to. I mean, some people say they can take a nap. I could not take a nap. It was like two. It was.
Monique Uncomfortable.
Dottie they’re like, rub spots, and so they’re digging into your back a little bit as you’re laying there on your back, with gravity. And that suit is around 60 to 80 pounds. It kind of depends on the size. So you know, you’re feeling it. And then about 20 minutes before the vehicle will launch, then we start doing the real checks of the checklist, like the checklist that starts to matter inside the cockpit. And that’s when it starts really like, okay, we’re going to go. We haven’t been given the go yet because they still have to wait till the window. But we are getting ready to go. And and then it’s pretty surreal. From there it just becomes like this is like the simulator, only it’s the real day. So, you know, make sure everything is going right.
Monique you know, we only see it from blast off from the outside. Like what is are you we are just holding on or you.
Dottie Know, we’re in a seat. And we had a five point harness on and, we’re looking up and you can look out the windows. You’re not seeing anything really, because, it’s it’s just looking out into darkness.
So the shuttle had 1500 circuit breakers and switches, and a lot of them are in that front cockpit part. So we’re looking at all of this. We’re following along on the displays.
So it’s it’s like starting to get real, like, the simulator would get us tilted back, but it couldn’t put us all the way on our back. Okay. And, and the simulator we would do suited sims. So we had felt that before. But this is the real day, right? This is a real day. You know, it.
Monique were you at all torn between, like, taking in what? Wow. I’m doing this versus focusing in on this is what I need to do in this very moment.
Dottie Yeah, I really focused once that checklist started, like, I just really wanted to focus
I don’t want us to miss anything. And I want to make sure that, like, I’m just really paying attention. This is my job. But that being said, as soon as the main engines light and you feel that little twang and then the solids light, and there’s just like this incredible thrust on your back. And I’ve never, thankfully, been in a rear. Ended in an accident, but I’ve heard other astronauts that have equate it to like a rear ending or like a football team tackling.
Monique But from behind. Yeah.
Dottie And I haven’t had that happen either. But, it was an intense amount of energy and then what gave us permission to just kind of laugh and acknowledge this is that our commander and pilot, they both start to kind of giggle a little bit, and then they are like, that’s really something. I mean, if you listen to the audio lives, it’s like one of them is like, that’s really something. That’s a lot of energy there. And then I.
Monique Just started laughing and I was like, this is crazy. Like, it really is crazy energy.
Dottie And then we just focused right back. Like it was just like we needed to, like, have that little, like, relief acknowledging.
Monique Yeah.
Dottie That this is a lot of energy and we’re on a controlled explosion and we acknowledge it. And then we got back right back to like boom, boom, boom, you know.
Monique So how long are you being tackled by the football team?
Dottie That part is really with just in like the first few seconds, like probably even less than a second, but it feels like it’s going on. Then you’re shaking. And I equate it to like being on a wooden roller coaster for like two minutes and 20s and then the solids come off and then that kind of shaking vibration goes away, and then it’s really smooth.
and then we start to pull, three GS towards the last minute of it and it starts to get really uncomfortable because you’re pulling it. We’ve pulled more than three GS, but you’re pulling it through your chest. It feels like someone’s sitting on you.
And right when you’re like, okay, this is getting uncomfortable. The main engines cut off and then the, the, external tank is going to come off and we’re in space. We’re like floating up.
FLOATING AND WORKING.
THEIR 15-DAY MISSION... DELIVERING 8 TONS OF EQUIPMENT AND CARGO.. THAT TAKES 100 COMBINED HOURS TO MOVE.
AND CONDUCTING THREE SPACE WALKS… REPLACING PARTS OF THE I-S-S AMMONIA TANKS.
Monique So yeah, that was the work. Tell me about the play.
Dottie Oh my gosh. The play is so much fun. So I love looking out the window at geologists. Like, could you think of a better place to be and be like textbook, textbook that is like textbook continents colliding or dividing? And I still have not been to many places on Earth. I mean, I’ve had a chance to travel, but like, I still haven’t gotten to Australia or South America. And so just like looking at these beautiful places from above is amazing. And the person that is in me, that’s the amateur astronomer looking out into the Milky Way and just truly seeing the color of stars and so many stars, because we’re above the atmosphere, above light pollution, above, the atmosphere that makes them twinkle and just like, you know, filters out some light. It was just mind boggling and beautiful. The stunningly beautiful, so looking at earth and looking out. And then my daughter was three when I was in space and I just, you know, I think all of us have this kid in us. We have to, like, float down the space station. We have to tumble and flip around, you know, and she loves getting those videos. And we got one, video conference, and she just thought that was like, like, how are you doing that, mom? Like, can I do that?
Monique Now, when any one of us sees a globe, we tend to look for things that we recognize. What was it.
Dottie Like? What are you.
Monique Doing? Yeah. What were you looking for? What did you recognize?
Dottie And what helped me is the the volcanoes, specifically Crater Lake. Like, as a geologist from the northwest and as a teacher who had been there, you know. Oh, I know all those volcanoes. And as soon as I saw Crater Lake, I’m like, oh, I can find where I taught, you know, and I can find Portland and Vancouver and, all these places. And then what was hard for me is growing up in Colorado, there are a lot of places that have front range. Wyoming has front range, New Mexico has front range. And so it took an airport finding the Denver International Airport. With its distinct, like, swishy, like white top. That helped me be able to pick it out.
Monique You can see that from.
Dottie We can see that from space. I know people always ask, but we can see structures from space. So. Yes.
WHAT SHE COULD’T SEE YET WAS HER PLACE IN HISTORY--
MADE IN THE COMPANY OF 12 OTHER ASTRONAUTS, INCLUDING STEPHANIE WILSON,
NAOKO YAMAZAKI, AND TRACY CALDWELL DYSON.
HISTORY THAT ALMOST DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Monique When you were at the International Space Station, I believe there are four women. And that’s still the record. That’s that’s the.
Dottie Record? That is correct. Yes.
Monique What was that like? Did that mean something to you in the moment?
Dottie It it meant something more. When I returned
in the moment, I was just excited to be there.
Dottie [01:58:02] But all of us were just excited. I loved Stephanie, and so I was so excited to fly with them and then to meet Tracy in space. It was like the icing on the cake. It was not supposed to happen that way. Our our flight was supposed to be earlier in like January, February timeframe. And she was coming up in March. And then our flight got postponed to April. And she’s there and we get a float in and see her
later when I came home and I really thought about like, okay, you were a little girl, and American women hadn’t even flown in space until you were a third grader. Now we’re seeing women in space, and there’s more of them. Like, this is a big deal. Yeah. And yet, eventually, it’s also hopefully not going.
Monique To be a big fight.
Dottie And I’m excited for us to return to the moon and return to the moon and have women and people of color walk on its surface, and then it will not be as big of a deal anymore, because then we’re going to be working on the moon, and it’s going to be all of us. Right? So there’s that moment when, yeah, it’s a big deal, and then maybe someday it will not be as big of a deal. And that’s okay. Yeah.
Monique You hope it won’t be as big of a deal for your daughter? Yeah.
Dottie Right, exactly.
HOPEFULLY …
ONE SMALL STEP FOR WOMAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR HUMANKIND.
SHE IS PART OF THE BIGGER PURSUIT TO GET ANSWERS TO LIFE’S BIGGEST QUESTIONS.
Monique So I’ve got to ask you, what was it like to go to bathroom in space?
Dottie Yeah, well, I am really excited about the space station toilet, and I got to use it to, the shuttle toilet. I mean, both of them use, funnel connected to a hose, and suction pulls the urine, and, the shuttle goes into a tank. On the space station, we reuse that liquid. So today’s coffee is tomorrow’s water economy? No. Yeah, yeah, we use about, 90% reuse of, sweat and urine on the space station, and you kind of have to. I mean, it’s such an expense. Water is such an expensive resource, and we all need it, so I kind of like that. I love to share that with students The solid is thankfully just like, on the shuttle, we have a little trap door, and you do your business in there, and the door shuts and there’s a little vent to space, and it literally freeze dries your poop. It’s so weird. You seal it up, it goes into one of the vehicles that burns up, and literally your poop becomes space dust. So that’s how you go about space.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
CIRCLE COMPLETE. DREAM FULFILLED.
BUT SINCE WE’RE TALKING ABOUT BOMBS BURSTING IN AIR--
TURNING TO ANOTHER CHALLENGE DOTTIE WOULD NOT SHY FROM.
Monique Shifting again. Speaking of, July 2009 Astros versus Cardinals.
Dottie Oh my goodness. I can’t believe you found that.
JULY 22, 2009, AT MINUTEMMAID PARK
THE HOUSTON ASTROS COMMEMORATE THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING.
AND ASK DOTTIE TO SING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.
Monique the national anthem is tough.
Dottie The national anthem is the hardest song I’ve ever sang. And I never wanted to go.
Monique Oh, why.
Dottie I give about something that can give you anxiety. Because I love singing. But singing all by yourself and singing acapella. So you have to make sure to hit the right, jump. And I am a mezzo soprano, not a soprano, so I know that I can’t do the fun little trills that people are expecting. Yeah. So I was like, I got to do this. I got to do this. And I can’t forget the words. I thought that was the other piece I was so nervous about. And then I guess, again, it goes back to like, I think maybe a month or two before I sing it. A young person had forgot the words, and one of the players had come over and started singing and I thought, okay, you know what? You’re making too much out of this. But I did have the words in my hands washed up on paper, just in case. Like, like that’s really going to do anything for me, but it just made me feel better. It’s like my little security blanket. So yes, I sang the national anthem.
Monique How did it go?
Dottie And then I think it went fine. People said it sounded good. People who know how hard it is to sing it were like, this is fine. And I my voice in a crack. I made it through all the words. It’s where the important thing and to give it honor to. Because, because I wanted to, like my grandparents had been in the military. So I was also trying to give that honor
((NATS))
SHE HAS HONORED THE COUNTRY WITH HER SERVICE IN THE CLASSROOM … IN SPACE … AND UNDERWATER AS AN AQUANAUT.
SHE RETIRED FROM NASA WHEN SHE WAS BARELY OVER 40.
NOW SHE’S A MUSEUM OF FLIGHT TRUSTEE—AND STEM ADVOCATE.
HER FLIGHT PATH WAS NOT AS SHE DREW IT UP.
BETTER.
Monique How would your, your, your message, your experience be different if you hadn’t been chosen?
Dottie [02:07:12] I when I was down there for the interview, I felt once again like I’ve put it on the line and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to try for my big dream. I would hope that I would also have been like that that that persisted. I’m I’m lucky I get it the very first time I try for it. And they had this unique position of having teachers as astronauts, but I recognize that there were a lot of astronauts who applied multiple times, and it didn’t come the first time. And I admire their persistence and their grit. I was around these 35 people, some teachers, some pilots, doctors, engineers, scientists. They’re all at the top of their game. They’re all amazing. Every one of them would be a great astronaut. Somehow I got selected and some of them didn’t. And like I but I just knew after that week I was like, I tried for it. And that week was amazing.
Monique So it wasn’t whether you hit or miss, it’s that you actually swing.
Dottie Yes!
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Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Was it a Hit or Miss? I would love to hear what you think.
You can find me, Monique Ming Laven on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. All the links are on kiro7.com/HitandMiss.
Photography and editing – by Jeff Ritter.
Art Direction from Ryan Barber –
Invaluable feedback from Julie Berg, Kyla Grace, and James Sido.
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