A SPACE ODYSSEY
She’s travelled millions of miles in space but American astronaut Dr Anna Fisher still thinks New Zealand is a long trip. By Paul Gorman.
ANNA Fisher was only 12 years old when astronaut Al Shepard became the first American in space but she recalls the morning vividly. It was May 1961 and she and her classmates crowded around their PE teacher in the southeastern US state of Kentucky. The teacher had a little transistor radio and they all sat listening to Shepard talking to Mission Control.
‘‘And I said, ‘I wanna do that someday,’’ Fisher recalls. ‘‘The moon landing was amazing and incredible, but the thing I remember the most was Alan Shepard. That really captured my attention.’’
But even then, ‘‘it never even occurred to me to join the military and become a pilot, because back in those days women weren’t allowed to fly high-performance aircraft, they weren’t allowed to go into combat. So there was no way to get the experience.’’
Fisher, a chemist and emergency physician, made history after becoming the sixth woman to enter space after being selected by Nasa in 1978 for a team of women astronauts. Fisher was working as an emergency room doctor when Nasa put out an open call for an astronaut training programme. In November 1984 she embarked on an eight-day space mission on the space shuttle Discovery, spanning 5.3 million kilometres, to deploy and retrieve satellites.
She had an infant daughter at home and was dubbed an inspiration for working mums. Now aged 70, and a grandmother, Fisher’s mission is to show young people a career in space is achievable.
She’s in New Zealand as part of a United States State Department speaking tour, encouraging young people, women in particular, to pursue courses in science, technology, engineering and maths.
Fisher was training for a second mission until the Challenger shuttle disaster in January 1986.
She went into Nasa management roles, including being chief of the space station branch of the astronaut office, but took extended family leave from 1988 to 1996. She retired in April 2017 but still harbours dreams of going into orbit one more time, perhaps as a tourist, so she can look out the window.
Lift off was ‘‘a real kick in the pants. Seven million pounds of thrust’’, so much so she didn’t get a chance to enjoy the scenery.
‘‘At the time, you’re so worried about doing your job well that you really didn’t focus on, ‘Oh I really wish I’d got a picture of this or taken a look at that’.
‘‘It is a very surreal experience because it is something you’ve wanted for so many years and all of a sudden, after all that time, it is finally, actually here. Of course, I thought a lot about my daughter, but you get strapped in and you’ve got stuff to do, and everyone is kinda talking and joking.’’
The crew would sit in the shuttle for about three hours and at nine minutes before lift-off there came a mandatory stop to the countdown for final checks.
‘‘About a minute before they come out of the hold, the launch director calls [around] the room: ‘Computers? Boosters?’ And they’re all going: ‘Go. Go. Go.’
‘‘Then you start going: ‘Oh shoot. This is really gonna happen.’ Up ’til then, you think, ‘this is really not going to happen.’ But then it gets really real.’’
has arisen around the warmth of the lights.
NZTA regulations say road lighting should be 4000 kelvins (the measurement of light temperature) although some councils have agreed concessions for the use of warmer 3000k lights to limit light pollution in special areas.
McNamara said while the streetlight was too close to be able to get an accurate blue light reading, from outside Reuben’s window he was able to detect blue light from 186m away on SH1 and 320m away on local authority roads.
McNamara has spent two years investigating light and glare and believes NZTA needs to start taking notice of research.
‘‘I was on my way to work one day and it had been raining and, as most SH1 surfaces are, it was nice and smooth so I took my spectral grating [a device used to see the spectrum of colours in a light] out,’’ he said.
‘‘Not only was I able to detect blue light from the lights, I could detect blue light from the reflection, so we are not only getting blue light shining down on us, but it’s reflecting back up again.’’
‘It’s obvious light pollution, light glare and light spill onto private property.’ DAMIEN MCNAMARA