Key goal: Put first woman on moon

From 1969 to 1972, six NASA missions named for the Greek god Apollo successfully landed 12 men on the surface of the moon; Neil, Buzz, two men named Alan, two men named Charles, Edgar, David, James, John, Jack and Eugene.

Now, nearly 50 years later, NASA has set out on a mission that would have then been considered even more unbelievable: to land the first woman on the moon.

But this is not another Apollo mission. This new program is named Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the moon and Apollo’s twin sister. The goal is to not just make a return visit to the moon’s surface by 2024, but to create a sustainable U.S. presence there by 2028. The “first woman and next man” will step foot on the moon’s southern pole, a place no human has gone before.

Of the more than 500 people who have flown to space, just 64 have been women.

Growing up in Indiana, during the late 1960s to early ’70s height of the Space Age, former rocket test engineer Suzanne Slade knew of no women in the science field, let alone women who had gone to space.

After graduating from Valparaiso University with a mechanical engineering degree in 1986, she went on to work at McDonnell Douglas Space Systems. One day, shortly after arriving at the company, Slade and some colleagues gathered for a rocket component test. She could not understand why they were all standing around. She asked a colleague about the holdup.

“We are waiting for the test engineer; he hasn’t showed up yet,” the man said.

Slade pointed to herself: “He’s here,” she said. “We can start.”

Now Slade looks forward to the first woman exploring the moon.

“It would be out of this world,” she said. “Not only for the contribution she would make to science and to exploration, but also to show young girls, women and the world, that women are capable astronauts.”