Blazing a trail to inspire women
Trips to Mars, if they occur, would take more than three years and Dr Jens said she would only go if there were solid plans and an engineering effort to get home. But despite that she is aware of the danger of outer space travel.
“I think the thing about being an astronaut is that you’re doing something that you really believe will help our species,” Dr Jens.
“There’d be a lot of adrenaline and aside from getting through launch some of the challenges would be how you deal with a very isolating environment and how to ensure you have a small team that is a productive group of people.
“I’m not going to go out there to die but if it’s a mission that you really believe in and requires some people to take some risks — then that is bigger than me and my life.”
But while Dr Jens is currently living her dream, the road to getting there hasn’t been easy. Dr Jens said a teacher at Sacred Heart College in Newtown realised her passion for physics and engineering and pushed her to study the field. She decided to pursue a degree in engineering and physics when she learned Australia’s only astronaut, Andy Thomas, was an engineer.
Still, Dr Jens found her classes were male dominated and lacked a focus on space. After graduating she attended a general introductory International Space University at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Dr Jens was accepted into a Masters of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University but deferred her place for a year to apply for scholarships. With the backing of the Fullbright Scholarship and the local Rotary club Dr Jens enrolled at Stanford University.
There she became passionate about encouraging young women to study aeronautics and helped set up a national group for women in the field.
At university Dr Jens met other people who were excited and passionate about space and eventually was taken on as an intern at JPL, which put her through her PhD at Stanford studying a new, safer form of rocket propulsion using a fast-burning hybrid fuel.
As an Australian Dr Jens’ path has been made more difficult. To be able to become an astronaut Dr Jens must become a US citizen. She is currently applying for permanent residency.
“As an Australian it’s much rarer — it’s very hard to get into aerospace,” Dr Jens said.
“That’s just because of the international traffic in arms laws — there’s been a move to try and ease up some of those up some of those restrictions.”
Dr Jens, who was recently featured in Australia’s Vogue magazine, is also a trailblazer as one of the few females working in
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aeronautics at NASA and is determined to try and inspire more women to study in the field.
When she was in college the year group below her had just three women in a cohort of 60 people studying aeronautics. Just one of those women went on to study the PhD.
In her current workplace Dr Jens says she is lucky to have had strong female leaders, but hopes to see the