Celebrating the Women of Apollo

This post is adapted from the Women in Astronomy blog:

Splashdown! 24 July 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the return to Earth of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins after a historic mission on which Armstrong and Aldrin took humankind's first steps on the Moon.

In mid-1969 there were about 100 women, including 16 engineers, serving in top positions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But thousands of other women around the country also supported the Apollo program before, during, and after 1969. Many of them have recently been interviewed as part of the 50th anniversary, and their stories have appeared in various news outlets. The Women in Astronomy blog, run by the AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy, lists many of them in its 24 July post, "Celebrating the Women of Apollo," and more are listed in articles in the Los Angeles Times and on the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center website. If you know of other women of Apollo who we've overlooked, please let us know via the comments section at the bottom of the Women in Astronomy blog page.

Read "Celebrating the Women of Apollo"

As we return to the lunar surface with Artemis and then go on to Mars, women around the world will continue to leave indelible marks on the Moon and throughout the solar system.