Last Friday, astronaut Wendy Lawrence and her partner Cathy Lawrence led a panel on Western Washington University's campus. The room was packed full of excited, young students, eager to learn more about these amazing people who had worked for NASA. And having been there, it definitely wasn’t a disappointment. They told about themselves and taught valuable life lessons.
The first thing they taught was that sometimes cheesy romance love stories can come true. Cathy saw Wendy from afar, as she was part of ground control. On one of Wendy’s missions, Cathy was assigned to be part of the ground crew that communicated to the astronauts in space. She made sure her shift aligned with the time to communicate with Wendy, which was the graveyard shift. They got to know each other through those talks, and ended up on a date once Wendy landed back on Earth. They have been happily together ever since.
The second valuable lesson was that dreams can come true, with lots and lots of hard work. Wendy saw a moon landing around when she was 10 years old. She was apparently so fascinated, she kept slowly getting closer and closer to the television. Eventually, when she was near face contact with the screen, her dad asked if the moon landing fascinated her. She responded, “I want to be an astronaut.” And she made that dream come true -- which was no easy feat, between being part of the military under 'don’t ask, don’t tell' and grueling military school, where being a woman meant she had to be better than everyone else to be treated equally.
Both Wendy and Cathy also talked about how one shouldn’t lead a life in fear. Wendy was taught to control her fear with her military training, but that was training for life-and-death situations. She originally wanted to get a degree in aero engineering, but settled for ocean engineering because she feared not succeeding after hearing the horror stories from seniors in that degree. Cathy spoke of her fear of not making her dream come true as she failed again and again in the classes she needed to complete her degree to work for NASA, and giving up for awhile, basically becoming a janitor. Eventually, though, she overcame that fear, took night classes and finally got the degree she wanted.
Another valuable lesson was to not shortchange yourself, but also be humble. Both Cathy and Wendy told how they often shortchanged themselves as they didn’t feel equal to all the men who surrounded them in their fields because they weren’t treated equally, often because to be treated equal, as a woman, you had to be the best. They learned eventually to know their self-worth, and that's how they became the amazing NASA employees they ended up being. Yet, having been treated lesser -- and since Cathy started from the bottom of NASA as a bus driver working her way up, and Wendy was the helicopter pilot who bussed around supplies, which was the lowest of the low tiers of pilots in the military -- they both learned to be humble. This served them well, mainly because many men who thought they were the best didn’t work well with others and tried to hog the spotlight whenever they could. This would often would cause problems and outright made them unlikely candidates for longer missions.
I learned a lot by attending the panel for Wendy and Cathy Lawrence, two amazing people who worked for NASA. The lessons I took away could and should apply to everyone, astronaut or not.
