IDAHO — Ellen Ochoa was one of five people aboard the space shuttle Discovery when it launched from the Kennedy Space Center on April 8, 1993.
The nine-day mission was the first of four that earned her a place in history as the first Hispanic woman in space.
The 68-year-old Los Angeles native, who now lives in Idaho, was the featured guest at a panel discussion hosted by the Village Improvement Society in Idaho Falls Wednesday night. A crowd of about 250 people gathered in the conference center of the Battelle Energy Alliance Future Tech Building, in partnership with Frontier Credit Union, as she discussed her career with NASA.
During an interview with EastIdahoNews.com after the event, Ochoa shared what being the first Hispanic woman in space means to her.
“It’s given me so many opportunities over the last 35 years to talk to lots of audiences,” Ochoa said. “Seeing the first American woman in space and the first Hispanic-American in space really inspired me. If I can do that for others, that’s a huge honor.”
Ochoa was the mission specialist on all four missions and spent nearly 1,000 hours in space. The first two missions were focused on atmospheric research, including studying the upper atmosphere, the sun, and Earth’s ozone layer. She played a role in building the International Space Station on her third and fourth missions.
The Discovery became the first shuttle to dock at the space station in 1999. During Ochoa’s fourth voyage aboard the Atlantis in 2002, she used a robotic arm to install a truss on the space station.
When asked which mission was her favorite, Ochoa said “I have great memories from all of them.” For her, it’s gratifying to see the ISS still being used and occupied by astronauts more than a quarter century after her initial flight.
She says she’s also grateful for the lessons learned while conducting atmospheric research.
During Wednesday night’s event, she described what it was like experiencing zero gravity and seeing earth from space for the first time.
“Anything that’s not tied down is floating, and so you just have to to learn how to adapt to that. It’s really quick, on-the-job training,” Ochoa said, eliciting laughter from the audience. “Earth’s atmosphere is so thin and it’s the only thing keeping us alive on this planet. It’s beautiful, but it’s also very fragile.”
Ochoa was serving as deputy director of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate at Johnson Space Center when space shuttle Columbia broke apart on February 1, 2003. She was sitting in Mission Control with other senior officials that morning and recalled her memories of that day.
Months later, John Herrington, the first Native American in space, was part of a 13-day mission to the ISS aboard space shuttle Endeavor. EastIdahoNews.com spoke with him in May following a stop in Fort Hall.
Although Herrington and Ochoa were on separate missions, Ochoa says they crossed paths during their time at NASA and have stayed in touch through the years.
“I saw him just a couple months ago,” says Ochoa. “He lived in Idaho for a number of years.”
Ochoa currently lives in Boise, where she has lived for the last eight years. Retired astronaut Barbara Morgan, who trained with the Challenger team as a backup crew member, has lived there for many years, and that was a factor in Ochoa’s decision to move there.
“I knew (her and her husband), and we visited them, and we really liked the city,” Ochoa says.
This story was originally published by East Idaho News.
