We Told You (In January 2017) She Would Be Seen In Space Science Leadership Again: Dr. Ellen Stofan

About a year and a quarter ago, we remarked on the (likely "Trump disgust"-induced) "retirement" -- of the Chief Scientist of NASA. This morning, she's been named as the Director of the Air and Space Museum. We knew she wasn't done -- wouldn't stay on the sidelines for very long.

This is STEM on fleek, Part II, folks. Congrats to her -- and here's a bit, from NPR affliate WBUR:

. . . .Ellen Stofan saw her first rocket launch when she was 4 years old. Now, more than 50 years later, she's director of the National Air and Space Museum — the first woman to hold the position.

Stofan, a former chief scientist at NASA, comes to the position with more than 25 years of field experience. But before all that, she was just a kid who fell in love with science — specifically, with rocks.

"When I decided at age 9 or 10 that I wanted to be a geologist, everybody encouraged me," Stofan told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. "I think having that strong base of encouragement made me feel like a STEM career was possible."

That encouragement came easy in a family dedicated to the field: Her dad was a NASA rocket scientist and her mom was a science teacher.

When she was 14, Stofan saw astronomer Carl Sagan speak at the launch of the Viking lander, which in 1976 was the first U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and send images back to Earth. It was then that she decided to study bigger rocks: planets.

"Carl Sagan started talking about why we were exploring Mars — the fact that Mars had this history of water; that potentially life could have evolved on Mars ," Stofan remembers. "I heard that speech and thought, 'that's what I want to do.' "

She did go on to do that, leading NASA's mission to send humans to the red planet. Today she's charge of the exhibit that displays a test version of the Viking lander in the Air and Space Museum's Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall in Washington, D.C. . . .

Onward then, on a flawless -- now almost sweltering -- Spring morning. Thinking of some other sublimely warm days of the past -- of a pensive doe, blocking the narrow trail path, not defiantly -- but just without a care on Earth; of wild turkey, ambling likewise carelessly by, under a leaf-dappled canopy of sunlight. . . . and of small gasps and sighs, followed by. . . deep breathing. Of hurtling small round rocks at tree trunks in the distance (then hearing the satisfying plunk echo back through the wood) -- all while in dress shoes. Smile.

Namaste -- and onward, indeed.

नमस्ते