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When Apollo 11, the American spaceflight, first landed humans on the moon, nine month-old Nicky stirred in her crib at her family home in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in England.

- PRATHIMA NANDAKUMAR

Her father then “propped her up” in front of the TV and gave a running commentary of the momentous occasion. Nicky grew up to become Dr Nicola Fox—only the second woman after astronaut Mary Cleave to be head of science at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And, it comes as no surprise that she credits her father for her passion in space science.

Fox, who was appointed associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD)-NASA headquarters last February, was on her first visit to India this March. She was in Bengaluru to celebrate the partnership between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation on the soon-to-be launched NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), an advanced radar imaging system that will provide an unprecedented and detailed view of earth. A day prior to her visit to ISRO’s U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, Fox, who studied in an all-girls school, visited Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women along with NASA’s Earth Science director Dr Karen M. St Germain. The two women spoke their minds during ‘Space Talk with NASA Women Scientists’, organised by the US Consulate General, Chennai.

During the interaction, Fox took the audience through the functions and pursuits of the six divisions at NASA’s SMD—planetary science, joint agency satellite, astrophysics, biological and physical sciences, earth science and heliophysics—that have an annual funding of $8 billion. Exhorting students to pursue careers in space science without any selfdoubt, Fox said the key to being a scientist is to love asking questions. If you are fascinated about how and why things work, you are already a scientist, she said.