The intruder of the news gives each evening a spotlight on a personality who could have passed under the radars of the news.
Everything is new in this story. Makenzie Lystrup is the first woman to head a NASA center, in this case the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. She succeeds Dave Mitchell, who had been acting for three months and who is returning to manage NASA programs at headquarters in Washington.
The Goddard center (named after the pioneer of rocket propulsion) is not necessarily NASA’s best known. It is, however, a reference in scientific research. 10,000 people, $4.9 billion budget. This is where the missions of the Explorer program, the Hubble, James-Webb or SWIFT telescopes, or even certain weather satellites, are designed and carried out. Since its creation in 1959, no woman had directed it. That being said, by observing her CV carefully, no one will do her the offense of explaining her appointment by the simple desire that it be a woman.
She takes an oath on Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”
Makenzie Lystrup is 45 years old, a doctorate in astrophysics obtained in London after studies in Portland. She was a planetary scientist and astronomer but she also has a lot of management experience. Before NASA, she worked for a long time in the private sector, notably managing business strategy at Ball aerospace, a manufacturer of military equipment and scientific satellites. She worked there precisely on the James Webb telescope among others. A mixed profile of scientist and manager which made her a fairly obvious candidate.
But the other revolution is due to the fact that she took the oath on a book other than the Bible. U.S. government officials, what it is with this office, “are bound by oath or affirmation” to the Constitution. Some politicians or officials therefore take an oath on the Constitution, but most of the time, they ultimately do so on the Bible. Makenzie Lystrup takes the opposite view, notably far from a traditional Catholic vision which places Man at the center of the Universe. The choice of the book itself is quite a program.
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She places her left hand on “Pale Blue Dot”, the “Pale Blue Dot”, a book by astronomer Carl Sagan, a man who fought all his life against obscurantism, who cried out loud and clear that democratic societies are necessarily attached to science. He is a man revered by space enthusiasts, in particular Olivier Sanguy, who is in charge of space news at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse, and for whom this book chosen by Makenzie Lystrup is anything but trivial. “It is a book that describes the potential of the future of humanity, thanks to space exploration, for science of course but also perhaps to establish itself outside planet Earth. Let us not forget that that person is going to run the Goddard center, which is a center for spaceflight, and the other symbol, of course, is the little pale blue, which is from a picture of the Voyager 1 probe that took the Earth 6 billion miles away and the Earth appears as this little dot.”
“Carl Sagan has written a very beautiful text in which he reflects on the humility we must have and which shows that ultimately, conflicts on Earth are ridiculous, faced with the immensity of the universe. This is the lesson modesty of astronomy and in the current geopolitical context, the choice of this book is probably not a coincidence.”
Olivier Sanguyat franceinfo
Olivier Sanguy alludes to the tensions with China and the various wars, notably in Ukraine of course. Makenzie Lystrup explained that she watched a lot of the TV series “Cosmos”, which space lovers all know. In one of the episodes, in French version, the actor Hugues Martel had also read this extract from the “Pale Blue Dot”: “It has been said that astronomy encourages humility and strengthens the character. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human ideas than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to cohabit more brotherly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” A whole program for the new boss! In any case, on the social networks of NASA, the Goddard Center and the entire Space community, the photo of Makenzie Listruyp, left hand on the “Pale Blue Dot” was a real hit.