Back in the 1950s few women in the United States worked outside of the home, and even fewer earned doctorate degrees or went on to have professional careers.
回顾1950年代的美国，当时的女性很少在外工作的。而获得博士学位或者进入专业领域的，更是微乎其微。
However, as the first chief of astronomy at the U.S. space agency, Nancy Grace Roman is a notable exception.
可是著名女天文学家南西·格蕾丝·罗曼例外。
Mesmerized by the moon
Roman’s fascination with space began not long after she was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1925, the only child of a teacher and a scientist.
这位美国太空署第一位天文学部门主管的南西·格蕾丝·罗曼，1925年出生于田纳西州纳什维尔。作为一名教师和一名科学家的独生女，她很快就对太空感到着迷。
“My grandmother sent back a letter that mother had written when I was four, saying that my favorite thing to draw was the moon," she says. "Certainly by the time I was in seventh grade, I knew I had to have a long education if I wanted to become an astronomer, but I figured I’d try it and if I didn’t get far enough I could always end up teaching in high school or math or physics.”
罗曼说：“我的祖母交给我一封我四岁那年母亲写给祖母的信，信中说我最喜欢做的事就是画月亮。读七年级的时候，我知道，如果我要成为一名天文学家，就必须接受长期的教育，但是我明白我要尝试这条路，并且如果我努力得不够，我可能就只会成为一名高中数学或者物理老师。”
Pursuing her interest in astronomy was not easy. Women of her generation were systematically discouraged from going into science.
但是，在天文学领域里追寻她的兴趣，并不容易。在她的那个年代里的女性，通常都不会被鼓励走向科学这一条路。
“I still remember asking my high school guidance teacher for permission to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin," she says. "She looked down her nose at me and sneered, ‘What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?’ That was the sort of reception that I got most of the way.”
罗曼说：“我还记得曾经请求高中的辅导老师，同意我选修第二年的代数而不是第五年的拉丁文。她轻蔑的看着我，冷笑地问：‘什么样的女子会选修数学而不修拉丁文？’那就是我当时经常承受到的态度。”
Shaking off stereotypes
But Roman was determined to become an astronomer and learn everything she could about stars. She went to college, studied science and earned her doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1949.
但是罗曼还是下定决心要成为一名天文学家。她要尽可能学习一切有关星球的学识。她后来进了大学学习科学。1949年，她在芝加哥大学获得天文学博士学位。
She spent the next decade teaching and working as a research associate but soon realized that, as a woman, her prospects for advancement at a research institution were limited.
接下来的十年间，她作为一名研究助理，一面教学一面工作。但是，她很快了解到，作为一名女性，她在研究机构发展的前景实在有限。
So, in 1959, she accepted a job at NASA, the U.S. space agency, to set up a program in space astronomy.
因此，到了1959年，她接受了美国航空航天局的聘请，为他们建立太空天文学的计划。
As part of her new job, Roman travelled around the country, trying to understand what astronomers really wanted.
罗曼的新工作须要在全国各地旅行，以了解各地天文学家实际需要的是什么。
“Astronomers had been wanting to get observations from above the atmosphere for a long time. Looking through the atmosphere is somewhat like looking through a piece of old, stained glass," Roman says. "The glass has defects in it, so the image is blurred from that.”
罗曼说：“长久以来，天文学家一直期望能在大气层之上进行观察。穿过大气层的观察有些像透过一片老旧模糊的玻璃看东西。玻璃本身会有缺陷，透过它看到的形像也会模糊。”
Honing Hubble
That need for clear, sharp images from space was all the motivation she needed.
对太空里清晰，精确形像的需求，成为她所有追求的动机。
“I set up a committee of astronomers from all over the country, plus some engineers from NASA, to sit down together and decide what we should do, what did the astronomers want to do, what did the engineers think was possible to do, and I led that effort for several years until we had a fairly detailed design of what we thought would make sense.”
罗曼说：“我成立了一个包括全国各地天文学家，以及航空航天局工程师的委员会，大家坐在一起，共同决定我们该怎么做，天文学家希望怎么做，工程师们认为可以怎么做。我花了几年时间主持这项工作，直到我们在可能实现的计划上，做好细节设计为止。”
That design was the Hubble Space Telescope, an instrument that could soar above the atmosphere, orbit the earth, and capture and transmit clear observations of the universe back to earth.
这项设计的目标就是哈勃太空望远镜。这项设备可以升空到大气层之上，围绕着地球轨道，将宇宙里的目标物清晰地捕捉下来，传回地球。
NASA’s current chief astronomer, who worked with Roman at the agency, calls her “the mother of the Hubble Space Telescope.”
航空航天局现任首席天文学家埃德·维勒，曾经追随罗曼工作。他称呼罗曼为“哈勃太空望远镜之母”。
“Which is often forgotten by our younger generation of astronomers who make their careers by using Hubble Space Telescope," says Ed Weiler. "Regretfully, history has forgotten a lot in today’s Internet age, but it was Nancy in the old days before the Internet and before Google and e-mail and all that stuff, who really helped to sell the Hubble Space Telescope, organize the astronomers, who eventually convinced Congress to fund it.”
维勒说：“我们年轻一代的天文学家在专业上经常使用哈勃太空望远镜，却常常忘记了这一点。遗憾的是，在今天互联网时代，历史被遗忘的事太多了，但是在互联网，谷歌和电子邮件这些东西都还没有出现之前的早期时代，南西罗曼推出了哈勃望远镜的构想，组合了天文学家共同努力，最后说服国会，获得拨款资助。”
Encouraging others to reach for the stars
Since retiring from NASA in 1979, Roman spends much of her time consulting, teaching and lecturing across the country, all the while continuing to be a passionate advocate for science.
1979年退休之后，罗曼将大部分的时间用于咨询，教学，和在全国各地的讲学上。在她以全部的热情，作为一名科学的促进者。
Today, at the age of 86, Roman enjoys motivating young girls to dream big.
今天，已经86岁的南西·格蕾丝．罗曼说，她最喜欢的工作，是教育和鼓舞年轻的女孩们怀抱远大的梦想。
“One of the reasons I like working with schools is to try to convince women that they can be scientists and that science can be fun,” she says.
罗曼说：“我喜欢在学校工作的原因之一，是我能够让女性们相信，她们能成为科学家，同时，科学会充满着乐趣。”
Roman hopes she's inspired young women to set aside their inhibitions and reach for the stars, just as she did.
毫无疑问，很多年轻的女性都受到这位科学尖兵的鼓舞，她们抛开心中的疑虑，就如罗曼当年漂亮地表现一样，奔向宇宙的星球。 |