Great Women Productions

Great Women of Aviation, Astronomy & Space

Portrait Subjects

Mabel Hubbard Bell

The first financier of the aviation industry in North America. Mabel believed so much in her husband Alexander Graham Bell’s dream of flying a heavier-than-air vehicle that she sold her real estate and gave him the money to establish the Aerial Experimental Association and build the Silver Dart.

Mary Sherman Morgan

Mary was the scientist who invented the fuel that powered the first US satellite into orbit - and died with barely a trace on the record of her achievements.

Maria Cunitz

This 17th century Great Woman was one of the most notable female astronomers of the modern era.

Cecilia Payne

Inspired by a lecture by astronomer Arthur Eddington, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin relentlessly pursued astronomy to discover the composition of stars. Her Cambridge University PhD thesis was deemed “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy” by astronomer Otto Struve.

Annie Jump Cannon

A childhood book about stars inspired Annie to study physics and astronomy and, along the way. she invented a new system for classifying stars. Annie catalogued thousands of stars during the course of her life, discovered a class of exploding stars, and created a star-classification system that astronomers still use today.

Maria Mitchell

The first female astronomer in the U.S., Maria was also the first American scientist to discover a comet, the first female astronomy professor - and an early advocate for science and math education for girls.

Katherine Johnson

A math genius, Katherine joined the all-black computing section at what became NASA, and became a key calculator of flight trajectories for early U.S. spaceflights. She was called upon by astronaut John Glenn to manually check computer-programmed orbital equations. “If she says it’s fine," he said, "I’m good to go.”

Mary Winston Jackson

NASA's first Black female engineer. The story of Jackson - and her NASA colleagues Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Johnson Vaughan - were told in the movie Hidden Figures. (Janelle Monáe portrays Jackson in the film.)

Dr. Marie Equi, fierce feminist physician

While we're talking female pioneers, Great Women Production wants to thank Girls Inc. of the Pacific North West for suggesting a portrait (below) of Oregon physician, feminist, and fierce advocate for women's rights, Dr. Marie Equi: