Julie Payette: Lady Astronaut

I will tell you something about somebody who did beautiful things. Her name is Julie Payette. She is an astronaut. She was born in1963.

Julie Payette graduated in electric engineering and in applied sciences. She is post-graduate. By the age of ten, she wanted to become either an astronaut or a doctor. Her first job was as a clinician –which she kept for three years. She then became an electric engineer for IBM and worked for this computer enterprise for about ten years. Little time later, she saw an add of the NASA in the newspaper: “looking for candidates as astronauts”. She applied immediately. There were about ten thousands applicants for this job in reply to that small add. There were many tests. To her biggest surprise Julie was among the nine other finalists who were all men.

She has been the only astronaut woman in Canada, with Roberta Bondar. She underwent much training in Canada and in the USA. Then, after some time, she left for Texas with other trainee astronauts, in order to deepen their knowledge. Julie knew how to speak five languages –of which Russian.

She was then asked to accomplish the STS-96 mission. She was to bring food to the orbital station and bring back some parts of the Canadian jib. She also had to look after all the electric, electronic and mechanic systems. She was in charge of repairing all the systems of the shuttle that broke. She worked with four other people. Discovery was the name of the shuttle.

I thought I would speak to you about Julie Payette because I admire the courage it took her to accomplish her mission and follow her ideas through to the end of her destiny.