Former astronaut Godwin honored at Cape County History Center

Former astronaut and Jackson native Linda Godwin spoke at the opening of an exhibit celebrating her career Thursday, May 18, at the Cape Girardeau County History Center in Jackson.

Being honored as a Cape Girardeau County hero, Godwin spoke about her life growing up and going to school in Jackson, her career with NASA and being one of the few people to experience space travel.

Godwin said seeing the Earth from orbit gave her the perspective that "We're all a lot closer together than we think."

"It is a beautiful view," Godwin said. "We are the oasis of the solar system."

She said, growing up, it was sometimes hard to imagine a life outside of Jackson. She said she considered herself a "nerd" who liked math and science.

"But Jackson had a lot of those, so I never felt like too much of an outsider," Godwin said.

She said a benefit to being an astronaut is traveling around the world and talking to people, especially young people, who might be encouraged by her story. Godwin said, when she was young, she didn't see many women doing jobs in science, not to mention space travel.

"When you see someone doing something that you think you would like to do, then you are able to believe it's possible," Godwin said. "These paths are possible for anybody, and if you want to follow them, there are ways to do it."

When asked about her thoughts regarding the upcoming missions to the moon and NASA working with privately-owned commercial organizations, such as Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX, Godwin said NASA has always worked with independent contractors.

She said the partnerships were different and there was more oversight from NASA in the early days of the space program.

"I think, overall, NASA has the philosophy that they go do these things first and put the infrastructure in place, and then it can be turned over," Godwin said. "I mean, even the space shuttle was managed by a private contractor during the last several launches."

Godwin said going back to the moon, as NASA plans to do with upcoming Artemis missions, is beneficial because there is still much to learn.

"Humans have explored very little of the moon," Godwin said. "There are still moon rocks, brought back from the Apollo missions, that are being opened today. They had saved some for later technologies and we are still learning from those."

According to her biography on the NASA website, Godwin graduated from Jackson High School in 1970 and, in 1974, received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics from Southeast Missouri State University. She also received a Master of Science and a doctorate in physics from the University of Missouri.

Per the biography, during her career, Godwin completed four space shuttle missions, where she logged more than 38 days in space, including two spacewalks. She conducted research in low temperature solid-state physics, including studies in electron tunneling and vibrational modes of absorbed molecular species on metallic substrates at liquid helium temperatures. Godwin retired from NASA in August 2010.