Nancy Roman | |
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 Nancy Grace Roman in 2015 | |
| Born | Nancy Grace Roman (1925-05-16)May 16, 1925 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | December 25, 2018(2018-12-25) (aged 93) Germantown, Maryland, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Swarthmore College,University of Chicago |
| Known for | Planning of theHubble Space Telescope |
| Awards | See list
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | Yerkes Observatory,University of Chicago,NASA,Naval Research Laboratory |
| Thesis | Ursa Major Moving Group (1949) |
| Doctoral advisor | William Wilson Morgan |
| Other academic advisors | W.W. Morgan,Peter van de Kamp |
Nancy Grace Roman (May 16, 1925 – December 25, 2018) was an American astronomer who made important contributions tostellar classification and motions. The first female executive atNASA, Roman served as NASA's first Chief of Astronomy throughout the 1960s and 1970s, establishing her as one of the "visionary founders of the US civilian space program".[1]
Roman created NASA's space astronomy program and is known to many as the "Mother of Hubble" for her foundational role in planning theHubble Space Telescope.[2] Throughout her career, Roman was an active public speaker and educator, and an advocate forwomen in the sciences.
In May 2020, NASA administratorJim Bridenstine announced that the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope would be named theNancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in recognition of her enduring contributions to astronomy.[3]
Nancy Grace Roman was born inNashville, Tennessee, to music teacher Georgia Frances Smith Roman and physicist/mathematician Irwin Roman.[4] Shortly after, her father took a job as a geophysicist for an oil company and the family moved toOklahoma three months after Roman's birth. Roman and her parents later moved toTexas,New Jersey,Michigan, and thenNevada in 1936, when her father joined the Civil Service in geophysical research.[5]
When she was about 12 years old, the family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, when Irwin Roman was hired as Senior Geophysicist at the Baltimore office of theU.S. Geological Survey.[5] Roman considered her parents to be major influences in her interest in science.[4]
When Roman was 11 years old, she formed anastronomy club, gathering with classmates once a week and learning aboutconstellations from books. Although discouraged by those around her, Roman knew by seventh grade that she would dedicate her life to astronomy.[4][6][7] She attendedWestern High School inBaltimore where she participated in an accelerated program, graduating in three years.
Roman attendedSwarthmore College, intending to study astronomy.[4] The dean of women was not encouraging in this. Roman said "if you insisted on majoring in science or engineering, she wouldn't have anything more to do with you".[8] The dean referred her to the astronomy department, then chaired byPeter van de Kamp, who was initially discouraging, but did teach her astronomy. She worked on the two student telescopes available there, which had been defunct. Roman says that helped with "getting a feel for instruments and instrumentation and just having the fun of playing around with observing techniques."[4]
In her sophomore year, she began working at theSproul Observatory processing astronomical photographic plates, inheriting Van de Kamp's ethos that since he had used "plates that were taken by his predecessors 50 years earlier," he felt obliged "to replace those with plates that his successors would use 50 years in the future".[4] Van de Kamp taught Roman in a solo lecture course onastrometry, encouraging her to learn about professional astronomy through use of the astronomy library. She graduated in February 1946, and van de Kamp suggested that she continue studies at theUniversity of Chicago, which was rebuilding its astronomy department after World War II. Years later, Roman remained involved with her alma mater, serving on the Swarthmore Board of Managers from 1980 to 1988.[9]
She started graduate school at the University of Chicago in March 1946.[4] Finding the classes easier than at Swarthmore, she approached three professors,Otto Struve,George van Biesbroeck, andWilliam Wilson Morgan, asking each for an observational astronomy project to work on. The first gave her a theory project, the second a data analysis project, and Morgan provided an observational project using a 12-inch telescope, most likely the refractor from theKenwood Astrophysical Observatory. Although Morgan was initially dismissive of Roman, at one point not speaking to her for six months,[4] he continued to support her research. She received her Ph.D. in astronomy in 1949, having written a dissertation on theUrsa Major Moving Group.[10]
After a two-month break at theWarner and Swasey Observatory, she was invited by Morgan to be his research associate atYerkes Observatory.[11] She worked at Yerkes for six years, often traveling to theMcDonald Observatory inTexas, which at the time was managed by the University of Chicago, and once to theDavid Dunlap Observatory inToronto, supported by theOffice of Naval Research.[4] The research position was not permanent, so Roman became an instructor and later, an assistant professor.[4]
At Yerkes, her research focused on stellar spectroscopy, emphasizingF and G type stars and high-velocity stars. Her work produced some of the most highly cited papers of the time, including, in 1950, three top-100 papers in a year with over 3,000 publications.[12] She was offered research positions atWayne State University and theUniversity of Southern California, but turned them down as she felt the institutions lacked sufficient astronomical instrumentation, an issue of great importance to her.[4]
She traveled toArgonne National Laboratory to use their new astrometry device for measuringphotographic plates, but was unable to convince Yerkes to acquire one. She advocated for the purchase of a then-novel digital computer for data analysis in 1954, but was turned down by department chairSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who declared computers as unuseful for this purpose.[1] Roman eventually left her job at the university because of the paucity of tenured research positions available to women. They had never had a woman on the academic staff.[6][4]Gerard Kuiper recommended to her a position at theNaval Research Laboratory in the new field of radio astronomy.
Roman conducted a survey of all naked-eye stars similar to the Sun and realized that they could be divided into two categories by chemical content andmotion through the galaxy. One of her discoveries was that stars with smaller amounts of elementsheavier thanhydrogen andhelium move faster than stars that have moreheavy elements. Another discovery was finding that not all common stars were the same age. That was proven by comparing hydrogen lines of the low dispersion spectra in the stars.[13]
Roman noticed that the stars with the stronger lines moved closer to the center of theMilky Way and the others moved in more elliptical patterns, off the plane of the galaxy.[13] These fundamental observations of the structure of the galaxy provided the first clue to its formation and laid the foundation for later work; her paper[14] was selected as one of the 100 most important papers in 100 years by theAstrophysical Journal.
While working atYerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, Roman observed the starAG Draconis and discovered that itsemission spectrum had completely changed since earlier observations.[15] She later credited the publication of her discovery as a stroke of luck – the star is in that state only 2-3% of the time—that substantially raised her profile within the astronomical community, advancing to her career.[16]
In 1955, theAstrophysical Journal Supplement Series published her catalog of high-velocity stars, which documented new "spectral types, photoelectric magnitudes and colors, and spectroscopic parallaxes for about 600 high-velocity stars."[17] Her "UV excess" method became widely used by astronomers to find stars with more heavier elements using only the colors of the stars rather than having to take spectra. In 1959, Roman wrote a paper on the detection of extraterrestrial planets.[4][18] She also did research and published on the subjects of locating constellations from their1875.0 positions.[19]
After leaving the University of Chicago, Roman went to theNaval Research Laboratory and entered theradio astronomy program in 1954.[20] Radio astronomy was then a very young field in the United States, and the NRL had taken an early lead by building the largest accurate radio telescope in 1951, a 50-foot parabolic antenna located on top of one of its research buildings.[21][22] Roman's work at the NRL included radio astronomy,geodesy, and even the propagation of sound underwater.[4] She spent three years there, rising to become head of themicrowave spectroscopy section of the radio astronomy program.[6]
One of the few people at the NRL in radio astronomy with a classical astronomy background, she was consulted on a wide variety of topics. During Roman's time at the NRL, she provided astronomy consultation for theProject Vanguard satellite program,[23] although she did not formally work on any of the rocket projects, introducing her to space astronomy. At the time, she was concerned that the science being done in the rocket projects was not of high quality, though she saw the potential of space astronomy.[4]
Roman's radio astronomy work included mapping much of the Milky Way galaxy at a frequency of 440 MHz, determining the spectral break in the nonthermal radio emission. She pioneered the use of radio astronomy ingeodetic work, including radar ranging to improve our calculation of the distance to the Moon at a wavelength of 10 cm (2.86 GHz).[24] Roman presented this at a geodesy conference in 1959 as the best way to determine the mass of the Earth.[25]
While at the NRL, Roman received an invitation to speak on her work with stars inArmenia, then in theSoviet Union, in 1956 for the dedication of theByurakan Observatory. This cemented her international reputation, and as she was the first civilian to visit Armenia after the start of the Cold War. The visit raised her visibility in the United States, with invitations to speak about the trip leading to a series of astronomy lectures. Her reputation was well established, including with people at the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).[26]
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At a lecture byHarold Urey at NASA, Roman was approached by Jack Clark, who asked whether she knew someone interested in creating a program for space astronomy atNASA. She interpreted that as an invitation to apply[16] and was the applicant who accepted the position.[4] While the position nominally allowed for 20% of her time to be used for scientific research, she recognized that such a position would effectively mean she was giving up research, but, as she said in 2018, "the chance to start with a clean slate to map out a program that I thought would influence astronomy for fifty years was more than I could resist."[1]
Roman arrived at NASA in late February 1959 as Head of Observational Astronomy. She quickly inherited a broad program which included theOrbiting Solar Observatories and geodesy and relativity. In early 1960, Roman became the first astronomer in the position of Chief of Astronomy in NASA's Office of Space Science, setting up the initial program; she was also the first woman to hold an executive position at the space agency.[20]
Part of her job was traveling throughout the country and giving lectures at astronomy departments, where she discussed the fact that the program was in development. Roman also was looking to find out what other astronomers wanted to study and to educate them on the advantages of observing from space.[4][11][16] Her visits set the precedent that NASA scientific research would be driven by the needs of the broader astronomical community, or in her words, the visits were "to tell them what we were planning at NASA and what the NASA opportunities were, but it was equally to try to get from them a feeling of what they thought NASA ought to be doing."[4]
Her work was instrumental in converting what was then a ground-based astronomical community, hostile to the space science program, into supporters of astronomy from space. She established the policy that major astronomy projects would be managed by NASA for the good of the broader scientific community, rather than as individual experiments run by academic research scientists. As early as 1960, a year into her new position, Roman began publishing plans for NASA astronomy with policy statements, such as "A fundamental part of all of these plans is the participation of the entire astronomical community. NASA will act as a coordinating agency to enable astronomers to obtain the basic observations they need from outer space."[27]
During her employment at NASA, Roman developed and prepared the budgets for various programs and she organized their scientific participation. From 1959 through the 1970s, when the introduction of peer review brought in outside expertise, she was the sole individual accepting or rejecting proposals for NASA astronomy projects based on their merit and her own knowledge.[1]
In 1959, Roman proposed,[18] perhaps for the first time, that detecting planets around other stars might be possible using a space-based telescope, and even suggested a technique employing a rotatedcoronagraphic mask; a similar approach was ultimately used with the Hubble Space Telescope to image the possible exoplanet Fomalhaut B (ref K.) and will be used by theNancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to image exoplanets similar to the giant planets in the Solar System. She also believed as early as 1980 that the future Hubble would be able to detectJupiter exoplanets by astrometry; this was successful in 2002 when astronomers characterized a previously discovered planet around the starGliese 876.[28]
Roman's position became Chief of Astronomy andSolar Physics at NASA from 1961 to 1963. During this time, she oversaw the development of theOrbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) program, developing and launching OSO 1 in May 1962 and developing OSO 2, (February 1965) and OSO 3 (March 1967). She held various other positions in NASA, including Chief of Astronomy andRelativity.[9]
She also led, from 1959, theorbiting astronomical observatories (OAO) program, working with engineer Dixon Ashworth, initially a series of optical and ultraviolet telescopes. The first, OAO-1, was slated to be launched in 1962, but technical difficulties resulted in a descoped version launched in 1966, but which failed three days after reaching orbit. Roman explained these problems by analogy in 2018:[1]
If you contract to have a house built, you are not surprised if it is not finished by the predicted date even though house building is an established art. NASA was trying to learn a completely new process with unexpected problems arising all along. Thus, it is hardly surprising that there were unpredicted delays.[1]
She continued to developOrbiting Astronomical Observatory 2, launched in December 1968, which became the first successful space telescope. OAO-3, named Copernicus, was a highly successful ultraviolet telescope which operated from 1972 to 1981.[30]
Roman oversaw the development and launch of the three small astronomical satellites: the X-ray explorerUhuru (satellite) in 1970 withRiccardo Giacconi, the gamma-ray telescopeSmall Astronomy Satellite 2 in 1972, and the multi-instrument X-ray telescopeSmall Astronomy Satellite 3 in 1975. Other projects she oversaw included four geodetic satellites. She planned for other smaller programs such as the Astronomy Rocket Program, the Scout Probe to measure the relativistic gravity redshift, programs for high energy astronomy observatories, and other experiments onSpacelab,Gemini,Apollo, andSkylab.[31]
Roman was known to be blunt in her dealings, or as Robert Zimmerman put it, "her hard-nosed and realistic manner of approving or denying research projects had made her disliked by many in the astronomical community".[32] This was very much in evidence in the early 1960s when she terminated the relativity program, which at the time consisted of three separate projects, when thePound-Rebka experiment achieved better accuracy than was projected for the space-based projects.[4]
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Roman worked with Jack Holtz, on the small astronomy satellite and Don Burrowbridge on the space telescope.[4] She set up NASA's scientific ballooning program, inheriting theStratoscope balloon projects led byMartin Schwarzschild from theONR and theNational Science Foundation. Roman led the development of NASA's airborne astronomy program, beginning with a 12-inch telescope in aLearjet in 1968[33] and followed in 1974 by theKuiper Airborne Observatory with a 36-inch telescope, opening up the obscuredinfrared region of the spectrum for astronomical observations to researchers such asFrank J. Low.
Other long wavelength missions started during her tenure were theCosmic Background Explorer, which, although she was initially unconvinced would be able to pass review[34] garnered theNobel Prize in 2006 for two of its leading scientists, and theInfrared Astronomy Satellite, both of which were overseen byNancy Boggess, who Roman had hired in 1968 to help manage the growing portfolio of astronomy missions. Roman was instrumental in NASA's acceptance of partnership in theInternational Ultraviolet Explorer, which she felt was her greatest success, saying, "IUE was an uphill fight. I don't mean I didn't have some support, but I think I carried it on almost single handedly."[4]
The last program in which Roman was highly involved was theHubble Space Telescope, then referred to as the Large Space Telescope (LST). While a large telescope in space had been proposed byLyman Spitzer in 1946, and astronomers became interested in a 3m-class space telescope in the early 1960s as theSaturn V rocket was being developed, Roman chose to focus on developing smaller-scale OAO telescopes first in order to demonstrate the necessary technologies.[1] She felt that even the modest 12 inch (30.5 cm) telescopes of OAO-2, which did not launch until 1968, were a major leap forward, not least because the development of suitable pointing control systems was a major technological hurdle. Astronomers promoted the idea of a telescope on the Moon, which Roman felt had too many insurmountable issues such as dust, and engineers at NASA'sLangley Research Center promoted the idea in 1965 of a space telescope with human operators, which Roman considered an absurd complication.[1]
After the success of OAO-2, Roman began to entertain beginning the Large Space Telescope, and started giving public lectures touting the scientific value of such a facility. NASA asked theNational Academy of Sciences in 1969 to study the science of a 3m-class telescope in space, resulting in an endorsement for NASA to proceed.[35] In 1971 Roman set up the Science Steering Group for the Large Space Telescope, and appointed both NASA engineers and astronomers from all over the country to serve on it, for the express purpose of designing a free-floating space observatory that could meet the community's needs but would be feasible for NASA to implement.
Roman was very involved with the early planning and specifically, the setting up of the program structure. According to Robert Zimmerman, "Roman had been the driving force for an LST from its earliest days" and that she, along with astronomer Charles Robert O'Dell, hired in 1972 to be the Project Scientist under Roman as the Program Scientist,[1] "were the primary advocates and overseers of the LST within NASA, and their efforts working with the astronomical community produced a detailed paradigm for NASA operation of a large scientific project that now serves as a standard for large astronomical facilities."[36]
This included creating and devolving responsibility for mission science operations to theSpace Telescope Science Institute. With both the astronomical community and the NASA hierarchy convinced of the feasibility and value of the LST, Roman then spoke to politically connected men in a series of dinners hosted by NASA AdministratorJames Webb in order to build support for the LST project, and then wrote testimony for Congress throughout the 1970s to continue to justify the telescope.[1] She invested in detector technology, resulting in the Hubble being the first major observatory to usecharge-coupled device detectors, although these had been flown in space in 1976 in theKH-11 Kennen reconnaissance satellites. Roman's final role in the development of Hubble was to serve on the selection board for its science operations.
Because of her contribution, she often is called the "Mother of Hubble".[31] Later in life she started being uncomfortable with that appellation given the many contributions made by others.[37] NASA's then-Chief Astronomer,Edward J. Weiler, who worked with Roman at the agency, called her 'the mother of the Hubble Space Telescope'. He said, "which is often forgotten by our younger generation of astronomers who make their careers by using Hubble Space Telescope". Weiler added, "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."[11] Williams recalls Roman as someone "whose vision in a NASA leadership position shaped U.S. space astronomy for decades".[36]
After working for NASA for twenty-one years, she took an early retirement opportunity in 1979 in part to allow her to care for her elderly mother.[1] She continued on as a consultant for another year in order to complete the selection of STScI. Roman was interested in learning computer programming, and so audited a course on FORTRAN atMontgomery College that garnered her a job as a consultant for ORI, Inc. from 1980 to 1988.[9] In that role, she was able to support research in geodesy and the development of astronomical catalogs, two of her former research areas. This led to her becoming the head of the Astronomical Data Center at NASA'sGoddard Space Flight Center in 1995.[38]
She continued her work until 1997 for contractors who supported theGoddard Space Flight Center.[39] Roman then spent three years teaching advanced junior high and high school students and K-12 science teachers,[38] including those in underserved districts.[1] She then spent ten years recording astronomical textbooks for Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic.[40] In a 2017 interview, Roman said: "I like to talk to children about the advantages of going into science and particularly to tell the girls, by showing them my life, that they can be scientists and succeed."[8]
From 1955 on, she lived in theWashington, D.C. area, in the later years inChevy Chase, Maryland with her mother, who died in 1992.[13][8] Outside her work, Roman enjoyed going to lectures and concerts and was active in theAmerican Association of University Women.[13] She died on December 25, 2018, following a long illness.[41][42][43]
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Like most women in the sciences in the mid-twentieth century, Roman was faced with problems related to male domination in science and technology and the roles perceived as appropriate for women in that time period. She was discouraged from going into astronomy by people around her.[16] In an interview withVoice of America, Roman remembered asking her high school guidance counselor if she could take second year algebra instead of Latin. "She looked down her nose at me and sneered, 'What kind of lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?' That was the sort of reception I got most of the way", recalled Roman.[7]
At one time, she was one of very fewwomen in NASA, being the only woman with an executive position.[11] She attended courses entitled, "Women in Management", in Michigan and atPenn State to learn about issues regarding being a woman in a management position. Roman stated in an interview in 1980 that the courses were dissatisfying and addressed women's interests rather than women's problems.[4]
In 1963, when entry to the astronaut corps was restricted to men, Roman said in a speech that "I believe that there will be women astronauts some time, just as there are women airplane pilots". In her position she did not effect change to this, something she admitted to regretting.[1]
In recognition of her advancement of women in senior science management, Roman received recognitions from several women's organizations, including the Women's Education and Industrial Union, theLadies' Home Journal magazine, Women in Aerospace, the Women's History Museum, and the American Association of University Women. She was also one of four women featured in 2017 in the "Women of NASA LEGO Set", which of all her honors she described as "by far the most fun."[1]
Roman published 97 scientific papers during her lifetime.
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